The Wordsmiths Project Journal

One of the cold hard facts of the publishing world is that, typically, once a book is printed and distributed, it is left out there, on its own, to either sink or swim. For the vast majority of the approximately 300,000 books that come out annually, the PR department of the publishing house may issue a single press release about the book. After that, they will do no followup nor expend any further effort to promote it. Of course, a few lucky books get a big splash of publicity, financed by the publisher – or sometimes, by the author. But most books – many of them fine pieces of literature – are seldom really noticed by the reading public, because no one gets behind them.

If only there were someone whom authors could turn to, somebody who believed in them and their work so much, that he or she would go to bat for them – help get reviews in major publications, encourage bookstores to use nice eye-catching displays, convince publishers to keep the book in print long enough to for it to make an impact.

Now, there is – Literary Ventures Fund (www.literaryventuresfund.org).

Literary Ventures Fund, a not-for-profit private foundation, is the brainchild of Jim Bildner, an author who was just completing his MA, when he began to fully understand “how difficult it is for writers to get books published and wanted to do something” to help. Since he had a business background in venture capitalism (including being a general partner at the venture capital firm of New Horizons Partners in Boston), Jim started thinking about the publishing business in untraditional ways, trying to figure out how he could help literature be more effectively marketed, while challenging the status quo of the industry.

“Our aim is to do a couple things,” Jim told me. “One, obviously, is to support specific works, but more than that, to try and create new channels for books to get out to reader’s hands. One of the biggest problems in publishing is the inability of publishers to think long term…. as soon as the catalog’s out, that’s the end of the project [from the point of view of the publisher]. So, one of the things we’re doing quite differently is that we’re looking at a book for over a two to three-year window. That means we’re going to keep it in print, and we’re going to try and find ways to induce bookstores to feature it more prominently. We’re going to try to come up with new channels that don’t involve returns…which is a big killer…. You know, it’s the only industry in the world where you can actually take possession, consume it, and return it for full value. It’s insane. ”

Of course, Jim was referring to the universal practice that allows bookstores to return any unsold inventory and receive full refunds, no questions asked. To counter that tradition, LVF has established a program in which they will give independent bookstores discounts for taking 25 nonreturnable copies of a title at once. That can make it less of a gamble for them to buy books by comparatively unknown authors. At the same time, when shoppers see 25 copies of the same book on a shelf, they tend to notice it, pick it up, buy it.

But that’s only a small portion of what LVF is doing.

According to LVF’s Website, “We believe in the importance of the literature we invest in. Our objective is simple: get the work into the hands of readers and keep the work in print for years to come.”

The key word there is “invest.” LVF makes investments in a handful of authors and books annually. “We’re actually trying to do two things at one time, ” Jim explained. “One, support literature, one book at a time, but equally important is sustainable philanthropy, which is why we invest in books; we don’t make grants.” The books they choose to support are expected to give them a return on their investment, so that LVF can continue to support new books and authors, hopefully, as Jim said, “in perpetuity.”

LVF uses a variety of business models, depending on the individual project. “You should definitely go to our Website (www.literaryventuresfund.org) and see the investments we’ve made to date; they’re all similar but different in a way,” Jim explained. “One is called ‘The Writer’s Fund’ which is a direct investment in an author. For Tom O’Malley, it allowed him to actually take off time and finish his second book. In that respect, I may emulate what Perkins did for Hemingway and Fitzgerald. And by doing that, he quickly provided support for the author and, if that book is successful, then he’ll- we’ll have a share of that advance and the future rights to that book.” They connected with Tom O’Malley when his agent told them about him.

However, most of LVF projects center on a specific book, rather than an author. They can be involved in any of aspect of the publishing process. Depending on the status of the book, they might help find a publisher for it, or assist a publisher in being able to acquire and publish it, and/or work on developing (and funding) a good marketing and promotions plan. “[LVF] is the first of its kind,” Jim said. “We’re learning a lot about the dysfunction in publishing and being able to bridge many gaps.”

LVF finds out about books and authors from various sources they trust, including agents, publishers, contacts at MFA programs, their own board and other professional associates. “The beauty with what we’re doing,” Jim said, “is that we are agnostic as to source…. we’re interested in a work. not a press, not an infrastructure.” Nor do they care if it is fiction, non-fiction or poetry, mainstream or genre – as long as it is a worthy, wonderful book.

Okay, that all sounds great, but I’ve been in publishing long enough to know the money for all this good will and support has to come from somewhere. Usually, the writer pays in one way or another. Right?

Wrong, according to Jim. When I asked him where the “return on their investment” comes from, he said it comes from the publisher, not the author. At first, he said it doesn’t affect the author’s royalties at all. Then, he thought a few minutes, and said, “Well, I guess the only way it actually affects royalties is, hopefully, by our investment which is in marketing and promotion, the books sell more than they would normally sell. And therefore, there are more royalties for the author.”

LVF has been around only for a few years, having been founded in May, 2005, with their first portfolio of literary investments announced in February 2006. However, they have already had some nice successes, such as the acclaimed, “Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali” by by Kris Holloway.

What’s more, LVF merged with the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) in 2005. For those of us who tend to be somewhat skeptical about people who seem to be offering a dream-come-true to authors, that connection with the respected and better known CLMP gives LVF almost immediate gravitas. But, according to Jim, it was also a sensible business move. “There are three benefits,” he said. “For CLMP, we were able to give it some stability and also give it some presence. What CLMP gave Literary Ventures is a database and a technical skill set that we didn’t really have and we didn’t have to recreate.” They also share personnel and connections within publishing.

