I’m about to suggest something that could make my life a lot harder. It just as easily could make my entire profession a lot stronger.

It seems like everyone wants to create comics and graphic novels. Stephen King has presented the latest stories in his Dark Tower series as comics. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon has his own super-hero, The Escapist. Best-selling author Jodi Picoult has written DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, Jonathan Lethem has Marvel’s Omega the Unknown, science-fiction star Orson Scott Card has written Iron Man, and so on.

It’s not just novelists. Screenwriter-director Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has written comics based on his own creations as well as long-established Marvel super-heroes. So has Clerks writer-director-actor Kevin Smith. Musicians are involved, too, from KISS’ Gene Simmons to cutie-punker Avril Lavigne to burnout rocker Courtney Love. Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage created the comics series Voodoo Child with his son Weston. The book’s publisher is Virgin Comics, which has also produced comics from author Deepak Chopra, porn star Jenna Jameson, and filmmakers John Woo and Guy Ritchie.

Gol-durn Johnny-come-latelies, I’ve occasionally grumbled. For decades, comics bumped along, often without making much money and almost always without attracting much prestige. Now that graphic novels have started getting some respect, amateurs from other fields want in. Where were they when the business needed them? (I may start manufacturing T-shirts bearing the line “I was comics when comics weren’t cool.”) Like TV stars who get a contract to write picture books or movie actors who get music-company record deals, celebrities are crowding into the graphic-novel world. And I suspect that they might crowd out lesser-known talents like, well, me.

Nevertheless, I want more celebrities to join them.

As a reader, I want to see great graphic novels, which means reaching out to any people who have the talent to make them—even famous people. And as a guy who works in comics, I’m all for anything or anyone that’ll bring the business more attention and higher sales.

But a lot of people who could make great graphic novels haven’t yet grabbed the opportunity, and I want them to. Here are some people who deserve a chance much more than a porno actress or a movie star’s son.

• Comic strip cartoonists. This category would seem to be a natural, but few strip cartoonists do much work in graphic novels. Crafting a three-panel gag requires different skills from sustaining a 200-page narrative.

But some strip artists could do it brilliantly. In Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau weaves stories that run for weeks at a crack, and his characters develop depth and maturity. Calvin and Hobbes’ Bill Watterson has a superb visual talent (look at his Sunday strips) and great skill at making vivid characters. For Better or For Worse’s Lynn Johnston and Funky Winkerbean’s Tom Batiuk have produced long storylines of considerable emotional punch as well as humor.

• Comedians who tell stories. Like comic-strip artists, some comedians are simply great gag writers. But others go further. Bill Cosby tells tales -- from memories of his family to the adventures of Fat Albert and Old Weird Harold to the episodes of The Cosby Show’s Huxtable clan—that indicate a genius for character and story structure. Ellen DeGeneres’ discursive anecdotes seem to run off in a dozen directions, but she always pulls them together into something hilarious. These storytellers could create great graphic novels, and they wouldn’t even have to draw. The field has a long tradition of fumetti, also known as photo-comics. Besides, a lot of artists would love to work with Cosby or DeGeneres.

• Artists who went astray. A lot of creative people studied art but became rich and famous elsewhere. Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood went to Ealing Art College and has kept up his skills. I’d love to see him do a comics memoir of his days in the Stones. Filmmaker David Lynch, famous for movies like Blue Velvet and the TV series Twin Peaks, trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and has created both animated and print cartoons. Horror novelist Clive Barker is a skilled painter of visions every bit as weird as the ones in prose volumes like his Books of Blood. Tim Burton, who started as an animator before going on to direct Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and other movies, has written and drawn books such as The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.

There are so many more. Suspense novelist Walter Mosley knows comics well; he’s even published a lavish, panel-by-panel tribute to the first issue of Fantastic Four. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, could produce terrific graphic novels. Editorial cartoonists like Pulitzer Prize winners Don Wright and Dick Locher could deploy their remarkable skill at staging scenes, capturing characters, and making points into superb narratives.

As long as I’m dreaming, I’d like each celebrity guest to do all the work of making comics. No ghostwriters, as-told-tos, or other crutches that let a celebrity come up with a few ideas and turn the bulk of the work over to professional writers. In my ideal world, celebrity creators of graphic novels would have to do what the rest of us do: face the blank sheet of paper and muck through every detail of structuring a plot, building a world, and devising each characters’ words, actions, and emotions.

