But I Don’t Know Any Koalas?!
By Richard Steinberg
This month’s essay is dedicated with love and gratitude to Sgt. Bryan J. Tutten, 33, of St. Augustine, Fla., who died Dec. 25 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, and also, to: Pfc. Brian L. Gorham, 21, of Woodburn, Ky., who died Dec. 31 of wounds suffered in Afghanistan when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.
Gentlemen, find peace.
“I care deeply and passionately about sanity. I absolutely expect it in my lawyer, my accountant, my doctor, my grocer, the man who does my rubdowns, and the woman who cleans my house. What? In Publishing? You’re new to the business, aren’t you,” Robert Benchley
I was having dinner one night with Glorious Glori, Ilario the Magnificent, and His Sartorial Splendor, at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. Unlike many such establishments, this one was small, quiet, with incredibly good food, even better service, and atmosphere that was real and not manufactured. That night is one of my fondest memories of that time.
After dinner and before dessert, Ilario excused himself to go to the bar and have a smoke; a habit I’m very happy to say no longer afflicts him. Although I don’t smoke, I wanted to check out the bar and went along. And, as neither of us are in the literary business but are both addicted unto death to the literary life, our conversation quickly devolved to the publishing gossip of the day.
While we talked about which editors were moving or staying or considering selling used cars, which authors were meeting their deadlines or young lovers that were in the same class as one of their children, a significant publishing executive walked in.
Now this is where our memories of the moment differ.
Ilario remembers introducing me to Omnivorous Appetite, a brief conversation, and then we continued gossiping as we returned to our party. I remember significant glances and double-entendres exchanged between me and that rather attractive woman.
Maybe because I would like to be that suave.
In any event, much later that night – well after we had parted from Ilario and Splendor, Glori informed me that she had lost an earring, probably in the restaurant. And as a dutiful son (who took and still takes any excuse to walk the streets of Manhattan at night) I volunteered to walk back to the nearby restaurant and check.
When I arrived, fairly close to closing, I found the escapee earring and said publishing executive. We struck up a conversation, and – in part at the urging of the management – I walked her to a cab.
The problem was that Omnivorous was somewhat the worse for wear. Or for the drinks she had been throwing back all evening. Regardless, I was uncomfortable at just putting her in a cab – Glori raised me better than that – so I decided to accompany her to her building, and then take the cab back to my hotel.
When we arrived at her place, I helped her out and began walking her inside. And in the twenty-five feet or so between curb and door, dear beautiful, sexy, very connected in publishing Omnivorous made it very clear that if I were to dismiss the cab and accompany her upstairs, she would make it well worth my while.
And if the stories I had heard about her were even one quarter true, I knew she could do it.
What’s a young-ish author to do?
I escorted her to the door, made sure she had her keys and, heavy sigh, bid her goodnight and returned to my cab.
Honor –mine, at least – intact.
Several years later, when I was changing publishers, Ilario suggested that Omnivorous’ publishing house would be a good fit. The manuscript in question was a good one, the kind she liked, and I hoped that my gallantry that night might earn me some points to aid in the eventual sale.
Several days later, she rejected the manuscript.
Publishing: It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!
Manic Mathew is a wonderful writer who had never sold a novel to a major publisher. He’d had three novels published by small presses; but always dreamed of having a major House release. In 2003, he got his chance.
At a publisher’s forum in Connecticut, a well regarded editor from a multi-national publisher approached him. The editor informed Manic that he had always liked his work, and had he ever considered moving up to a large House.
Oh, had Manic considered it.
Within three weeks a contract was agreed to. Six months later, the manuscript was delivered. It was a spectacularly well written allegory for the rise of fascism in South America in the Forties. Set in a near future, it was exciting and compelling. But it needed work.
Something Manic was unwilling to do.
You see, at the small houses he had published through previously, editorial had been limited at best. This, however, was a world-renowned publisher and they wanted some revisions to better tailor the book to their expected market.
Manic refused; telling them that it was his experience that editors didn’t know anything about real quality, that he knew best and that should be that.
After meetings, e-mails, intercessions by agents and friends and loved ones, the publisher decided not to go to press with the novel.
What happened? Manic took the manuscript to a small press that: “knew how to treat their writers,” and it became one of their better reviewed books of the year . . . selling 812 copies nationwide.
Publishing: Be all that you can be!
As we get further into our exploration of the guts of writing, a specific topic demands our attention. It’s a thing probably less discussed in writers’ forums and websites than any other. It may not help you write better, is not likely to inspire you to press on when things seem darkest, and probably won’t help you sell your first book.
But it might help – a lot – with your second, third, and the other steps involved in maintaining a career as a novelist.
