>Literary Agencies: Great Information!

>Students who are looking to break into the publishing industry tend to pigeon-hole themselves into the editorial job functions. But there is a wealth of information to be gleaned from literary agencies and writers groups, too! I’ve lately gotten into the habit of reading a particularly information-laden blog, written by a literary agent in New Jersey. Not only is the blog a wealth of knowledge about what works in publishing, what is acceptable as far as etiquette goes and how to critique mss, it is also, at times, entertaining! For those who want to check it out, don’t forget to read the archived posts. I find that reading the responses to the agent’s posts is also very informative. I’ve really gotten into the minds of writers, which I expect will be valuable when it’s my turn to write rejection and critique letters. Here’s the URL: http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/

>Diversity

>A word about diversity on the planet of publishing: it is both diverse and not. Here at S&S, they have benefits for same-sex life-partners of employees. That seems like a good idea, because there are more gay men working in this industry than there are in some others. Although, like I said, I haven’t met many men. I hate to spew stereotypes, good or bad, but this building has a healthy measure of witty, intelligent remarks floating around which makes every day here all the more fun. So, in this way, S&S is diverse and they really cater to the needs of a population of gay people who have some different needs than straight people might.There are very few black people here, and almost no black men. I mean, there aren’t that many men, let alone getting into white men and black men and Asian men. I read somewhere, I believe it was an e-book on the publishing industry, that when young, college-educated black people began to join the professional trades, a bzillion years ago, they sought jobs which would pay the most, the earliest, in order to support their families. Whereas, those whose families were already generations in to the publishing industry didn’t need to make immediate money (parents are good at funding the beginning of a career) and could wait until they advanced in their careers to make a very good salary, as is the case in publishing. Many were women whose spouses were able to support them through the statistically low salaries that come with lower jobs in publishing. I have seen exactly one black person. She was a woman, which makes sense because the ratio of women to men here is something like 60:30. There are also not that many Hispanic people here. I have met only two Hispanic people. Racially, this workplace would seem exclusive. As though non-whites were unwanted. Except for the fact that no one here seems racist. I believe racism usually stems from ignorance and I have met exactly zero ignorant people here. But, in a city like New York, it stands in stark contrast that a good percentage of the people working here are white. Yet, they have diversity day and all kinds of banners and fliers about diversity. I guess there aren’t that many black or Hispanic or Asian people who want to work in book publishing.Please understand, I’m not discussing this because race is of high importance to me. I’m just sort of examining this workplace because I imagine I’ll find myself working in this industry after college. I think it is important to consider all aspects of an industry before building your life around it. I would love to have a very straightforward answer as to why publishing is not as diverse as other industries, but I just don’t.