I can’t forget the way screenwriter Sam Hamm reacted after he first tried writing comics. “Comic books are damned hard to [create],” he admitted in the introduction to his graphic novel Blind Justice. “I did my harrowing stint and came away with enhanced admiration for the talented guys who turn this stuff out on a regular basis.” Still, he added, “It’s an experience I wouldn’t have traded.”
 
I don’t know about you, but I hope that Bill Cosby or Ron Wood would feel the same way.

Posted by: David Seidman

The first time I had met Len Riggio—well, maybe not so much met him as heard him—was in the early 1970s. I was the New York City field rep for the William C. Brown Publishing Company, a college textbook publisher. Len was the owner of the off-campus NYU bookstore. One of my tasks was to visit college bookstores and learn which titles had been adopted for various courses. To do this, I needed to schmooze store managers, and ask nicely if I could look through the textbooks on the store shelves. The books were usually arranged by department and course number so they were relatively easy to identify. As I walked into this particular bookstore, I noticed that there were no customers. I also noticed there were no salespeople. I was in downtown Manhattan in the middle of the afternoon, and the bookstore was devoid of people.

“Hello! Anyone here?” I called out.  No response. I proceeded to the back of the store. “Hello! Is anybody home? . . .” Nothing. I walked back to the middle of the store thinking this just wasn’t right. As I was about to repeat my hello, I heard some muffled noises coming from behind a large closed door to my right. I began thinking, Great, either I’ve just walked into a robbery in process or I’m on Candid Camera (yesterday’s version of Punked). Hoping for a possible shot on TV, I slowly opened the door . . . and was greeted with a barrage of expletives that floated up from a stairwell. Obviously something was going on in the basement below. As I called down to ask if the store was open, a man holding a big box of books appeared and began making his way up the stairs. “Look kid” (I was actually a kid then), he said, “we just had a flood in the basement, and I’m a little busy.” I told him I was with a publisher and asked if I could help. He handed over the box of books, pointed to a space against the wall, and told me to put it there. Then he turned immediately and headed back downstairs.

I took off my jacket, and waited at the top of the stairs for the guy to reappear. As I waited, all I could hear was the angry voice of some man barking out orders amidst a sea of colorful curses. As I was handed the second box, I asked the guy, “Who is that down there?” “That’s the owner,” he replied, “and I don’t think he’s too happy.” I stayed there for several more trips, and as I waited, I could hear the guy who was lugging the boxes repeatedly say to the owner, “Lenny. Relax!” Needless to say, Lenny did not relax.

Some time later, I learned that that bookstore had closed, and I figured I was never going to have the chance to meet Lenny. Shortly after, the original Barnes & Noble bookstore declared bankruptcy and all of its assets were up for auction. A Publishers Weekly article spelled out who had bought what: The name and titles of the Barnes & Noble publishing house had been purchased by Harper & Row, and the bookstore itself was bought by a group that was headed by a Mr. Leonard Riggio, the former owner of—you guessed it—the off-campus NYU bookstore. And the rest is history.

So what’s the point? After facing difficulties and setbacks in his own bookshop, Len Riggio took a bankrupt business and turned it into this country’s largest bookstore chain. The flood in his basement didn’t stop him, nor did the eventual closing of that bookstore. He had the vision, the energy, the experience, and the guts to do it again—and this time he did it right. So what does this have to do with independents in the book business? Plenty.

Over the years, I’ve heard indie publishers and bookstore owners actually admit that they love books, but hate marketing them. And they wonder why large corporate giants continue to beat their brains in. If independents intend to be successful in this business, they not only have to love books, they have to learn to embrace every aspect of marketing. If one strategy doesn’t work, try another. Learn from both your successes and failures. If you want to have a viable operation, look at what other successful entrepreneurs do--learn from them. Energy that is directed towards the right vision can make it happen, just like it happened for Len.

As a book publisher, I can’t tell you how many of my authors have had signings at bookstores that turned out to be disasters--embarrassments for them, and a loss of potential sales for the bookstores. Yes, putting up a poster telling customers about an upcoming book signing is a good start, but for most bookstores, it’s also the only marketing they will do. Typically, bookstore owners are thinking “Hey, shouldn’t marketing be the job of the publisher and author?” Perhaps it is, but shouldn’t driving more customers into the store be an owner’s top priority? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the most successful indie bookstores also have the biggest turnouts for a majority of their book signings? And not just for big-name authors! Even their lesser-known authors draw sizeable crowds. Again, with proper marketing, they make it happen--all it takes is energy and vision.

