Publishing

Right after college, I landed a job at Simon & Schuster. It was a glorious time. For the first time in my life, I met other people who read as much as I did. We formed an instant bond over our love of the Brontes and Austin and our enthusiasm for the night life of the Village. I remember staying up until 5 am, sleeping on someone's floor for an hour, and then putting in a full day of work. Something only a 21 year old can do.

Publishing in the 80s was booming. Though our salaries were pitiful, we took our authors out to the great restaurants of the city. Sfuzzi's, Shun Lee, the Saloon. Those lunches were essential, because for dinner we would eat toast or pretzels. $15,000 a year was tough to live on, even in those days.

So much was published in the 80s without regard to the bottom-line. As much crap as quality, I'm sure. Tiny publishing groups were putting out interesting things.

All that has changed. When the economy took a downfall in the early 90s, the smaller, guppy publishers were absorbed by medium sized ones. Later, the medium sized ones were absorbed by the bigger ones. Now, only the big shark publishers exist and keep strict control over costs. Books are referred to as "products," and the gentleman editor has retired.

Most of my old friends have left publishing. Three of us got PhDs. Another an MBA. Only one friend, Susan, remained and now is a bigshot editor.

Anyhow, that is a long introduction to what I was really going to write about today.

Susan and I exchanged several e-mails yesterday about the Times article about bloggers getting big advances to write books.

Wonkette got a $275,000 advance for a novel about naughty Washington activities. Jessica Cutler and Belle de Jour also received a six figure advance.

Lesser-known bloggers are also peddling books. Julie Powell, a Queens secretary who blogged about trying to make every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume 1)" during the course of a year, signed with Little, Brown to write about the experience.

Gordon Atkinson, a minister and blogger known as Real Live Preacher, published a collection of his work this fall with Eerdmans Publishing Company, a leader in religious books.

My reaction when I read about Ana Marie Cox's advance? Some information should not be included in a blog post.

Susan and I agreed that the transition from a blogger to a novelist is tricky. Some bloggers are quite talented at describing particular events and characters, but building an arc to a novel is something different. The essayists and expert bloggers might have an easier time making the transition. Non-fiction might be the way to go.

What Susan thought was significant is the audience that bloggers bring to the table. They have a built in audience. Most books need to sell at least 10,000 copies to make any kind of profit. Many bloggers have kind of an audience during a good afternoon.

One author was able to demonstrate the interest of her audience to publishers.

"I turned to readers of my blog," she said. "I asked them to comment on whether a book like mine would be relevant to them. Readers wrote back expressing why they wanted to read about the experience of maternal anger. I stuck their comments into my proposal as pulled quotes."

Her readers were convincing. She and her agent, Jim Hornfischer, sold her memoir, "Inconsolable," to Seal Press in August, she said. "The blog showed publishers she was committed to the subject matter and already had an audience," Mr. Hornfischer said.

Having numbers and reactions in hand can be just the thing to cinch a deal. When editors pitch ideas in a meeting, they can show those numbers to hostile directors. In these times, numbers are everything. Publishers can't take risks, and bloggers have an edge over untried authors.

I would love to see some more bloggers make the transition to publishing. If you're interested, I could have Suze as a guest blogger one day and she can tell you how to do it.

Comments

[Laura]

I read that article and thought it was interesting. I actually write separately from my blog. I consider my blog the place where I spew and don't worry too much about structure and whatnot. But my blog did lead me to another book idea that I'm now working on. Even in my offline writing, I'm not sure how I feel about being published. Yes, it would be nice, but I came from a creative writing program. I know how difficult it is. I'd be interested in what your friend would have to say.

I noticed in the article that the authors said that didn't write about blogging. I wonder if there's room for a book that is written like a blog. I haven't seen the Salem Pax book, so I don't know if it retained the blog form or became more narrative. Personally, I just think it's great that so many people are writing anything. It's such a rich time, I think. I feel like I'm in a Renaissance-like culture (with all the good and bad that entails).