I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of impact Literary Ventures Fund will have on publishing. What kinds of books will they bring to the public’s awareness that might have been ignored? And, even more important – given that they can only work with a few books and authors per year – what kind of changes will they affect on the industry by simply trying to develop better, more sensible, more author-supportive business practices? Wouldn’t it be great if lots of copy-cat not-for profit organizations cropped up? Even better, if the industry started adopting more effective marketing and sales practices. Or – okay, call me a dreamer — if publishing houses themselves saw, from LVF’s example, that backing even the unknown author who simply produces really fine reads (versus blockbusters), by providing ongoing marketing and promotions for longer than a single day, can be not only good for literature, but also can be good business.

In the meantime, it’s good to know there’s one small organization out there that is trying and apparently making a difference.

The news is plastered everywhere publishing folks read – it even made national headlines: Steve Ross, the publisher and vice president of Crown Publishing will be moving to HarperCollins to become the president and publisher of the Collins division. However, The Wordsmiths Project portrait I did of Steve specifically reflects his work at Crown. So, I’m in a quandary. Do I create a new portrait or let the one that I have of him stand?

The current portrait is definitely related to Steve’s impressive body of work at Crown. Specifically, he made considerable waves in the industry when he created Crown Forum, the first major publishing house’s imprint for politically conservative titles, such as those penned by Ann Coulter, John Podhoretz and others of that right-wing ilk. Steve told us that some of his friends expressed disapproval and even dismay over the idea. However, he said that it was a decision related to his abiding belief in and support of the First Amendment. After all, Crown’s other imprints also publish books by Barak Obama, Jimmy Carter and others of the left. And that’s why my portrait of him has him juggling various books, trying to keep the right, left and center all in the air at the same time.

While I am sure that Steve does firmly feel that every political position has a right to be heard, and that such unimpeded voices are key to our democracy, I also know that he is a highly skilled marketer. One of the stories he likes to tell about himself is that even as a child he watched with fascination as people took books off the shelves in bookstores. Starting at a very young age, he tried to understand and analyze why certain books attracted attention, while others remained untouched. Not that he didn’t also love to pick up the books to read them, voraciously. But he read beyond the covers, striving to figure out what made each volume have the impact it did, what were the turns of phrases or the perspectives that made it work, what kinds of readers would be drawn to it, and how could it have done a better job.

This passion for books and for understanding what sells and why was evident in Steve when Daniel and I first met him. As a young associate editor at John Wiley & Sons, he was our editor on “The Green Travel Sourcebook.” At the lunch where I first came up with the idea and title for the book, and Steve jumped on it, excited by the (then) very new concept, I remember looking across the table at him. That was the moment that I realized that he was destined to go far in publishing. Not just because he was obviously bright and talented, with a passion for books, but that he had a way of encouraging the best from his authors. And, as an author, I knew that if I gave him my all, he would do the same. Besides, he had an instinct for the marketplace, which his writers could depend upon – as long as they listened to him.

Getting back to the current Steve Ross Wordsmiths Project portrait. Not only does it do a good job of telling the story of what Steve has achieved at Crown – juggling the various points of view and political perspectives of both the right and left, while intuitively finding the books that the public will buy – it is also one that I spent a great deal of time and energy creating.

Quite honestly, when I do a photo shoot for The Wordsmiths Project, I’m never quite sure what I’ll end up creating as the final portrait. Sure, I have a few ideas – more like itches that make me shoot from particular angles or ask a subject to strike a certain pose. Being familiar with Steve’s sense of humor, I knew I wanted something different for his portrait, so I asked him to sit cross-legged on a conference room table, and I climbed up on the table with him. It was silly and fun, requiring that we contort our bodies in ways that they don’t always go anymore. (After all, a few years have passed under the bridge since our Wiley and Green Travel days.) But it produced some great photos. When we were finished, I went out into the hallway and photographed numerous Crown books, because I knew I wanted to use them in the final portrait – whatever it would end up being.

Then, when I got back to my studio, I went to work on my favorite photos from the shoot, spending several days, designing, editing and working on the minute details. For those of you who know Adobe Photoshop or similar imaging programs, you may be interested in seeing the Layers palette of the final picture (shown to the right). The image ended up being over 650 megabytes in file size, because of all the layers and adjustment layers that I pasted together to create the portrait. (For those of you who aren’t into the details of computerized art, suffice it to say it was a very precise process of creating and combining various elements into a single picture. Each of the lines in the palette to the right represents a separate piece of image or a particular edit added to or tweaked in the final picture.)

I’m pleased that Steve loves the portrait. So much so, that when he saw it at the Book Expo exhibit, he asked if he could purchase the original signed and framed exhibition print that I had personally printed. (Unsigned, unframed pictures, printed by Smugmug.com’s automated system can be purchased on this site. They are quite good, but not the level of excellence of the exhibition prints.) I told him, no, he couldn’t buy it. But if he gave a substantial donation (and I quoted an appropriate sum) to the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund, that I would give the print to him. He didn’t take me up on that offer for a few days – not until after the news about him leaving Crown was made public. Then, he asked some of his future associates at HarperCollins if they felt it would be appropriate for him to have a piece of art in his new office that depicted him juggling some of the books he published at Crown. The consensus was that it would be a nice addition to his office. So, he called me and arranged to make the donation and asked me ship the portrait to him.