Now I don’t claim to be the smartest business person in the book business, but as an independent publisher, I have always tried to learn from those who failed (avoiding the pitfalls that brought them down) and from those who have succeeded (borrowing their good ideas). As an indie in the book industry, if you intend to stay in business during today’s down-turned economy, you should always remember that no matter how flooded your basement gets, you must never allow it to drown your dreams.

Posted by: Rudy Shur

My hunt for a web writer continues. I’ve been knocking on doors, sending out emails, calling friends, pitching hard. I’ve gotten one writer lined up, but I’m looking for one more.

Here’s the idea:

I want to publish a Wovel, or web novel. The concept is to allow readers to participate in the formation of the plot arc, while leaving the writing, characterization, setting, description, and problem solving up to the author.  

Here’s how the Wovel works: The author posts an installment every week, say every Monday. Every post ends with a plot branch point. For example: the heroine, chased by zombies, reaches her car. The car a) starts, b) does not start. The readers get to decide. Every installment is between 1,000 and 3,000 words: long enough to get somewhere, but short enough to read Monday morning in your cubicle at work.

The post would go up on Monday, voting would be open until Wednesday, the writer would work on a draft until Friday, I would edit it, turn it around for final correx on Saturday, to repost it Sunday night.

Sound like a magazine or newspaper schedule?

It is. And that’s one of it’s strong points.

We wouldn’t be asking the readers to read fifteen or twenty pages of text. We’d be asking them to read short, and then vote. It could work out magically.

To my knowledge, this structure for writing on the web has never been tried before. There have been other variations, and each has had its own failings. Remember Steven King's much-publicized e-book The Plant? He kept it up for six chapters, before bowing out, saying that too many readers had jumped ship. The Wovel form, by contrast, gives the readers a stake in the book, providing them a reason to come back for more.

I’m incredibly excited by this idea. As with everything on the web, though, it takes a certain slantwise look to understand how it would work, and what the practical benefit would be.

For the author, the benefit would be a pure and simple readership build. The principle is that the more people read, the more people want to buy it. Interest equals monetization. It’s the same principle behind publishing for pittance in quarterlies.  

The author would come out of the Wovel term with a workable manuscript for possible reprint in the traditional book form. Some authors and agents say that publishers won’t want a manuscript that’s been online already. It seems to me, however, that the growing trend of print publishing blogs has well paved the way for a second print life for a Wovel. In fact, I would think that the print life would equal the online life, the two would build off each other. Heard of how well the Radiohead album In Rainbows is doing, despite being offered free online? What about the book Julie and Julia? It sold more than 150,000 in trade and cloth, and it was based off a blog.

For the publisher (Underland), the benefits would be to drive traffic to my site, to increase interest in my books, and to build my stable of authors. It’s a no-brainer for me, if the author and I can make it good, and if the readers keep coming back for more.

There’s a certain amount of experimentation that goes with this online territory. I don’t yet know what will happen with the Wovel, and there’s a possibility it will fall flat on its head. What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? Scary idea? Interested in hearing more? I’m still working on my web site. I have a holding page up there now with an email capture. Sign up, and I’ll send you news as it comes. Underland Press is online at www.underlandpress.com. Or email me directly. I’m at victoria@underlandpress.com.

Next week is my last week as a guest blogger for ForeWord. I’m planning on announcing my first-year title list, plus announcing who my Wovel writer will be…

Posted by: Victoria Blake

Say “genre fiction” and you bring to mind books about aliens, about vampires, about mutilation, about kidnapping, about incest, and about straight up good old fashioned murder. You bring up images of mass market trim sizes and covers with foil and embossing and a dark road with maybe the shadow of a tree and noose in the background. You also bring up the idea of books that are more plot driven than character driven, books where the language and syntax sometimes seems ignored, books that rely on cheap thrills more than craft for effect. Say “genre,” and the nice lady talking to you at the dinner party will turn away.

With this in mind, I’m going to describe a book, and I’d like you to tell me if it fits in “genre.” Here goes:

After a catastrophic nuclear event, America has become a vast, deadly field of starvation, crime, and man-against-man contests for survival. Through this wasteland, a man and his young son walk along the left over roads of America, confronting their basic fears and searching through the rubble of civilization for hope.

