When I was a kid in high school in the mid-1960s, one of my favorite books was A Sense of Where You Are, John McPhee’s 1965 account of the college basketball career of Princeton all-American and later New York Knick and US Senator, Bill Bradley. If distant memory serves, McPhee got his evocative title from Bradley himself, who coined it in demonstrating that success in basketball derived from an informed appreciation of one’s place on the court—from “a sense of where you are.” While no advice could have helped me in my frustrated pursuits on the basketball court, the phrase “a sense of where you are” resonates so clearly in my experience as an editor that it has never left me, even as I recognize it in the work of today’s great editors. 

 

In my end of our business, scholarly publishing, having “a sense of where you are” in perceiving where your field is going is what excites an editor’s imagination. That is, your success as an editor is predicated on having a clear sense of where your field is moving —be it religion, economics, or physics—and working backwards from that horizon to imagine what the next great books will be. “A sense of where you are” in the milieu of ideas inspires you, the editor, to ask, “what will the next truly great philosophy list look like, and what do I have to do to publish such a list. Which authors will I have to attract? What kinds of books will I have to develop, and in what combination?  What are readers—scholars and students here and abroad—interested in? What does the field need and how will such a list shape its frontier and its connections to other fields?”   

 

Scholarly publishers help to spur the course of intellectual progress by publishing various kinds of books—the tools of our trade:  Research monographs, the building blocks of knowledge in most fields; academic trade books, statements that provoke big questions about controversial issues within and across fields; treatises, systematic explorations of big subjects by major figures that galvanize entire intellectual discourses; and reference books, works that consolidate and memorialize knowledge in their fields.

 

While each of these genres is essential to a great scholarly list, of the four, the treatise provides editors their most delicious publishing opportunity because editors can often exercise an active hand in conceptualizing this kind of book and because it so generously rewards the editor’s sense of his or her field. Signing the big treatise is sometimes a function of blessed serendipity—being in the right place at the right time with the right author—but at a deeper level, such books can result from the planful imaginings of editors.  That is, astute and informed editors draw on a sense of what kinds of major, synthesizing works their fields need and actively look for such titles. 

 

Treatises can, and do, make singularly impressive contributions to learning. Think of the effect of E. H. Gombrich’s canonical Art and Ideas on the field of art, or Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions on comparative religion, or Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory on literary studies, or Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations on international relations. Provocative and path-breaking texts of this kind have for generations helped draw and redraw the map of scholarly knowledge—and can mark the careers of their editors.     

 

An excellent example of this kind of publishing can be found in the work of my colleague Brigitta van Rheinberg, Editor-in-Chief and History Editor of Princeton University Press. A few years back, Brigitta began thinking about the evolving trend toward global history, and started to discern the opportunity to engage this trend with a new set of books on master themes in global history. Beginning by signing a broadly contextualized historical book on racism, Brigitta followed through by signing global histories of empire and of famine, and is now working with prospective authors on similarly significant themes.

 

Brigitta works with a sense of where the field of history is going, a conception of how to embrace the themes that unify comparative and historical research, an understanding for how certain books would enhance the intellectual infrastructure of the field, an appreciation of the broad cross-national readership engage the themes addressed in these books, and a network of outstanding historian authors whose command of the relevant subjects enables them to tell the big story.

 

While it would be easy to consider the publication of these books simply as a string of thematic histories, that misses the point. Developing the idea for these books rewarded Brigitta’s sophisticated knowledge of the direction of her field, her understanding of the market, and her appetite for thinking big. For Brigitta, as for all good editors, “a sense of where you are” is the necessary ingredient in achieving major signings such as these. 

 

Bill Bradley would understand.  Ever the student of his game, Bradley offers an instuctive model to us for ours.  I recall stories of Bradley practicing his jump shot by methodically moving from under the basket outward, breaking down his hook shot into distinct parts, and deliberately pounding the last dribble of the ball before releasing his jumper to gain greater control over his shot. This mania for method may seem silly in a game as seemingly fluid and improvisational as basketball, but that’s not the point.  By self-consciously becoming a student of the game, Bill Bradley found ways to expand and refine his repertoire and improve his already awesome athletic gifts.