Even though I have that very nice nod of approval from Steve and others at HarperCollins, I can’t help but wonder if having a “dated” portrait of Steve in The Wordsmiths Project might be inappropriate. What do you think? Should I create a new portrait, or do you feel that the current one which reflects his work at Crown should stand?

Please voice your opinion through an email (via the Contact page) or leave your comments here. Thank you.

Back in April, I was thrilled and honored when Lance Fensterman of Book Expo America told me that BEA Cares (Book Expo’s charity arm) would be providing The Wordsmiths Project pro bono exhibit space at Book Expo. It was the best news I had heard in a long time; I would be launching The Wordsmiths Project and promoting the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund (WEAF) at North America’s premier publishing industry trade show. However, I had no idea all that would be involved in organizing, preparing and mounting the exhibit in New York City’s Javits Center. The past couple of months have been a hectic pressure cooker, which is why I haven’t had the time to journal recently. But the result, at last week’s Book Expo 2007, was wonderful and worth all the sleepless nights.

The space BEA Cares gave us was right in front of one of the main entrances to the trade show – near the BookTV bus and the Pen American Center table. (And, yes, BookTV did do an interview with me, but I’ve yet to find out when it will air.) So, we had a very nice amount of traffic. Initially, people walking by weren’t quite sure what the exhibit was all about, but they were drawn in by the pictures. Once there, I could tell them about WEAF and hope that those who took the envelopes will send in some donations. In addition, I asked folks for nominations of people I should consider photographing for The Wordsmiths Project. The nominations we received are quite interesting. But, please remember, The Wordsmiths Project will be ongoing for at least another year or so (as long as I’m enjoying myself and it’s doing some good). So, I’ll welcome nominations at any time. (Click here for how to nominate.)

I had a great time at Book Expo, seeing old friends and photo subjects and meeting all kinds of new interesting people. My only disappointment was that I was so busy at the exhibit, I didn’t have time to check out all the conference discussions and other events.

I’m thrilled to report that Book Expo, the publishing industry’s primary trade show in the U.S., has acknowledged The Wordsmiths Project, and the work we are doing to get the word out about the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund (WEAF). BEA has put a link to The Wordsmiths Project on the BEA Cares page of their Website. And they are providing us with display space at Book Expo, which is at New York City’s Javits Center this May 31-June 3.

The WEAF provides emergency grants to help professional writers in crisis to continue to be writers. (While the WEAF is run by the American Society of Journalists & Authors, grant recipients don’t have to be members of ASJA.) The whole idea of dedicating The Wordsmiths Project to the WEAF was to raise the publishing industry’s awareness of the important work the WEAF does. I am also donating the proceeds from The Wordsmiths Project receptions, exhibits and sales of pictures to WEAF. If you wish to donate directly to the WEAF, please use the link at the bottom of every page on this Website.

I am very pleased to have The Wordsmiths Project receive the recognition of BEA. I know it will help make the publishing industry more aware of the WEAF — and hopefully will get people in the industry behind WEAF’s work.

About a month ago, Daniel and I received a book that was entirely in Chinese. At least, I thought it was Chinese. Suffice it to say, it was in a pictographic Asian language.

It isn’t unusual for us to get strange things delivered to our studio. As journalists, we’re the targets of a wide range of public relations agents who can be very inventive in trying to get our attention long enough to tell us what a great story their clients would be. I remember we once received an enormous fruit cake in the shape of Texas. Another time, we each received a single rubber flip flop sandal (both for the right foot). We’ve gotten giant neon yoyos, magnetic aliens, miniature rock garden waterfalls and boxes filled with nothing but streamers and noise makers. I often wonder what they could have been thinking, and why the clients would be willing to shell out the money to ship such junk overnight to a whole slew of journalists. (Tip to PR representatives: The goofier the item, the less likely I will remember what the story pitch was.)

In other words, I thought nothing about getting a book in a language I not only couldn’t read, but one that I couldn’t be sure I recognized. I put it down on the pile of the day’s mail, intending to get rid of it later. Then, in an idle moment, I leafed through it, and saw that it was filled with my copyrighted photographs. I didn’t get so far as to wonder who had stolen my pictures, because I quickly looked more closely at the cover and saw that the only words in English were Daniel’s and my byline.

The book was our “Shooting for Dollars: Simple Photo Techniques for Greater eBay Profits” — translated into Chinese. Peachpit Press, the publisher of the book, had sold the rights to translate, print and sell it in China. In what appeared to be a coincidence, within a couple of weeks, we also received a copy of another one of our books “PC Magazine Guide to Digital Photography” in Chinese.

We’ve had a number of our books published in other languages and distributed around the world before. I remember the first year we were married, finding Daniel’s biography of J.R.R. Tolkien in a bookstore in Frankfurt, Germany, and being very pleased. Now older and more experienced, I expect our publishers and agents to sell the international rights to our works and send us checks as a result of the extra sales, hopefully on a regular basis. But not in China.