Know the book? It’s one of the best genre books to be published in the last twenty, if not fifty years. It has murder, suspense. It has mutilation and cannibalism. It sold incredibly well—about a million copies so far according to Bookscan. It’s a page turner: Everybody I know read it in forty-eight hours, and passed it on to everybody they knew. Its author won a well-deserved Pulitzer, as well as a spot on Oprah’s list.

Know the book? It’s The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and I swear it’s as genre as they come.

Here’s my argument. It’s the argument at the center of what I do and what I’m interested in, and it’s the creative push behind Underland Press. Here’s the argument: A genre is a body of work defined by similar characteristics. A category is a marketing niche. The two things should not be confused.  

When I say genre fiction, I mean fiction that takes on weird and scary subjects. I mean books about aliens, apocalypse, vampires, mutilation, kidnapping, incest, and murder. Weird is my genre. Horror, fantasy, dark fantasy, those are my categories, my BISAC codes, my cover designs. When I say genre, I do not mean fiction that ignores craft in favor of the cheap, easy thrill. The word “genre” does not imply a license to ignore character entirely, nor does it allow a writer to write badly. When I say genre, I mean books that entertain me. Books that I can pass with confidence to my friends and family members. Books that keep me coming back. And yes, sometimes books that make the nice lady at the dinner party turn away.
    
Argue with me. This is slippery terrain, and it’s something I think about a lot. How do you define it? What do you mean?

Posted by: Victoria Blake

Warning — May Cause Nightmares.

Book industry numbers are cold-sweat terrifying for publishers and authors alike. According to Nielsen Bookscan, 3,000 books are published per day in the United States alone (as reported on www.deadlyprose.com). ForeWord can review at most a few thousand per year. Publishers report an average of 2,100 submissions per year, totaling 132 million submissions. Just under one percent are accepted for publication.

In the face of these staggering odds, is there any hope for authors and publishers?

The Majority of Books Sell Fewer than 99 Copies
Of the 1.2 million titles tracked by Bookscan in 2006, only 2.1% sold more than 5,000 books, 16.6% sold fewer than 1,000, and a terrifying 79.6% sold fewer than 99 copies. The 99 copies are no doubt the reason only one percent of authors’ submissions make it through the arduous publisher-review process.

This is all the stuff of wake-in-a-sweat nightmares: 63,000 publishers vie for readers with their wonderful author lists (according to Dan Poynter’s ParaPublishing.com).

The terror is no less for authors: only six conglomerate publishers publish fewer and fewer debut authors and less and less fiction. Then the real horror story commences as a book makes it into distribution. The bestseller dreams of authors and publishers are splashed with the cold water of real numbers.

Negative or Naïve?
Am I being negative or naïve? Perhaps both. The naïve part of the equation is my firm belief there are ways to break through these barriers to success. Kunati  was founded with this goal in mind, and has proven it can work.

Heather Shaw touched on one important element of the success formula in her insightful Blog on book covers. When competing with 1.2 million titles, first impressions (impact) and credibility are vital. These are the twin functions of a cover.

What Works for Selling Books?
Websites, book videos and novel trailers, author critique groups, social marketing, author Blog tours, old-fashioned but still-important book signings, and publicity are the proven methods for marketing. I hope to focus on these in future Publisher Insider Blogs in a more how-to format.

Innovation begins with a study of what works. Read every Blog in the ForeWord archive and every article in the magazine. Visit the sites of successful publishers—the innovative publishers who lead with new ideas such as novel trailers, Blog touring, online publicity. (hint, hint, Kunati). Read every page on sites from innovative publishers.

Getting Noticed is the Primary Goal
My message is simple. With these horrifying numbers, being noticed is almost the only thing that matters—for both authors and publishers. Many authors are creative, even brilliant, yet if they can’t market their “author brand” no publisher is interested.

The publisher faces an epic battle analogous to a Tolkien quest to get attention in the marketplace. The publisher must build the authors’ brands, edit the manuscripts for the market, arrange distribution, obtain reviews from magazines (which choose from millions), then sell to wholesalers, retailers and finally readers.

The Retailer
How does a retailer choose which titles to carry? The average retailer chooses to stock a few thousand copies per year, far less than 1% of the titles available—similar in numbers to the reviews published annually by ForeWord. That’s not a coincidence.

Publisher and author success relies on buzz, which is a combination of review exposure, social networking, book cover designs, author activities such as Blogs and signings (the two types of touring, virtual and tangible). The last part of the equation is wonderful content.

