by Joshua Mohr
Lately people have been asking me why I decided to publish my novel, Some Things that Meant the World to Me, with a small press. Instinctively, my gut wants to lie, stammer some kind of self-justification: “Well, uh, I felt that a boutique house (note that I didn’t say “small press”) would give me more attention (i.e. answer my emails) and nurture the book in a way true to my artistic vision (i.e. not perform fellatio on the marketing department)
in a manner a larger house might not be willing to do (e.g. my book dies on the vine while they hype their latest cookbook or tell-all memoir by a fallen debutante who smoked crystal meth and wrecked her Bentley but lived to tell the tale…).”
When people ask me about my “decision,” I want to say something that makes me sound too enlightened to peddle my subversive and cerebral material to the fatcats who run the major publishing houses. But I’m not that enlightened person at all. I am the very guy who tried desperately to peddle his subversive (Really?) and cerebral (Didn’t you go to a state college?) material to the fatcats. They shunned me, not vice versa.
I finished my first novel and got a swanky agent in New York. She did her very best to sell the book (I have no idea if she did her very best, though I assume so), but the fatcats told her, “This book is too grim. It’s not viable in the market place.” They weren’t looking for cerebral and subversive—they were looking for the Next Bestselling Voice!, someone like Jonathan Safran Foer. (I’m sure he’s a nice guy.)
This is by no means a criticism of authors who have published with major houses. I’m not insinuating that they’ve sacrificed their integrity. Far from it—some of my favorite books have had the stamp of the fatcat. This is an indictment of the major publishing houses’ attempts to superimpose templates of success onto literary fiction, judging the marketability of next year’s titles on the successes and failures of last year’s.
As my novel made its way around Manhattan, more than one editor said she liked the book, but had to “pitch it to the marketing people.” These pitches never seemed to go my way. Eighteen houses shot the book down. The swanky Manhattan agent basically fired me: “Why don’t you write a second book and we’ll try again?” she said.
I was back in square one, except now square one had the stink of failure. And I had no idea what to do.
Good times (not good times)…
I got a new agent, and she sent the book to Two Dollar Radio, an independent publishing house that saw promise and merit in the story I was trying to tell. They are the subversive and cerebral ones, the brave souls who publish literary fiction and only literary fiction. There are no cookbooks or debutante tell-alls on their list. It’s literature for the love of language and story, rather than commercial viability.
My experience finding a publisher was horrible and gut-wrenching. (Whiskey helped.) It was also incredibly confusing because I didn’t know whose opinion to trust. I began referring to it as my “faithful grope in the dark.” I knew I needed a publisher. I knew an agent acted as a liaison between writer and publisher. What I didn’t know was what editors were looking for. Only later did it occur to me that maybe agents and editors are faithfully groping themselves.
I talked with an agent and an editor to hear whether my suspicion was right: Is the whole shebang run on hunches, “informed” inferences, projections based on ambiguous past experiences?
“How do you know what will sell?” I asked one prominent agent.
“You find a book you believe in, make an educated guess, and hope for the best.”
I tried to sound calm, professional, but I think my voice cracked: “Hope for the best?”
“There are too many variables to predict with any kind of accuracy,” she said. “There are editors, acquisition boards, marketing and sales teams, the art department, then the buyers. And that isn’t even factoring in trends or positive reviews or competition. Anyone who thinks they have an answer is lying.”
I then spoke with a former editor at several major publishing houses and asked how she knew what would sell.
“It’s a crapshoot,” she said. Her tone wasn’t smug or ambivalent; the calm way she conveyed this sentiment made it feel honest.
Turns out, chance is a brutal part of the publishing trade. Good books sometimes vanish without a trace, and obvious, dumbed-down books with clever marketing tricks often become successful. It’s a savage reality of the business, one writers need to be aware of.
What I heard from these publishing insiders confirms my suspicion that writers and agents and editors are all faithfully groping in the dark. There’s no such thing as a template of success. It’s impossible. There are too many stodgy people in publishing who look to replicate past successes rather than find new and unexpected ones, to capitalize on trends rather than create them. There’s an almost singular reliance on authors who have already sold well, shoving their new work down consumers’ throats regardless of its quality. What’s left for first-time or mid-list writers with better books but no reputation?