 

The lesson for scholarly editors is clear. To animate one’s publishing, it is vital to develop a sense of where you are in the flow of your field. That sense will produce a clearer understanding of the trajectory of your list, and will reveal new and exciting publishing possibilities.   

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

A little over two-and-a-half years ago, the scholarly publisher for whom I work, Princeton University Press, achieved the unlikely goal of placing one of our titles at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit. Weighing in at 80 pages in a small 4x6 format, Frankfurt’s book became an instant classic, and its author, an elderly and distinguished philosopher and teacher, something of a pop culture icon.

But for those of us at PUP, some of the most interesting action on this title has since occurred far from the roar of the American bestseller lists, and the media, including The Daily Show, and 60 Minutes, that popularized this book: that is, on the translation front. Now appearing in some twenty-five translated editions, On Bullshit has quietly achieved the status of an international publishing phenomenon.

Appearing in languages as diverse as Finnish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Catalan, Japanese, German, Czech, Korean, Indonesian, Serbian, and Italian, On Bullshit now travels under a remarkable variety of titles and covers. The Italian edition sports my favorite Euro-title, the expressive, Stronzate; the Finnish edition, Paskapuheesta; the French, De l’art de dire des conneries; the Portuguese, Da Treta; and the Brazilian Portuguese, Sobre Falar Merda.

And yet, according to my colleague Ben Tate, PUP’s Director of Subsidiary Rights and Translations Editor, many of the foreign editions have retained the English term, “bullshit,” either as their title or in their title of their respective editions. Some of these include the German, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch.

Adds Tate, “among the those editions which conveyed the book’s title in the local language, only the Italian comes closest to a straightforward translation, as “stronzate” means bullshit in the literal sense of cow excrement, but also in the sense which Frankfurt is considering. The rest of those publishers who sought to localize the title either had to approximate the expression using several words or had to settle for something close but inexact, such as the Brazilian Portuguese edition, Sobre falar Merda (On talking Shit) or the French edition, De l’art de dire des conneries (On the Art of Saying Crap) . Indeed, that is the reason so many of the publishers left the word untranslated. It’s a unique word with a specific history, and its meaning as addressed by Frankfurt is underpinned by the crassness and vulgarity of its literal meaning. It’s a special word.”

And while many of the international editions have emulated PUP’s sober, monochromatic cover, some of our foreign co-publishers bravely chose to go the graphic route, in the process rendering some pretty imaginative cover art. The Dutch edition is a shocking pink, the Portuguese edition sports stripes. Truly amazing is the Japanese edition which features anatomical images.

What are the lessons for publishers and authors in this international story? First, size—in this case, brevity—matters. Since time immemorial, book editors have encouraged authors to keep their books brief, partly—though not entirely—because foreign publishers find it easier (cheaper and faster) to translate shorter books. This is an object lesson in that sage bit of editorial advice.

Second, ideas matter. Say what you will about the nature of the subject, bullshit is an idea and Harry Frankfurt treats it as such—that is, philosophically. Ideas, if they are engaging, travel to the far corners of the earth, and so do good books about ideas.

Third, on a more anthropological note, the global popularity of Harry Frankfurt’s book suggests, and to put it more emphatically, confirms, that “bullshit” as a cultural feature knows no boundaries. We Americans have no monopoly on it. It is everywhere.

Last, but not least, the fact that so many of our foreign co-publishers used the English-language title, On Bullshit, attests to the enormous power of global English as an all-pervasive cultural force and, I suspect, of the enduring power of American popular culture.

So much for my brief publishing disquisition on the international aspects of this remarkable little book. I’d better stop now, lest I find myself engaging in more stronzate than I’d like to be accused of.

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

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