Innovative Authors Look Beyond Good Prose
With the knowledge that more than 80% of books published are going to fail, how can a publisher risk taking on new, unproven property? How can an author convince a publisher to take them on?

There are certain musts in an author presentation, and in our evaluation of the author:
• Is the query well-written? An author who doesn’t polish a query until it becomes the choicest morsel of prose ever written has no chance at all.
• Is the idea compelling? Yes, tell us the comparables (claims of being the next Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter are overused though!), but what’s the UNIQUE aspect—the high concept. No matter how small, there must be one.
• The sample chapters? Same story. If those three chapters aren’t pure masterpiece, the editor will tend to move on.
• Did they read the submission guidelines on the website? One mistake here disqualifies most authors. Take the time to study your prospective publisher.

Innovative Publishers Look Beyond Agents
Unlike many publishers, Kunati accepts un-agented submissions by email. How can we do this, given the awful odds against a new author’s success?

We certainly acquire agented manuscripts, but the creative-process required for an author to pitch a manuscript is clearest sign of ambition, drive and creativity. We believe in the un-agented submission. It allows the author to prove they can develop their author “brand.” Other things we look for:
• Is the author realistic about his/her prospects?
• Is the author able to work with the publisher at making the book as marketable as possible? Considering the numbers, this might be the most important of all.
• These days, we also look for authors who are savvy about online marketing, blogging, MySpace and social marketing, and who are not shy about public appearances. Some writers are notoriously shy, preferring to hide behind their keyboard.

Successfully Marketing Books Require a Publisher-Author Partnership.
The truth is, only bestselling authors receive major publishing support in marketing. A publisher’s first duty is to market to the trade. That’s a big job. Stores stock thousands out of the millions of titles. Just getting the books into distribution is monumental. Trade ads, reviews, advance reading copies, publicity, great book covers, strong web presence, book trailers—these all help. Even the big conglomerate publishers typically stop there. There’s not much in the way of marketing dollars left for end-reader marketing for 90% of authors. Hand-selling from retailers and buzz becomes the key to success.

Hand-selling and Buzz
Book selling is still very much a word-of-mouth business. Readers don’t always respond to what we think they will. Social marketing, in all its aspects, it the true secret of any book’s success. Books can become bestsellers when just one influential person finds it and starts buzzing (Oprah will do.)  Social marketing involves building a broad network of friends.

Ultimately, the true secret to publishing success is a strong partnership between authors and publishers, working together to create buzz. This is a big topic, and the subject of next week’s Blog.

Posted by: Derek Armstrong

As book publishing, especially trade book publishing, has become absorbed into larger media companies, and as the pressures of digital technology continue to mount, publishers find themselves looking to other media to understand vulnerability and to gain insights.

In creating their digital warehouse last year, HarperCollins looked to “sister” companies like newspapers and magazines for guidance in the process. But one of the fixations of the publishing industry over the last decade, especially publishing associations, has been the record industry. Year after year at the AAP’s Annual Meetings, Napster and its ilk provided the fascination of a train wreck, until that offending company was wrestled to the ground by lawyers. The health of copyright was/is, purportedly in grave danger, if, god forbid, a P2P file sharing system that has bedeviled the record industry were to raise its head in book publishing. And the flames were fanned by the crowing of the RIAA that the reason for the declining success of their companies is that CD sales have been undercut for years by the “illegal” availability of music for free.

Oh, really? Then how do we explain this phenomenon, reported on January 10 in the NY Times?

In a twist for the music industry’s digital revolution, “In Rainbows,” the new Radiohead album that attracted wide attention when it was made available three months ago as a digital download for whatever price fans chose to pay, ranked as the top-selling album in the country this week after the CD version hit record shops and other retailers.

Several things come to mind. All large media companies are afflicted by lawyers… who individually may be great people. I remember being in a meeting where the lawyers were crafting language for book contracts that would give them not only electronic rights to an authors work, but rights to “whatever medium may be created in the future.” Nice, guys. Fortunately, we don’t seem as afflicted as the record industry, with the suits now crying in their beer after living for decades off the fat of rock and roll.

I would suggest that the book industry cast its eyes inwards. People love to be entertained. There is an infinite market for good works of all kinds. Understand your customers. Improve your processes. Do a better job of finding writers and nurturing them. Do your homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour. We’ll all be ok.