China has the well-deserved reputation of being the Wild, Wild East, with respect to copyright. Back when Daniel and I used to frequently travel around the world on assignment, we found ourselves in Hong Kong on several occasions. One story we did (for “Computer Shopper” when the magazine weighed a few pounds and defined a whole new industry) was on software piracy in Hong Kong. In one Hong Kong neighborhood, we found booth after booth selling very expensive software (some worth thousands of dollars) for very, very little money. Some of the programs’ boxes looked very authentic, while others were papered with poor photocopied representations of the original manufacturers’ boxes. All were pirated — copies made on someone’s desktop computer or in a smoke-filled backroom. But then, that was what Hong Kong was (and is) good at… making copies. Heck, that week, we had several copies made of my father’s favorite shirt, because the designer no longer sold that style, and mother wasn’t about to let him wear it until it became completely threadbare.

A couple of years later, we were in Hong Kong the week that Margaret Thatcher announced that England would be returning Hong Kong and the surrounding territories to China. Many of the people we interviewed were in a panic. I remember the president of one of the major stock markets complaining, “What am I supposed to do — wash dishes in San Francisco’s Chinatown?” (I knew enough Asian protocol to just nod at the multi-millionaire and do my scoffing in silence.)  In an article that we did about that trip, we wrote that Hong Kong was a force that no country, not even China, would ever completely conquer. We predicted that rather than Hong Kong falling under the communist mantle, China would fall under Hong Kong’s rampant capitalism spell.

And that is exactly what has happened. In other words, the pirates of Hong Kong moved into the factories of China. But so did the hard-working capitalists who recognized what a boon to the Chinese economy it would be to become the manufacturers to the world. I’m not going to ponder whether the pirates and capitalists are the same people, because that’s not the realm of this journal, except in how all this affects publishing.

With 1.2 billion people, China is the salesperson’s dream of a market. However, like those software pirates in Hong Kong, China has long been a place where you might sell one book, but only to someone who had access to a photocopy machine, who would then sell bootlegged copies of that book. To heck with the authors whose hard work it was. Forget the publisher who had a vested (financial) interest in it. Copyright? In China, all that meant was that anyone with the ability to copy a book had the right to sell it.

In 1992, China became a member of the Berne Convention on Protection over Literary and Artistic Works. But without serious government enforcement within the country, it made little or no difference in the day-to-day practices of the country’s literary thieves. Recently, however, the Chinese government has been making overtures and promises to the international publishing industry, vowing to crack down on copyright infringement. Our publishers, obviously, believe them — the two photography books in Chinese on our shelves are the proof of that.

But the bottom line is will Daniel and I ever see a penny from the sale of our books in China? Or will the photocopy machines be even busier than before, cranking out our words and pictures for the masses, with the only money going to the sellers of the counterfeit copies? I don’t know. I am enough of a realist to know that no official decree is going to stop the copiers. But if I could get a few cents from just some of those 1.2 billion Chinese, from the honest ones who believe in buying authorized books, then I would be very happy indeed.

If you have any experience or knowledge about publishing in China, I would welcome your input. (I did ask our publishers to give us some insights about why they were suddenly now selling our books there, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. I think they are still tryiing to figure it out themselves.)

Daniel and I were at the big gala Windows Vista launch in New York City this Monday. It was quite an impressive event — once we got inside. However, everyone had to stand in line in the freezing January winds blowing through Times Square. Heck, even the registration desk was outside. Billions of dollars spent on an operating system, and they couldn’t spend a few thousand dollars to rent some heaters to keep their invited guests from being chilled to the bone.

But discomfort aside, one interesting aspect of waiting outside was that we were pamphleted by individuals in yellow slickers with signs complaining about Microsoft DRM (Digital Rights Management), which they call “Digital Restrictions Management.” Their posters also called the new operating system “Defective By Design.” To quote the flyers that they distributed, “DRM within Microsoft Vista can restrict you from making private copies of your stuff. It makes no provision that would allow art, literature, music or film to ever fall into the public domain.” Apparently, they want everything to be free — software, books, movies, etc. But I may be simplifying their stand. (If you want to read more about their complaints, the pamphlets gave their Website as DefectiveByDesign.org/microsoft, while one of the posters, as pictured here, gave BadVista.org.)

I haven’t fully studied exactly what DRM really is or its implications (and I welcome any comments you might have about it). However, as an author and photographer, the yellow slickered protestors reminded me of one of the biggest problems of our Internet era. The public is becoming more and more used to getting free access on the Internet to anything they want. For those of us who earn our living by writing and/or creating other forms of art, the question becomes… how are we going to make a living if no one is willing to pay to read, see or listen to our work? Will the growth of the Internet mean the end of creative careers (versus hobbies)? And what will it mean to our society and our economy, if creativity is no longer rewarded? It’s an issue I plan to explore from many viewpoints as I continue to keep this journal. Naturally, I will ask it of various Wordsmiths Project photo subjects. In the meantime, please tell me what you think.

I just started reading “The Thirteenth Tale,” by Diane Setterfield. I’ve been curious about it ever since my photo shoot and interview with Frank Wilson, the books editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Frank had told me that he was enjoying the controversy of having given a good review of a novel that his respected peer, Laurie Muchnick (the books editor of Newsday), definitely didn’t like. Using it as an example of how the Internet now gives readers the opportunity for greater dialog, Frank said, “I’m hoping that Laurie writes a review of The Thirteenth Tale that I liked so much and she didn’t. Because the minute that she does, I’m going to link to it and mine [from his blog], so that people can have both points of view. Remember the ‘Life of Brian,’ when he tells people ‘You’re all individuals, you can think for yourselves?’ Well, people can, and it’s very good for their minds to think for themselves.”

