From time to time I've written about a forthcoming book with an ironic title Print is Dead by Jeff Gomez (this links to his excellent blog), who is about join Penguin USA in a senior electronic publishing role.
I asked him to describe what it felt like to be on the receiving end of being published rather than the doing end of publishing and, being the professional he is, he has delivered on schedule and to commission. Thanks, Jeff. If only all authors...
In the 1991 film The Doctor, William Hurt plays an arrogant young physician who becomes ill with throat cancer. As he begins to go through the health care system --- as an ordinary patient and not a hot-shot doctor --- Hurt is shocked by how clinically he’s treated; he feels like an object instead of a human being. The experience forces him to reflect on how a profession whose stated goal is to help people can end up treating them as little more than a commodity. By the end of the movie, of course, he has acquired a new and added perspective on his profession.
As someone who works in publishing who has recently been through the process of writing and editing a book, I’ve been thinking of this film a lot over the past couple of months. That’s not to say that my treatment during the past year (it was last September that I signed the contract to write the book, and it’s now been printed and will be in stores in November) has been anywhere near as traumatic as what William Hurt faces in The Doctor. In fact, it hasn’t been a bad experience at all. But it has indeed been important and instructive, and it’s an experience I wish more people in our industry could have.
One of publishing’s dirty little secrets is that, increasingly, it’s not about the books. Or maybe, it’s too much about the books (meaning books as objects, or even books as a number on a balance sheet). In the publishing process we find ourselves sometimes getting removed from the ideas and stories found in our books; the words that provide the power to deliver amazing and transformative experiences to readers (and are therefore the kinds of books we read growing up that made us want to get into this business in the first place).
One of the reasons this happens is because people who work in publishing, for the most part, have not had the experience of writing and publishing a book. They know the physical process, and they know the business inside and out, but they don’t know what it means to slave over an idea, or live with a single character or theme, for a number of years. They don’t know what it’s like to see their name on a dust jacket, not to mention --- after all that hard work --- getting a hideous review on Amazon. (Having been through both experiences, I can safely say that one is better than the other).
They also don’t know the feeling of having a signing and showing up to an empty bookstore, reading to just employees and in the end not signing anything but some stock. True, some editors and publicists have witnessed these kinds of things from the wings, while escorting their authors around town, but it’s a much different experience when you’re the one standing in front of all those unoccupied folding chairs.
In Oliver Stone’s 1987 film Wall Street, Michael Douglas's infamous character Gordon Gekko at one point says, “Today, management has no stake in the company.” What Gekko meant was a financial stake; people who were Vice Presidents didn’t own company stock, and thus were sometimes not terribly motivated to make the company perform well since it wasn’t their own fortunes on the line. Well, in today’s literary world I would make the comparison that, in publishing, we are like those Vice Presidents Gekko described.
Not because we don’t care whether or not our companies do well (we of course have a vested interest in the well-being of our companies; without them, we wouldn’t have a job). But rather, it’s not our names on the dust jacket, spine or title page. Our hopes and dreams don’t (usually) ride on the success or failure of any particular book. In fact, the same way that hundreds of sentences create a novel, the dozens or hundreds of books we’re associated with throughout our tenure at any one company form our career. Our reputations don’t rest on one book or another. And yet, for many authors --- especially first-time ones --- this is it. This is what they’ve been dreaming of for much of their lives, and we shouldn’t take that for granted or treat it cavalierly in any way.
That’s not to say that we don’t root for our titles, or that editors don’t evangelize their writers internally and externally. They do, and I’ve seen many editors do everything that they could to get the word out about a book that they loved. But still, at the end of the day, it’s a business. It’s a business we love, and one we wouldn’t trade for anything else, but it’s still business. And the fact is, the books we sell aren’t our own words.
Because, while we can imagine what it’s like and try to empathize, it’s just not the same until it happens to you. It reminds me of when I was having dinner years ago with a friend who’s a famous writer, and we got to talking about Spy magazine. (This was during the interregnum when Spy was off the shelves for a few years before coming back to life.) My first novel was about to come out, and I was lamenting the fact that Spy wasn’t around to make fun of me. My friend looked up from his meal and warily said, “It’s not as fun as you think.” At the time, I just waved his comment aside with a grin. Well, when my second novel came out, in 1997, Spy had returned and, lo and behold, they made fun of me. And guess what? My friend was right.
Beyond this general feeling, I think we as publishers tend to use our experience and knowledge in a way that automatically puts the author at a disadvantage. We’re the ones who know the trends, the sales curves, and --- more importantly --- the fiction buyer at Barnes & Noble. We think we know best, and we make decisions based on this fact. But we’re not the ones who wrote the book. And sometimes, during various parts of the publishing process, authors are made to feel more or less powerless.
For instance, I’ve had five books published, and I’ve never had major input on a cover. In fact, for my first novel, I had a terrific fight with my publisher and --- even though I loathed the cover beyond belief --- they went ahead and printed it. (True, I was a first time author, but I have since commiserated with other authors, ones who have sold many more books than I ever did, and they have confirmed similar experiences.) And so, back then, I was that crabby author on the other end of the phone; the one who caused an editor’s eyes to roll towards the ceiling. Later in the day I was the subject of a snarky story told in the elevator on the way down to lunch (“Guess who still doesn’t like his cover?”).
I was a problem, a nuisance, a bore; a know-it-all and someone who didn’t know anything (both at the same time!). And yet I was also a writer, an author whose book they had paid for and put on the cover of their catalog. I remember at the time being immensely confused, thinking, “How could they want my novel, but not my advice?” And now the shoe is on the other foot. For instance, I’ve been on the phone with authors who were complaining about their websites, and this time it’s my eyes that roll. I tell stories about them the way that my previous publishers used to talk about me.
It reminds me of a scene in Annie Hall (yes, for someone in publishing, I know I watch too many movies), where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are both on screen in separate therapy sessions. The off-screen doctors ask them each a question (“Do you sleep together much?” “Do you have sex often?”), and even though the questions are essentially the same, their answers are different. Keaton replies, “Constantly, three times a week,” while Allen answers, “Hardly ever, three times a week.” While this exchange is a wry commentary on how, within a romantic relationship, two people can have the same experience but reflect on it differently, I can see a correlation to our industry. Because, during the typical publishing experience, we always think we’re doing everything we can to help our writers. Meanwhile, they think we’re not doing enough.
All of which goes to say that, while I doubt every person who works in publishing will find the time to write and publish a book, I think that if everyone tried more often to envision what it’s like to be an author, we would be better off. After all, we spend so much time these days crunching data and trying to look at our products from the point of view of consumers, reviewers, and booksellers; we should try to also imagine what it feels like to be a writer.