Posted by: Jim Lichtenberg

Even if you are a dedicated liberal Democrat with a jones for anything Kennedy, do you really think Ted’s book is going to be interesting? Do you really think he’s going to write about the alleged philandering, partying, Chappaquiddick, dysfunctional relatives, misogynistic nephews, and homicidal cousins? If he does, I’ll shell out for a copy. More likely, he’ll tell us about his life in government and gloss over the rest. I’m sorry, but reading about that sounds like an intellectual form of “water boarding” (definition: A weird and legally questionable torture technique).

As publishing professionals, let’s follow the money. No, let’s fantasize about the money. An 8 @#%* million dollar advance! How many independent publishers can compete with that? It’s a rhetorical question and I assume we all know the answer. Grand Central, formerly part of Time Warner AOL, now part of Hachette, a French based, otherwise referred to as “Freedom,” 10-figure communications conglomerate, won the competition to publish the book. The French have always had a thing for the Kennedys, Jerry Lewis, and the willingness of Americans to bleed out on French soil.

In the days when book publishing assets were actually owned and controlled by the people whose names were on the mastheads, we were all independents. Some were big and some small, but the buck always stopped at the desks of the people who owned the firm and only cared about publishing books.  There’s no way that kind of money would or could have been concentrated on a single acquisition. Banks would not have extended that kind of credit line to even the largest houses, and there were not any multinational conglomerates in command yet to subsidize outsized advances and write-off the subsequent losses.

In less than a generation, a huge dichotomy has developed between the mega houses and everyone else. Except the term “mega” is misleading, because within the body of the conglomerate, the trade book publishing assets may amount to little more than the tip of one small toe nail. The book publishing companies get pulled around and traded like indentured servants. Firms like Grand Central have nothing to say about who owns them or from which nation their flag is planted. Perhaps there’s no reason to care, but most American book publishing assets aren’t domestically owned and haven’t been for years. This isn’t to suggest that the American based editors and other professionals are not entirely dedicated to their craft, but it does mean they ultimately have to answer to powers that would otherwise have nothing to do with the book business or this country. For them, it’s business. So at the end of the day, retiring Presidents and politicians can look forward to trading their connections and influence for multi-million dollar book advances; on the surface, all they have to do is deliver an “acceptable” manuscript. Behind the scenes? Well, what would you do under the radar for 7 to 8 figures?

Let’s go to the proverbial Main Streets, where privately owned publishing companies still exist and often thrive. This is where the real passion for books will be found. The only inhibitors will be poor choices or practices by the proprietors. This is probably not the soil within which the Kennedys and other celebrities will plant their so-called books. But it is where the word “independence” achieves its highest meaning and purpose. If there’s ever a day when conglomerate publishing is entirely controlled by “other” agendas, independent publishing will be here to save everyone.

Posted by: Jeff Herman

I can’t claim to be a F-O-J (friend of Judith’s). I have met her professionally on a few occasions, I know people who know her, and I know people who talk about her; there’s only a few degrees of separation between Judith and myself. And now I want to write about her, because she’s in the news again and is the most interesting book editor in memory to cross an otherwise boring stage.

About 18 years ago I had a private lunch with Judith Regan. I remember it and doubt she does. I was a young insecure literary agent and she was a youngish fledgling book editor at Simon & Schuster. I didn’t guess that within a few short years she would become the most dynamic and innovative editors in the business. In fact, it seemed that most new editors moved in and out of the business with silent velocity. I recall she was above average looking and had a great sense of style in the way she was dressed and groomed—a genuine head-turner in a town that boasts a lot of them, and in a business that’s known to clone blandness.  I was especially impressed by her sun glasses, or at least that’s what stays with me. I can’t say that I detected a sense of humor per se, but there was a mix of irony and sarcasm in her, and I suspected that if and when she laughed, it was noticeable and for good cause.

She was a high-strung Type-A personality, which is normal for a mid-towner in the middle of the week at mid-day. She was new to her job and had not yet made any big acquisitions. She explained she was recruited because of her Hollywood/LA LA Land connections, which made her a different species than her Ivy League in-bred colleagues. She expressed her dismay that “they” assumed she could simply open her Rollodex and recruit the rich and famous, and infamous, to write books real people would buy. Ms. Regan felt pressured to prove herself, and was willing to display her anxiety about it.