But what the first few pages of “The Thirteenth Tale” sparked for me was a very different controversy – the current obsession with memoirs that contain inaccurate, often invented accounts. After all, aren’t memoirs, and their literary cousins, biographies, supposed to give us the facts about a life?

“The Thirteenth Tale” centers on an aged best-selling author, Vida Winter, who would invent different histories for herself, whenever she was interviewed. At various times, she was “the secret daughter of a priest and a schoolmistress… the runaway child of a Parisian courtesan… an orphan raised in a Swiss convent, a street child from the backstreets of the East End….” Now, at the end of her life, she summons a biographer, Margaret Lea, and promises to tell her “the truth.” The novel slowly unfolds the story of Vida Winter’s childhood, through her storytelling and Margaret Lea’s investigations.

But what are the facts of a life fully lived, though not documented minute by minute, recording every day’s events and encounters until later – if at all? And what is the truth contained in those half-remembered facts? (I’m not talking about inventions or out-and-out lies. Those belong in a different discussion about why people choose to distort or completely make up their stories rather than try to recount what they remember.)

Vida Winter, in “The Thirteenth Tale,” says, “All children mythologize their birth.” But I would go further than that. I consider my own memory, and I can’t help but reflect that it is a personal mythology of my life – the moments I have chosen to remember because, in hindsight, they have become meaningful to me, to the person I have become since then. Are they accurate memories? Of course not. I’ve filtered them, filled in what I’ve forgotten with what might have been, and embellished them with each retelling.

However, should I choose to write a memoir – something I certainly don’t expect to tackle in this or the next decade – I can’t help but feel that the facts wouldn’t matter so much as what I choose to tell. That’s where the truth of me would be, in the telling. Not necessarily the truth of who I was when whatever event I would be relating occurred, but who I am when I would recount it.

I must admit that I haven’t read the memoirs that stirred the recent controversies. So, I can only speak in general terms. But I know from my own family and friendships, that even when memories are shared, they are seldom the same. Of course, the classic example of this is Akira Kurosawa’s movie “Rashomon,” in which the witnesses of a murder (including the ghost of the victim) all give conflicting versions of the murder.

But what about verifiable facts? I have made my living as a non-fiction writer for two decades. As such I’ve had to check any fact I’ve written, making sure it came from more than one source. If that weren’t possible, and the story still required that I include the information, I would use modifiers such as “he says,” “she claimed,” “the indications are,” etc. I would struggle with all the details, information and facts I could find and try to prove, until I would end up with a story that I felt told the truth of the matter – not my personal truth, but, hopefully, a neutral, unbiased truth.

However, as a photographer, I know that every story and every picture interprets the facts, presenting them in one manner or another. One example I often give is taking the photograph of an island resort hotel. If I angle my camera in one way, I will show you an idyllic, pristine beach with charming bungalows, and a beautiful couple sharing a delicious breakfast on their patio table. But if I angle my camera so you can see the trash dumpster and the shanty town in the distance, the story becomes something completely different.

Is it any wonder that I now prefer to write fiction? When I strip my tales of facts, then I can finally tell my own truths, rather than other people’s truths.

Walk into any good bookstore, and the realities of being an author hit you right in the face – you’re confronted by a vast volume of recently published books. About 175,000 new titles were released this past year. For writers, that’s a daunting number; we can only hope that critics and readers will discover our one book from among the many thousands vying for attention.

But look at it from the point of view of book critics. It can be a Herculean effort to sift through the avalanche of books and bound galleys they receive daily from publishers and publicists, to select the handful worthy of review. Consider the picture above, of Frank Wilson, the influential books editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer. He’s practically buried by the piles of books that arrive daily in the mail. He told me that he had just unpacked 150-200 books – in one day.

However, Frank loves his work, it’s the job he dreamed of when he was in college. His passion is evident when he speaks about reading, in his eloquent, resonant voice, emphatically gesturing with his hands, warming quickly to the subject. “I’ve never read more in my life than I’ve had to read since getting this job, obviously. One of the things that I would not have anticipated as a consequence of that is the fact that I find it very difficult to endure passive entertainment. If I go to a film, the film has to grab me pretty quickly or I begin to think about something I ought to be reading and wish that I were home reading instead of watching this movie.” He likens reading a book to a musical score, because it plays out in your head. “It’s an interactive, participatory experience. You’re a co-creator.”

The problem is that no matter how many books Frank receives at his office, his newspaper can review only about 400 titles a year. So how does he select which ones The Inquirer will review?

Books by the big-name authors, such as John Updike or Philip Roth, will be reviewed because they can’t be ignored. But if a book is being reviewed everywhere else, Frank would rather not follow the crowd. Instead, he enjoys finding the quirky, offbeat book “Finding a book like Jane Gardam’s ‘Old Filth,’ that Michael Orthofer reviewed for me. That was really neat. Finding John Scalzi’s ‘The Ghost Brigade’ was really neat.” An avid and very successful blogger, Frank pays attention to what the buzz is among his fellow bloggers, in search of the little known gem of a book.