>First Tasks in Publishing

>10/23/08

Evidently, I have proven to TF that my skill set exceeds that of a chimp, because this week I have taken a siesta from the deliciously mundane and tedious book-like tasks that used to be my only purpose here. The reader might think I’m speaking in oxymorons, but truly, I love the mundane work of this industry: photo-copying, emailing, mailing, logging submissions, filing, etc. These tasks are those that take little skill, so they allow my already-overworked brain to relax. Brain vacation, you might say.
But I’ve been allowed, beginning this week, to take on more important tasks. Now, the editors and assistants are commandeering me for “projects”. These projects are fascinating to me, the dork who finds such things fascinating, because I’ve been imagining for a long time now what my day-to-day experience in the publishing world will be like. For me to finally see the day-to-day workings here is comparable to one of those people who read Star actually seeing one. Giddy hysteria. I try to remain calm.
Shawna, Zach’s editorial assistant, started it all with a request to conduct some investigative work on a potential author. Basically, I just googled the author’s name, absorbed all of the information and spit it back out at Shawna in an email. She said thanks and that was that.
Apparently my skills as a private eye pleased her, because yesterday, Zach approached me with not one, but three projects. Sitting in his cushy office overlooking one of Rockefeller Center’s rooftop gardens, Zach asked me about my goals, how I landed myself at TF, blah, blah, blah. The first project was to find out information about Sig Hansen and his brothers, who are ship captains on the enormously popular reality TV show, Deadliest Catch. There was an awful lot of information and I made certain he got as much as I could give – even MySpace friend-counts. The second project was much like the first, with a different person, someone uninteresting and not famous.
Finishing those two jobs, Michelle, another senior editor approached with a new project. Maybe Zach told her I did a good job, maybe it was just a coincidence. I like to stay hopeful, though. Michelle is editing a baby-name book, which, by its very nature, has few selling points aside from the actual count of baby names. Expectant mothers will choose the book with the most names so they don’t miss the perfect name. Makes sense. Unfortunately, the book is almost finished and no one bothered to count the names. This is what I’m here for – the crappy task net. Anyway, Michelle took pity on me and suggested that instead of hand-counting all of the names in this three-hundred-page book, I could simply take a sample of pages, say 30, count all the names and multiply that by 10. Then, she would conservatively make an estimate. Smart lady. Unfortunately, I have this ridiculous tendency to open my mouth when it belongs wired shut – in the shape of nice, compliant smile. But since I’m a complete fool, I suggested back to Michelle that, since she had a count of all the base names (not variations, which are many), we could count the variations of each base name in a sample and average it. Then, we could multiply that average number by the number of base names. She looked very confused and after attempting to seriously consider my idiocy, she said very diplomatically and gracefully, “Well, let’s give this a try. If it’s not working and you feel there’s a better way, I would love to hear it.” At least then I had the sense to shut up. Her way was much easier anyway.
To make up for acting so crazy, I placed my results as neatly and comprehensively in an Excel spreadsheet, totaled it into subtotals and a grand total and emailed it to her with a smiley face. She thanked me both in person and in an email. Yay!
It went downhill from there, however. As his third project, Zach asked me to “take a look at a manuscript.” I didn’t really know what that meant and I didn’t want to ask, so I decided to wing it. I read the first three chapters of the manuscript, which were absolutely awful, and wrote down all my thoughts. Then, I emailed them to Zach. He has yet to get back to me. But, now that I’m reading further into the manuscript, I realize that some of my initial thoughts are set to rest by further information. Next time, I’ll wait until I’ve read the whole thing. Maybe that’s what the problem was. Or maybe he just wanted a simple, “I like it” or “I hate it” instead of three typed pages of the intern’s inexperienced, jumbled thoughts on a manuscript. I guess we shall see. At the moment , I’m completing yet another of Zach’s projects. I’m trying to log into BookScan and can’t. Fabulous. Now I have to show him how incompetent I can be and email him this problem. More next week.