It was a warm humid New York kind of day and I failed to dress appropriately for the venue she selected, which was the NY Women’s Republican Club. Go figure. Because of me, we were not allowed to eat in the main dining area and were exiled to a side-room. I apologized for being “dressed down”, and she expressed her honest view that I should have known better. She was right. That and a cluster of similar experiences finally disciplined me to dress well. It became a habit to wear nice slacks and a collared shirt on days no meetings were scheduled, and a suit if I had appointments. Now I live and work in the countryside, and dress accordingly.

Back to Regan. With the speed of a comet, she became the “It Girl” at Simon & Schuster, and then seemed to be given a piece of the lease at Harper & Collins, where it was made clear that iconic Rupert Murdock personally liked her a lot. The rest is history. She made a lot of money for everyone, whereas most editors don’t. She hired her own publicist and became a celebrity, whereas many editors may not even recognize themselves in a mirror. She published books of so-called high cultural value and books that some people considered repulsive. Most of them made money, whereas most books that get published don’t.

Ms. Regan wasn’t a criminal and was a proven rain-maker beyond compare. So what was the problem? The answer to that loaded question is stuffed with years of bruised egos, resentments, dramatic interactions, steamy sexuality, and not always unreasonable concerns. I don’t have the inside story, but the trajectory of her Ms. Regan’ nine-figure law suit will surely uncork a rash of lushy gossip-geysers that most of us will enjoy immensely.

In closing, Harper Collins shouldn’t have lost Ms. Regan as a publisher and shouldn’t have acquired her as an enemy. Like a Hindu Goddess, she can either create or destroy with much more power than most individuals dare to aspire for.

Posted by: Jeff Herman

Norman Mailer, one of the leading American icons of contemporary American literature, is dead.

Presumably you already knew that. But I am not here to praise, or disparage, Mr. Mailer’s work. I can’t, because I never read anything he wrote. His hardcover books always looked too thick and heavy for my squeamish tastes. And they always seemed to be pushing the list price envelope by $5 to $10, as if it was assumed the rich elites would reliably consume his books with great velocity without bothering to note the price. I suppose they did. I don’t recall seeing Mr. Mailer’ books in post-hardcover paperback, though they must be. I probably didn’t notice them because I wasn’t looking for them.

I was also somehow repelled by the Mailer head shots that seemed to crown his books. The imposing images never struck me as joyful or easy going. There was pain, even agony, in the wrinkle-lined eyes, and a possibly abrupt rudeness around the mouth. I could imagine myself in his presence being incessantly lectured to about the ways things were and should be. I didn’t think he would care about what I thought, or take the time to listen. Though as a successful novelist, he must have possessed an intuitive ability to absorb other people’s personalities and sentiments. Let me be clear, I never met Norman Mailer and never had any opinions about him whatsoever, until his death made me think about him.

Mailer literally lived in a glass dominated house for all to see. In fact, it would have been easy to throw bricks into his living room, and then disappear into a crowd. I sometimes wondered if any one ever did. His impressive apartment faced the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where thousands of people walked within his view every day, though most of them probably didn’t know or no longer cared.

I have spent almost all of my adult life in the book business, and have lived more in New York than elsewhere. Yet, I don’t think I have ever had a conversation with anyone about Norman Mailer’s books, but I can say that I have heard his name and perhaps even said his name many times over the years, always in the context of his being Norman Mailer.

The name Norman Mailer was, and still is, an unmovable brand, like Andy Warhol, and Joe DiMaggio, and JFK, and numerous others. Most people who connect to the energies of these powerful names have little or no awareness of what any of them actually did when they were in their primes, but the names have become immortal adverbs through which to express certain meanings and feelings, they even show up in random songs, but it’s not yet known if Mailer will reach this rare pantheon in years to follow.

What’s the point of this blog? Well, Mailer was a major American celebrity, at least through the decades prior to the ’90s. His name was dropped in conversations; people were excited if they saw him in person; he was the frequent subject of rampant gossip and inane gibberish, and he would show up in high profile venues and situations that had nothing to do with his actual “job,” which was nothing more or less than writing. His name was used to help define an exalted “form” of writing and journalism. How many living or recently deceased writers can we say all this about?

Frankly, for those under 40, Mailer may have already been a vague ghost for a long time. But then who do they have instead?  My point exactly.