Certain small publishers will often get a second glance from Frank, especially when the house has “a single, controlling intelligence, a genuine intelligence, a discerning intelligence.” Then, their catalogs are “like an art collection.” For example, he mentioned George Gibson of Walker and Company, and Kent Carol of Europa Editions, both of whom he feels are personally reading and choosing the books they will publish, “which is why they tend to be of high quality.”

But given the odds, most of his unpacking of the daily pallet-full of books involves a filtering out, rejecting the books he knows he doesn’t want covered. The Inquirer doesn’t have a paperback column, so the vast majority of them go, with the exception of the rare paperback original that might catch his interest. Self-published books are almost always ignored. “There may be a masterpiece in there, but probably not, and we’re probably not going to find it.” Nor will he review self-help books, such as ones that tell you how to improve your business or alter your outlook on life. Publishers tend to have a “herd mentality” when putting out political books, so Frank often ignores them, even if they are by a “name” author, unless they have something really new and interesting to say.

Mystery and crime fiction are also hard sells, and he’s particularlyy not interested in any DaVinci look-alikes. First of all, he has no respect for “The DaVinci Code.” But more importantly, the competition in the mystery field is brutal. “Which would you rather read,” he asked. “This rather pedestrian medieval mystery or Andrew Klavan’s ‘Damnation Street,’ which is one of the creepiest crime novels I’ve read in a long time? My eyes wouldn’t move fast enough to read the last few pages on that one. If you want to get into writing a crime novel, you better realize that there are some pretty heavy hitters in that field. And good just won’t cut it. ”

Of course, every author wants to be reviewed, to have her book noticed. Otherwise, why write it? But with so much competition is there anything that an author can do to get a major book editor’s attention? For instance, I asked Frank, is there value in hiring a freelance publicist (someone who works for the writer rather than for the publisher)?

He acknowledged that there are publicists whose recommendations he trusts, but he wouldn’t mention names. As he explained, “If a publicist will tell you, as a publicist once did, ‘I actually don’t know why they spent the money to print this book,’ I trust a person like that.” And when that person turns around and tells him that a book is really good, he’ll tend to believe her (or maybe, it was a him). But hiring a freelance publicist is tricky. Some don’t even read the books they are pitching, and it’s obvious in their press releases. So, if you’re going to spend some of your hard-earned advance, you’ll want to be sure that the publicist you hire really knows your book, and believes in it wholeheartedly. And it must be someone reviewers trust.

However, instead of hiring a publicist who may or may not be able to garner attention for your book, Frank recommends that writers blog. I have my doubts about the value of blogging; it’s certainly not for everyone. But I’ll go further into that subject in another journal entry I’m planning to write within the next couple of weeks, called “Blogging: Is It a Good Career Choice?”

Frank is quite aware of the dreams that each book he discards represents. “The fantasy that everyone has is that ‘I’m going to write a book, it’s going to be a best seller, and I’m going to retire.’ No,” he said, “You’re going to write a book, and you’re lucky if it’s published, and if it is, it is probably going to be remaindered.” He told me about his interview with John Jakes years ago, when Jakes wrote ‘The Bastard,’ which was a best seller and became part of the miniseries that made Nick Nolte’s career. Jakes told Frank that everyone thought “The Bastard” was his first novel, when it was his 26^th. ”If you’re going to be a writer,” Frank advises, “You better realize that it’s a marathon, not a sprint”

Who hasn’t had that nightmare of being back in school, wandering the halls, trying to figure out what you did that was so wrong. In one variation, everyone is staring at you, and you don’t know why until you glance down… at your own very naked body. Another is that you failed a test that you didn’t know was scheduled for that day, on a subject you didn’t even know you were supposed to be taking that year. Classic anxiety dreams, about unknowingly doing the wrong thing, or failing unanticipated tests, or being the object of derision, because you didn’t know the rules of the game and made a fool of yourself.

The freelance life often feels like an extension of high school in more ways than one. Like school, it’s a small world, in which a reputation (whether positive or negative) can spread before you know you’ve done anything worth gossiping about. And when an agent or editor fails to respond to your letters and queries, you can be at a loss to determine if their silence has more to do with how you handled yourself than with the quality and subject of your writing.

I was recently on a panel at the PhilCon conference (Philadelphia, November 17-19, 2006), called “How to Lose Agents & Infuriate Editors.” Essentially, the purpose of the panel was to help writers understand and avoid committing professional faux pas that make agents and editors run in the other direction. On the panel with me were Jane Letty (who recently retired from agenting), John Joseph Adams (assistant editor of “The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction“), Jonathan Maberry (bestselling author and writing teacher), Jenny Rappaport (agent at L. Perkins Agency) and Margaret Riley (publisher, Changling Press).

Naturally, given the name of the panel, it started with discussions of the panelists pet peeves. Then, it evolved into a no-holds-barred discussion of what works and what doesn’t when (1) trying to get the attention of agents and editors, and (2) trying to keep them happy and invested in making your work successful. The panel was chock-a-block full of useful information for writers — much more than will fit into a single Journal entry. So, for this one, I’m going to focus on the panel’s advice regarding what a query letter should and shouldn’t contain.

One thing that editors and agents really don’t appreciate are query letters that go too far in sharing too much person information. Jenny Rappaport said, “I’ve gotten ones that say, ‘I’m a stay at home mom, who has three children, who are all delightful, and they do this and that and I like putting them to bed at 2 in the morning.’ And, I’m like, this has nothing to do with your novel.”