Again, I asked the swanky agent and editor.
“There’s a diaspora of emerging writers to the smaller houses,” the agent said. “The money just isn’t there for unknowns in the current market. There are exceptions, of course. But overall…”
My ulcer tapped-dance as I phoned the editor.
She said independent houses might be better for first-time or mid-list authors, because in a smaller catalog their book will get more attention. Indie houses may have better guerilla marketing strategies for 21st century technologies. Maybe most importantly, the sales projections at smaller houses are more modest, and a book won’t be considered a failure if it sells 6,000 copies.
“Will this be good for literature?” the editor asked. “It’s too soon to tell.”
Fair enough. It probably is too soon. But for me, this information is all I need to solidify a couple things, make a couple decisions. One, since they’ve corroborated that the publishing business is run on chance, I need only concern myself with one thing: the quality of my writing. That isn’t chance at all. I can’t control marketing trends or debutantes, but I can control the amount of energy I put into my revision process. I can take my time and make sure to write the best book I can.
Two, I’ve decided to publish my second novel, From a Fragile Galaxy, with Two Dollar Radio as well, next year. Assuming the “crapshoot” model is true, I see no reason to leave. I don’t want to be a free agent out to make as much money as I can, I want to publish my books somewhere that editors, not marketing people, make the decisions. 2DR has proven itself interested in my aesthetic. They’ve built me a website and booked a reading tour. They’re receptive to my ideas. They—not to sound sentimental—care. Books aren’t just commodities to them. Books are art.
At least I know that when my editors think a section of my writing needs tinkering, it isn’t because the marketers deem it “too grim.” I know that the problem is with me, the words I’ve chosen, the scenes I’ve constructed—and that’s a freedom every writer should enjoy, the freedom of knowing that their editor is more concerned with publishing the best possible novel than selling the most books. If you happen to sell a lot of books, that’s wonderful. We all want an audience. But for me the audience is only worth having if they’re reading the book I intended to write.
**
Joshua Mohr’s first novel, Some Things that Meant the World to Me, comes out next week.
20 responses
Excellent piece.
Richard Nash’s recent blog about the Digital Concierge is something to check out, too.
And, a Nov. 08 piece on Kevin Kelly’s blog, the technium (www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre is worth a look, esp. the comments by Prokovy, deconstructing the notional value of “free.”
Great article – and very inspirational. Thanks, Rumpus!
Wonderful piece. I’ve attended two conferences in NYC for literary writers, hosted by the CLMP, and this rings true with everything I learned there. One of the things that struck me as most depressing at a panel I went to in the fall 2006 was the way that the literary editors at the largest houses — and by that I mean folks like Jonathan Galassi at FSG and Sonny Mehta at Knopf — felt powerless against their own corporations. I got the impression of people who meant well, who really wanted to promote literary culture and good writing by publishing new stuff, and yet focused on proven winners because they were held back by the corporate culture that surrounded them.
The problem of marketing being at odds with editorial may simply be a problem that comes with size, because at those same conferences I also listened to people at smaller houses, like Richard Nash (then with Soft Skull), and the editor-in-chief of Graywolf (her name escapes me right now). They left me with the impression that, although their houses had financial challenges to meet (and in the case of Soft Skull, very substantial challenges at the time), they didn’t see their mission of publishing new, quality literature as being at odds with their financial health. Quite the opposite: publishing new, quality literature was their business plan. It’s just that they looked beyond quarterly results and committed to a writer for a period of several years.
The sad thing is that this latter model, the kind you describe with 2DR, used to be the dominant model in publishing. But the hopeful thing is that perhaps it’s making a comeback: it seems every year I hear about two or three new small presses that are turning out wonderful stuff (check out Dzanc Books, for example, which just started up the other year).
Thanks for letting us know about another new press to go check out! Something tells me that if I enjoy your novel, I’ll enjoy the rest of their catalog too.
I’m so proud of you, Yosh. You’ve been through tons of crap to get this book out and it’s beautiful. And it also baffles me that _Some Things That Meant the World to Me_ is considered “too grim.” Please tell me what part was too grim? Rhonda’s journey towards self-awareness? Finding companionship during hard times? The publishing industry is what is grim these days, but your story is a silver lining. Go you.
