just like china
…being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would.
—Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
currently your editor is…
…working on some back cover copy and listening to ODB’s hey dirty.
just thought you’d like you know.
my new favorite thing.
more than i needed
hey, authors. it’s much nobler (and easier) to negotiate the hell out of your contract in its beginning stages, rather than come back around near to or at publication and ask for more stuff.
for example, you are contractually allotted a certain number of complimentary copies of your book. as i’ve mentioned before, this is because it becomes fiscally irresponsible for us, and you, to start doling out comp copies in the hopes of garnering interest in sales. i have, on several occasions, seen sales figures lower than the number of comp copies that were given out. so seriously: do you want to earn out that advance, or not?
to that end, if you have the slightest inkling that you’ll need more free copies than are initially offered to you when the contract is being drawn up, say so. because saying “oops” later makes for a grumbly editorial staff.
(Mis)Adventures in Publishing: Writers and Those Who Just Write
this post is a few days old, maybe more, but that’s as much time as a slow person like me needs to consider and form a response. i come at it from an interesting angle, seeing as i do call myself a writer (or maybe, “unpaid apprentice scribe”), and i’m working towards becoming an editor. because i respect the individual behind editorialhell as a fellow wordsmith and sure, as a person too, though i’ve never met them, i thought i might address the issue from a different angle.
i’ve often expressed these exact sentiments when i hear people say they want to write or “pursue a career” in writing. writing, like all art, is a hard road, cluttered with obstacles of angst, rejection, existential questioning, and very few pleasures—such as success, recognition, and money. when we read books like the hunger games, or game of thrones, or hell, even fifty shades of grey, we think it’s easy to be a writer, and be successful at it. the fact is that those authors (er, maybe not the chick who wrote “fifty shades of grey) have been working for a long, long time, likely without any motivation to keep going besides the phrase, “i am a writer.”
i think it all comes down to labels, and our collective need for them. quickly think of three words to describe yourself—they probably involve your skin color, hair color, and eye color. maybe your height or what you happen to be wearing at the moment. in my mind, these labels, whether they be your racial identity, or something more ephemeral, like what you do, are important. why they are important opens up a new discussion, but they carry weight all the same. if i call myself a “writer,” even if i have a scant number of published pieces and they have definitely not generated any income, i can buoy myself by the knowledge that i’m working towards something.
i wholeheartedly believe that not everyone can or should be a writer, and i’m often disgusted by the prevalence of the desire to do so. however, i can understand that everyone feels the need to express themselves, and i bet more people than we think are content to write into a void, to use writing as a creative outlet or healing process, and have no desire to be published. the stuff that ends up in any editor’s slush pile is from individuals who have the audacity (not used negatively, here) to say, “this story is unique and i have the ability to tell it.” unfortunately, most peopledon’t have a unique story, and even less of an ability to tell it, but i’d wager the desire to do so is what makes someone a writer—whether they are successful at it or not.
perhaps it’s just an argument of semantics?
I hear many people refer to themselves as writers. I know this will offend some folks, but I’ve always felt that given that there are no qualifications required to refer to yourself as such, you should only call yourself a writer if you earn a living and provide for yourself and your family…
2 weeks ago - 
5
5 
Pretty things from good friends. (Taken with instagram)
2 weeks ago - 3
3yeah. excuse me while i towel off.
revenge, best served cold
when i was a wee editorial assistant, i went to the IRA (International Reading Association) conference for the first time…maybe it was the second; anyway, i’d never officially traveled for work before and i was all flustered, mostly because i hate booking travel, and when i’m rich and famous i intend to have a personal travel agent.
anyway.
the thing about teachers, and, god bless them, they deserve anything they get, is that they are continually on the prowl for free stuff. especially at conventions. and especially at IRA, because it caters more towards fiction houses and publishers who devote a larger part of their business to k-12 education. i.e., publishers who can afford to produce galleys en masse, or else give away books at the end of the show, rather than have them paid to have them shipped back to their respective warehouses. we don’t do this. after about 3 hours of saying “no, sorry, no free books at the end of the show,” i start to feel like a miserly asshole. but i gotta pay the rent too, you know?
anyway, anyway.
so it’s my first spin around IRA, and i’m nervous, and people are asking questions about books and i have absolutely no idea, and we have this new-fangled computer system we’re supposed to use to check people out while simultaneously drawing them onto our email list. all attendees were given a badge with a bar code, and all we needed to do to get their information was to scan the badge, and boom, we’d have the power to spam them for life—or at least until they unsubscribed from the mailing list. a couple of older ladies come around, touring the exhibit hall and eying our books, carrion hunters on the prowl before the prey is even dead, and they want to pick up a catalog and get on our mailing list. i say, ok, i just need to scan your badge. one obliges me. the other one, with her puffball of white hair and shrewd little nose sort of grasps at her badge, and then wags her finger at me. “do you see this?” she says; she’s got some ribbon attached to her badge that identifies her as associated with IRA. “you shouldn’t make people have to identify themselves.” apparently, she was high up in the organization and i should have just known who she was.
honestly, getting scolded by old white ladies gives me flashbacks to high school, to those nuns with their bony fingers and airs of self-righteousness.
as much as i wanted to tell her to go to hell, i got flustered instead and one of my colleagues had to take over for me. i have never forgotten that woman’s face.
and today, i rejected a proposal she dropped off at the booth this year. i didn’t do it out of malice, or revenge; in fact, i didn’t realize until later, when a quick google search confirmed my suspicions. frankly, her book wasn’t timely, relevant, or unique.
still, i feel i’ve earned an evil chuckle or two.
2 weeks ago - 1
1 i could very quickly turn this tumblr into a fuckyeablackkeys type of thang. but i’ll just leave this here instead.