Jane Letty added, “And please don’t include in your cover letter or your query that if they don’t like this that you have tons of other material. I see that and I say, ‘Gee I can get another post office box.’” It’s a balance between sounding productive and appearing desperate. No editor or agent wants to work with anyone who comes across as needy, because that’s a red flag that you might be a problem to work with. As Margaret Riley said, “What we do for a living… we go out and we look for books to buy. Not just books, we don’t want your book. We want your next ten books. That’s how we make a living. We want to know that you’re reasonably stable. That if you tell us you can write a four book series that you won’t disappear in the middle of book two. So, you want to try to cut down on the flags that make us think that you might be insane stalkers.”

In other words, as friendly as you hope to eventually feel with your agent or editor, it’s important to remember at all times – and especially in your query letter – that it is a professional relationship. All they want to know is that you are a talented, productive writer, who has the ability to deliver great, saleable books, within deadline, with no hassles for them.

Jonathan Maberry suggests thinking about a query letter from a pure sales point of view. “It is a marketing tool,” he said. “It is something that is going to, hopefully, get them excited about your project in a way that triggers thoughts of, ‘Well, if I’m excited this way, sales will generate from it.’”

Jonathan further explained, “The essence of the novel, the heart of the novel is important. If you’re going to spend time on a letter, less is more…. Often the catch phrases about your book in your query letter are used by agents to enchant editors and I have seen on a number of my books and books of my clients and students, where stuff that was in the original query letter becomes part of the book’s back cover material. If you have a good hook, it just follows all the way through. So, actually, writing back cover text is a good way to distill down what your book is truly about, what’s the most interesting thing about it.”

It’s can be quite difficult for an author to narrow down an entire book into a single sentence. We’re too deep into the details, innuendoes, all the subtleties of character, plot and storytelling – even when we’re writing non-fiction. But it’s that high concept sentence that marks a book as having commercial (sometimes even movie) potential. What’s more, it helps to focus you while you’re writing, to stay on target with the book. When I was trying to describe my novel “The Winter Boy,” I turned to my husband, Daniel Grotta, for help, and he came up with a six word description: “Older women, young men, sex, conspiracy.” Of course, there’s much more to it; it’s only one piece of that advertising copy Jonathan referred to. I mentioned that phrase on the panel, when we were talking about crafting the description of your book. Several few minutes later Jenny Rappaport repeated it, proving the point that the right phrase or sentence gets you and your book remembered. “When you’re writing a query letter,” Jenny said, “I get so many of them that say, ‘My novel explores love and depression and the flow of patience.’ That tells me nothing about your book. The hook is so important,. Like what Sally said, you know ‘older women, young men, sex, conspiracy,’ That makes me simply go, ‘Ooh, that could be interesting. That I could sell.”

Of course, it doesn’t matter how good your query letter is, if you send it to the wrong person. An agent or editor’s ability to sell your book is the single most important factor in their decision whether or not they want to work with you. So, authors need to identify their markets, and then look for the agent or editor that knows and sells into that market. As Jenny explained, ” I don’t do picture books, because I have no clue what the picture book market is. It’s a completely different ball game than adult fantasy or adult non-fiction or children’s fiction.”

In other words, before you even start to write your query letter, you’ll need to do a bit of research. First, determine what authors write books that would attract similar readers to yours. Then, do an Internet search to find out what agents represent them. Or, just look in the acknowledgments pages of their books, where a smart author always thanks their agent and editor.

While Jane Letty feels that a query letter should be subtle, “an invitation to join in the conversation,” the entire panel agreed that doesn’t mean to curb your enthusiasm. If you’re not enthusiastic about your own writing, why should they be? However, don’t write in your letter, ‘This is the next DaVinci Code.’ That tells them nothing about your book, only that you have high expectations for it. On the other hand, a query letter isn’t a place to be modest. Tell them your credentials, and be proud of who you are. But don’t stretch the truth, to make your credentials sound more impressive than they are — not just because it’s wrong, but because you’ll be found out. Remember, publishing really is a small world. Besides, it’s your writing and the marketability of your project that matters the most, not your resume (though having been successful previously is a good omen that you will likely deliver again).

Another annoyance that the panelists voiced was the writers ignored the published guidelines, and/or didn’t bother to become familiar with the agency or publisher’s preferences. “In our case,” Margaret Riley said, “We’re an online publisher, we deal exclusively through email. If you snail mail me a proposal for a book that explains that you don’t have an Internet connection, it’s going in the garbage. There is no way you can promote an online book, if you don’t have Internet access. It cannot be done. And if you can’t promote it, it can be the best book in the world, and we’re not going to sell it, because we can’t promote it completely for you. We can help you. We’ve got a great promotions staff. But we can’t do the whole job. You have to be a presence.”

While many agents and editors now prefer email queries, others want snail mail. A very few invite phone calls; most hate phone calls from people they don’t know and have no dealings with. If you break the rules, you better do it with an incredible amount of style that you can be sure they’ll appreciate ( which is tricky indeed), or because you happen to have met the person at a conference or elsewhere, and you got their permission.

Remarkably, some query letters come through rife with grammatical errors, run-on sentences and circuitous, garbled thinking. Remember, this is your first salvo, trying to prove what a great writer you are. If the letter is sloppy, and poorly written, why should your book be any better?