We’ll call it, with due apologies to Mr. Einstein:
The Theory of Relativity
There are three basic misconceptions that newly sold writers take with them into their first interactions with publishers. They think the process is centered around them. They think publishers are the enemy. They think their career is the result of their talent.
All three statements are true, by the way.
They are also immaterial.
For a book to be a success – in a nonfinancial sense – three things have to happen. It must be written. It must be published. It must be read. The third step, being the most critical, can not be accomplished in any kind of meaningful way without symbiosis existing between the first two steps. And often that magic requires significantly more than just everyone doing their job to the best of their abilities.
It often requires things you may have never considered as being part of “the literary process.” Things like courtesy when you don’t feel particularly courteous, like understanding corporate politics from the perspective of the editors and/or publicists, executives, corporate biggies, and the people in the shipping department.
Things like when to take a Koala Bear to dinner and a show.
The Reluctant Carnivore is one of the gentlest souls I know. She has a successful midlist career; crossing back and forth from Chick-lit to spy thrillers.
A few years ago, her editor came to her to suggest that instead of setting her next novel in her native American MidWest, that she set it in Australia. More importantly, that her heroine have a Koala Bear as a loyal and devoted pet and a plot-point in the new novel.
“But I don’t know any koalas,” she stammered out. “I do puppies, and occasionally tropical fish, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about koalas.”
Her editor nodded sagely. “But it would be fun to learn about them, right?”
Neither sucking up to, nor rubber stamping the publisher’s idea, but out of her respect for them, she plunged into koala research. By the end of two months, there was little she didn’t know about koala culture.
She put together a novel treatment called: Kalgoorlie Koala. A romance thriller about a woman from the American Midwest who – while vacationing in Australia one summer – adopts an injured koala, and while nursing it back to health finds true romance with an Aussie game keeper.
Her editor read the treatment, and then looked up with teary eyes. “The koala dies at the end,” she asked with deep concern.
“He does,” Carnivore replied simply. “But still plays a major role in the sequel.”
“Really, how?”
Carnivore smiled sweetly, looked the editor right in the eye and said: “They do a poor job of disposing of the koala’s body, so a mutant strain of a bio-toxin develops from its decaying, rotting corpse and it leaves the people of Australia dying slowly, painfully, and quite grotesquely.”
She sipped her tea and smiled.
The editor considered for a moment. “What about dingoes?”
“I can do Australian Cattle Dogs.”
“Queensland Heelers?”
“Sure.”
The novel is due for release next year.
“I undertook to discover how many were vital parts of the publishing process for this book. From the drivers of the trucks that delivered my books to the stores, to the women of easy virtue who delivered their touch to soothe when the words wouldn’t come. In the end, I discovered the number was best expressed by an equation: One writer with one vision plus one light equals dirty paper. One writer with one vision plus a publisher filled with lights equals magic,” Howard Spring
Publishers, editors, marketing executives, booksellers, reviewers, the guy who selects which paperbacks get the best placement in your local 7/11 are not the enemy. If you don’t succeed, they don’t succeed. It’s pretty simple.
That’s not to say that they’re all wonderful people; as all writers are not wonderful people. Hard to believe, I know, but true nonetheless.
I’ve known The Hamster from Hell for a lot of years. I honestly don’t know whether or not we’re friends, but we’re certainly not enemies and are willing to alternate picking up the check when we share a meal.
On one such meal, Hamster was decrying his lot in life. His having published nineteen novels under five or six different names, I found it a bit hard to find sympathy for him.
Until I heard his story that day.
It seems he had been in a West Los Angeles, tragically hip, eatery the month before with some friends. After the meal, he went to the bar to kill some time before his next appointment. Who should walk in but Omnivorous Appetite.
They knew each other, in passing, and eventually ended up sharing a quiet table. One drink, err . . . thing led to another (as tends to happen in bars) and later that evening Hamster ended up driving her to her hotel. As he escorted her to her room, she suggested to him that she would make it well worth his while if he were to let the Valet park his car in overnight parking.
Never deeply afflicted by scruples – damn his eyes – Hamster agreed. From his account to me that day, Omnivorous lived up to and beyond her reputation as a sexual dynamo, and they parted early the next morning, mutually exhausted.
Several months later, he submitted a manuscript to Omnivorous that he and his agent thought was perfect for her and her publisher.
Several days later, it was rejected.
Publishing is a collaborative effort; writer centered, sure, but collaborative nonetheless. You must learn how to make accommodations to the process where you can without betraying your artistic integrity.
Sometimes it can be a tricky balancing act.
Sometimes it only takes good manners.
And sometimes, as I pointed out to The Hamster From Hell that day, it’s better to be rejected as a Literary Nobleman than to be found wanting as a literary slut.
Well, maybe not better, but certainly less embarrassing.
Believe!