Greatly enjoyed your article. It was very informative, if not uplifting and it seems that uplifting is not in the cards for aspiring authors. I admire your tenacity and I also admire the frank tone of your writing. Keep at it and good luck to you. I will be looking for your work and will try to read it.
I guess all of us out there still hoping for an audience (rather than a huge success, although that would be nice as well) can take hope in the crap shoot of life.
Thanks.
We’re looking forward to your book launch party on June 1st at The Booksmith. We look forward to continuing the discussion that night!
— Christin, co-owner, The Booksmith
Thanks for writing this, Joshua!
Thank you for an honest view of the biz. I’m a huge indie fan (review debut authors from primarily ’boutique’ presses every month) and will be peddling my own novels to the independents.
Looking forward to reading yours – congrats! Peace, Linda
Thanks, Joshua, for your frankness. I’ve recently finished my first novel – and I’m about to embark on my search for an agent. Every week, I read blogs and articles that preach doom and gloom about the current state of publishing – especially for a first-time author. While your article is equally disheartening about the big publishers, it also demonstrates two important facts about the long, hard road to becoming a published author: It won’t happen without perseverance and an openness to alternative paths. So, kudos to you!
Being in the process of writing ‘the next major literary event’ (well, actually a scifi novel) I myself am not far off the big decision of which publishing roads to attempt to go down.
So – thanks for the great post.
It will probably be quite a big influence on the decision I finally make, almost entirely due to that last sentence: “the audience is only worth having if they’re reading the book I intended to write”. Uplifting stuff.
Thanks for your story, and for alerting us to Two Dollar Radio. We’re definitely in an interesting time, literature-wise, with old doors closing and new ones opening. After hearing “we love it but…” too many times I’m bringing out a book with new POD technology, called The Espresso Book Machine. I have a blog to document the process: http://litadventuresinpod.blogspot.com. Who knows how it will turn out…
Good for you! At a certain point in time, the peasants rebel, in search of cake. Leaving the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, aka the standard publishing process, was a great idea. Because, rather like the Mad Hatter, there is no room for new voices. Congrats!
Enjoyed your realistic and encouraging piece.
Perhaps most useful to me was your statement about crafting the best book you can, and THAT is not a crapshoot.
Indeed.
Great post, Josh. I am a genre writer (mystery) whose debut novel, Freezer Burn, will be released this August, and I, too, went with an independent publisher. Like you, I wrote the best book I could before I even looked around. The bigger houses frightened me; as a newbie and a nobody, how was I to compete with Paris Hilton’s latest fashionista fiction? Echelon Press is run by a woman who reads what she publishes, publishes what she thinks will sell, and engages all of her authors to go forth and conquer the world, one book at a time. So now I have a good, fun book with a supportive house – all that’s left is the “chance” part of the business. Will it sell? We’ll see.
The publishing world is changing, for all genres, and I don’t think all of the big houses are flexible enough to change with the times. It will be interesting to see which of them are still standing five years from now.
Good luck with your book. I hope it does really well.
Gayle
http://gaylecarline.blogspot.com
Interesting article. Congratulations on the book; and on the Press!
http://loveskidlit.blogspot.com
thanks for this article — a ton of insight. reminds me of my pitching experiences — agents liked my book and idea, editors claimed it wasn’t a good sell. can’t wait to read your book!
A young woman in one of my motivational writing groups said that after she received her prestigious liberal arts degree, she took a job as an editor thinking she was on the escalator to a literary career, but instead spent her whole day rejecting good books. This was ten years ago. I guess it’s worse now. I just finished reading Joan Rivers’ “Enter Talking” her (out of print, sigh) memoir about the six long years of groveling before she became world famous. Making it into the public eye is a long, usually slow, and very strange journey. In the meantime, there’s always blogging.
Jerry
Memory Writers Network
Your post was forwarded to me by a writer friend. As someone whose third book was dumped by a major house, as in Random, I take solace in your thoughts.
Thansk.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for sharing this. I won’t go into my sob story of rejection — you’ve been there you know. That you found a home for your novel is incredibly inspiring, as are the comments from other authors.
I made a similar decision to yours and don’t regret it. My debut novel will come out with a small press next year. I couldn’t be more pleased with my publisher’s emphasis on quality.
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