But knowing all these things that tick off agents and editors, doesn’t really give a clear view of how to write your query letter — only what to avoid. So I described what my letter for “The Winter Boy” contained, to give a concrete example of a query that got results. “The first paragraph explained why I was contacting that specific agency — because they represent books that have a similar market to “The Winter Boy”. And it contained that six-word description of the novel. In the second paragraph, I had my three or four sentence synopsis. Then I had a similarly short paragraph of my credentials, with a Webpage link. I concluded with an offer to send the first three chapters. Attached to the letter was my one-page synopsis”

I have a lot of contacts in the publishing industry. However, I sent my letter over the transcom, as a cold query to an agency I wanted, because I knew they had significant successes in the right market for my novel. And, it worked, I signed with them, which goes to show that the right query letter to the right person can get results you want.

“None of these folks want to read a lot,”, I explained, “Well, they do want to read everything, but they don’t want to get a letter that is five pages long. Keep it all within one page, and break it up into short, easy to digest bites. Don’t give them the kitchen sink; leave them wanting more. Make it easy for them to understand who you are and what you’re offering. And don’t forget the self-addressed envelope in any snail mail queries. No matter how good you are, even if you are a well known personality, an SASE is a courtesy, simplifying matters for them.” And that’s the whole point — removing all roadblocks, so they’ll keep reading. Only then will they discover how good a writer you are and how much money they could make — if only they could sign you.

Finding the right literary agent to represent you doesn’t just require that you have a wonderful book or a great proposal – you must get it into the hands of the appropriate agent. That means you need to send your letters and proposals to agents who already represent books similar to yours. As Jenny Rappaport, of the L. Perkins Agency said on a conference panel I was on recently, “If the agent doesn’t represent picture books and says so on her Website, like I do, sending her a 12-page picture book is not going to get you anywhere.” (I’ll be writing more about that panel in the next Journal entry.) So, when I photograph agents and editors for The Wordsmiths Project, I will do my best to garner as much information as I can about their personal likes, dislikes and the kinds of books and authors they would love to represent and publish. Then, I’ll post that information in this Journal. Here’s the first installment of Getting Their Attention.

What Ben Wants

During our photo shoot, Ben Salmon of Rights Unlimited gave me the following hints about the kinds of projects that excite him. “I do about 50/50 fiction, non-fiction. I get into phases. Right now I’m a bit more drawn into nonfiction.” He is particularly interested in seeing projects that have literary sensibilities but commercial potential. “Literary fiction with a hook, something that’s smart and sophisticated and artistic, but at the same time marketable and will sell a bunch of copies.” If you can describe your literary fiction in a high-concept sentence or two, “you’re not changing the quality of the writing, you’re just making the pitch line accessible.”

As far as style goes, he wants fast-paced books that he can’t put down. “I’m not interested in endings that are too obtuse. I appreciate the art and I want to be intellectually stimulated. But I also do want to lose myself in a book.” Slow, languid beauty just isn’t to Ben’s taste. Also, he’s not interested in children’s books, and, for now, he isn’t handling young adult books.

In nonfiction, he’s drawn to narrative that explores subcultures. “I love pop culture and where pop culture meets the other categories. If you want to call that pop science, or pop history, or pop business. I am interesting in reaching the younger audience. Men and women in their twenties and thirties. We say that it’s hard to get those people to buy books; I think we’ve just not been publishing books that they want to read.” To capture that market, Ben says your book has to be voice driven.

Of course, descriptions of books an agent likes doesn’t give you as much information as looking at actual projects they have represented. That’s why I often recommend that writers seek out the agents of other authors whose books are similar in tone, style, genre and market as yours. For instance, Ben talked about a pop career book that he has coming out this spring, called “Getting from College to Career,” subtitled “‘99 Things To Do Before You Get a Job.” He feels it has just the right voice for reaching college age readers. “Her voice is a little ‘Sex in the City,’ really fun to read, digestible, short chapters. You almost feel like you’re reading a novel. She’s a storyteller, and she’s really fun to read. When I’m doing proscriptive nonfiction, that’s the kind of books I’m interested in.”

Contacting Ben

Rights Unlimited’s Website has very skimpy submission guidelines. Ben expanded on them. “We accept both hardcopy and email and treat both equally. We can operate a bit faster with email.” As with all agents, he wants a one-page query letter, nothing longer. “I want to know what your book is about, and what you’re about and who you are. We ask for the query letter and the first five or ten pages of the manuscript, because we understand that the talents of writing a good query letter and writing a good manuscript are very different.”

“I know that a lot of authors stress out about following submission guidelines perfectly. They’re guidelines, and that’s what I say. Sometimes, someone will say what if I send them four pages, is it okay? Or they’re worried about two spaces after a period. I really don’t care. I just want to see good work. Good writing will trump all. I’m willing to forgive a little bit. Obviously, if you don’t include a self-addressed stamped envelope, and you’re sending a mail query, we’re probably not going to go out of our way to send you a rejection. So, there are guidelines that you have to follow. But don’t stress out about it. Stress out about writing really good stuff. That’s what I say.”

Don’t contact Ben directly. Instead, mail your queries and book proposals to Submissions, Rights Unlimited, 6 West 37th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10018, or email submissions@rightsunlimited.com.