>Logging Submissions in FileMaker

>10/06/08

My job here at Touchstone/Fireside is incredibly boring – to the normal, social, book hating college student. To me, it is so stimulating and so satisfying that I smile when I wake up on an interning day. Sure, I basically read all day long, but to a person like me, who would do that anyway if I didn’t need to make money or go to school, that’s a dream come true. A prayer for the impossible, answered! But I’ll assume that many people reading this, perhaps most, are the normal sort of people. You know, those who have lives and interests that don’t involve paper, those who come to work in order to make money, in other words, instead of showing up anyway, knowing full well there will be no check.
One part of my job that I do all day long would be particularly mind-numbing to someone who isn’t me. I get emails from the editorial assistants (who have gotten the emails from the editors they work for) to log submissions. This function can be performed by a well-trained chimpanzee, I am sure. I enter the information – name of potential book, name of author, name of literary agent and agency, date and editor’s initials. You might be thinking, “But you have to go digging up that information, right? You have to dig through piles and piles of archived submissions, right?” No. I wasn’t being sarcastic about the chimp. All the information is right in the email. The editor could have done it herself if she didn’t have a bzillion things to do. The editorial assistant could have done it herself, if she didn’t have a bzillion of the editor’s things to do. The task has been relegated to lowly little me, because the universe is always trying to depress and cut-down her poor, human inhabitants. Interns are no one, so why should they have interesting tasks to complete? But, alas! The universe has overlooked one tiny little factor: I like logging the submissions. Yup, I said it. I even look forward to it.
You see, lodged in the bland covering of sugarless and flavorless chocolate that is the log-submissions task, is a little nugget of yummy, yummy caramel: attached to each of the emails of information from the editorial assistants is the actual submission. Just one click, and I get to read proposals of very exciting new projects, first chapters of books written by famous people’s ghostwriters and I get to hear about, in depth, idea after interesting and intriguing idea. So what, I have to eat the bland stuff to get to the gold? Big deal. I get to be mentally and intellectually stimulated – all day long. Who says I don’t get paid?
Today, I read a proposal for a book about all of the disasters and mishaps in the past that have the potential to or have almost caused the apocalypse. It’s a humorous book, but under the humor are all well-researched, actual facts. The sample chapters included the megatsunami that is scientifically proven to happen to New York City in the near future, killing everyone, the little nanorobots that are designed to do nothing more than self-replicate all over the place, ripping apart everything (including us) to make more of themselves, man-made tornadoes that run out of control and so on. The book would be hilarious except for the Colbert-report type realism underlying the humor. I’m laughing out loud at the jokes and the Halloween-haunted-house tone, but I’m actually a terrified, screaming little girl inside ready to run for my life. I mean, this is like, actual-factual.
Another great proposal (I thought) was one for a book about the menopausal mom, which sounds like such a drag just from the title but is actually a great idea. There are so many more babies born today to moms over thirty-five, and there have been books written on early parenting, infertility and other support topics for just this set, but nothing of real substance has been written for women who are going through menopause while trying to bring up teenagers. No one has given much thought to the mom who has a sarcastic teenager with an attitude, parents she might be parenting and all of the tiring, depressing symptoms associated with menopause. Doesn’t this woman need a book much like What to Expect When You’re Expecting? Absolutely. Everyone does, in this day and age. Unfortunately, the tone of the book’s writing is reminiscent of a mom wagging her finger in your face during a lecture. The tone here, in my own ridiculously inexperienced opinion, needs to be light-hearted, candid and funny. It should remind the poor menopausal mom of a snappy, funny, somewhat bitchy dialogue between girlfriends, not her grandmother come to rearrange her life. There are millions of parenting books out there. What these moms truly need is a book that teaches them a thing or two while providing support in a you’re-not-alone way. Not easily accomplished, I know, but what venture of value is?
Also, the writers of this book went into great detail about how to speak to your children. They had sample dialogues which read like an episode of Full House: way, way too sweet to be real, boring and just impossible. That was contradictory to me. The authors claimed to provide a book for moms who were going through menopause, bringing up kids and parenting their own parents, yet didn’t allow for the chaos factor in the lives of these same women. They need real approaches to modern-day parenting, not June Cleaver come to make them feel inferior.
These proposals were agented by real agencies with clientele exceeding one. But, as I’ve learned, that does not mean that they are perfect and all-set for publication, let’s go design the cover. They’re flawed. Sometimes, badly. Sometimes they are not even written yet. Amazingly, sometimes these proposals have spelling errors and errors of syntax and glaring, howling errors that would have been caught had the proposal been proofread before it was emailed. It appears that the editors here don’t care. That actually makes sense because those kinds of errors can be weeded out by a copy editor, who is, by the way, sometimes someone who works from home and is not even on Simon and Schuster’s payroll. But it grates on me. I want to rip the proposal from my computer screen and mark it all up with my pen. I want to chastise the agent for allowing this. I mean, any editor will notice these mistakes and any editor will be at least a little annoyed. Wouldn’t the agent want the editor to be completely enthralled by the proposal? But, again, the editors care more about the bigger picture which I’m absolutely sure is the best way. They know what they are doing and I am just a little intern who thinks she can spell better than anyone else.