Posted by: Jeff Herman

It’s interesting to note that the OJ book, which is independently published, continues to thrive as a bestseller. This should not surprise anyone. It vindicates Judith Regan’ commercial instincts and is why her peers and over-lords at Collins initially supported the acquisition. So OJ potentially “outs” himself as the killer. Why does that offend anyone? It would have been more offensive, and boring, if he wrote a book trying to prove that he didn’t do it. But people are always looking for reasons to get on their self righteous high horses, which can lead to censorship and often misses real opportunities to be useful.

The bottom line is that bloody true crime stories are commercially reliable, and that the OJ fetish is not yet ready to fade away.

The book became too hot a potato for any large corporate house to handle, which proves one again why independent publishing can, and must, thrive. While IF I DID IT isn’t an important book by anyone’s standards, it’s vital that a non black market venue existed for it to be published and widely distributed. All too often, and far below the public’s radar, countless good books are effectively terminated by the large corporate entities due to their lack of faith that enough people will buy them. But this is often due to a corporate culture that squelches risk taking, innovation, or anything that springs from gut instincts. Editors at large houses have to be mindful of their career tracks; it’s simply too risky to advocate for decisions that might end up losing a lot of money. Of course, independent publishers can go out of business for losing a lot of money, but they are also more likely to successfully follow their passion, not just their fears.

James Frey is in the news this week, but in a relatively silly and quiet way. Some kind of class action suit was settled that provided various lawyers with hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in fees, about $200,000 for random charities, and nominal refunds for the 2,000 or so consumers who feel compelled to demand them. But the need for the law suit is extremely confusing, because the publisher had already promised to give people their money back on demand. It may be safe to conclude that some savvy lawyers saw an opportunity to make some money for no good reason, other than the fact that they could.

The above scenario set back Random House and its insurer nearly a million dollars, and for what? Imagine how many books an independent house could publish with that much extra cash; which brings me to the real point. A dozen or so independent houses should form a consortium dedicated to the purpose of launching class action suits against their large corporate brethren. Only in-house lawyers would be used, thereby avoiding massive contingency fees. In any given week there must be at least one stupid thing one of the large houses does that is class-actionable and settleable. Eventually, the program can be structured so that the large houses simply pay a negotiated annual fee in exchange for not being hit by any class action suits. Sort of like protection money. Absurd? Well, is the current reality any less absurd? Are independent publishers any less deserving of such windfalls than vultures-at-law, especially since the money derives from the corporate supported houses?

Posted by: Jeff Herman

Americans remain blissfully unaware of the talent of Manchester United and England football player Wayne Rooney. On the football pitch, Wayne has few rivals and he is a sports personality whose talent transcends sport to media superstardom. Even as a better player than David Beckham, he will never rival him as a star: He doesn’t have the looks, but he will be big. On the other hand, his girlfriend/fiancée may become bigger than Victoria Beckham and the glow of Wayne’s stardom has reflected on her since they were engaged when she was 17. You see, 21-year-old Coleen McLoughlin has reportedly just signed a five-book deal with HarperCollins. Admittedly this is on the back of her successful autobiography Welcome to My World (Oopps, I almost typed “Wayne” there…) but, without Wayne would there have been an autobiography at 20 years old?

A quick look at the top-seller charts on both sides of the ocean over the past few years show they are replete with celebrity tell-alls and ‘biographies’; there is even an infamous “I didn’t do it but I could have done it” killer celebrity bio. Katie Price (AKA “Jordan” the model) also penned her bio – twice, in fact, inside two years – to great commercial success and has also benefited from the largess of publishers. As I write, Jessica Seinfeld (who, according to Jerry, clearly doesn’t need the money) is leading the pack on Amazon.com: Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 

On the other hand, perhaps there is something wrong with that from the standpoint of our elitist preoccupation with awards. In the UK, the Booker Prize was announced together with a scolding from the judges that great literary works are not adjudged properly or well by the gatekeepers of our awareness: That would be the newspaper reviewers. At least those that are still alive and critiquing (perhaps there are more in the UK than here). It won’t be long before there is a crisis of conscience over reviewing in the UK as well. In the US, the Quill Awards passed with barely a ripple – less than 50 citations in Google News as I write this. I get more than that. 

Awards don’t matter to the average reader and, while I will roll my eyes at Coleen’s book deal, the fact is that HarperCollins and the other publisher’s who solicit these deals are delivering content that the masses want, which the reviewers will pan and the award-givers ignore. And I guess so what? If there is any downside, it is that the amount of cash allocated to these celebrity titles doesn’t leave too much left over for those of us found lacking in the celebrity department. 

Posted by: Michael Cairns, Information Media Partners