Archives for October 2010

The Lost TYOTE Queries

October 11, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

While digging through boxes recently I found some old rejections I received in response to queries about my short story collection, The Year of the Elm (TYOTE). In looking them over most seemed to confirm what I’ve been saying lately: the industry doesn’t care about the quality of your work, it cares about the marketability of your project. If you’re an unknown writer you’re probably out of luck regardless of your storytelling skills. If you’re a well-known celebrity and can’t spell your own name, you’re probably looking at a book deal.

The majority of rejections I received were photocopied form slips. (My favorite was the quarter-page slip that had been cut from a single sheet of four such notices. How much time had it taken to cut those pages into quarters, and how much money had it actually saved?) What seems abundantly clear in retrospect is that none of those agents made any sort of determination about the quality of my writing before saying no. They looked at the project only long enough to determine whether they could sell the collection, and since short story collections are death in the marketplace that determination took two seconds. Feedback about the quality of my work couldn’t be provided because those agents probably didn’t read far enough along to have an opinion.

Again, I understand all that in a business context. I don’t fault agents or editors for churning through submitted projects as quickly as possible, and I’m thankful to those who sent me any sort of reply. (Some couldn’t even be bothered to do that, despite the fact that I always included an SASE.) [ Read more ]

Judging the Quality of Your Writing

October 6, 2010 By Mark 4 Comments

In the previous post I said there’s no relationship between writing quality and publication. Book deals are made for economic reasons, not because great writing makes the world a better place. If a prospective but marketable writer stinks, the industry will hire a ghostwriter, treating content as just another part of the manufacturing process.

I said the same thing in a recent spat with Jane Smith. I said the same thing when Sarah Palin’s book was announced. I’ve pointed to, and will continue to point to, incidents where publishers have failed to meet the same standards they routinely accuse unpublished and independent authors of failing to meet.

I understand why publishing wants to promote itself as the sole judge of quality and merit. Such status equates to power, and power in the marketplace equals money. But publishing’s credibility is so completely corrupted by its own actions that nobody in their right mind would take the sole word of a publisher, agent or editor when it comes to judging writing on the basis of quality, any more than one would try a case if the presiding judge had a vested interest in the outcome. [ Read more ]

Snooki and the Real Writer

October 5, 2010 By Mark 9 Comments

The longer I look at publishing the more convinced I am that the most compelling reason to drive a stake through the heart of the industry is the hypocrisy of claiming critical authority on one hand while on the other reserving the right to justify any book deal on a purely economic basis. I was brought back to this theme late last week by the announcement of two deals that exemplify this hypocrisy, but in a way that may not be immediately apparent.

There was, I think, appropriate disgust at the announcement by Simon & Schuster that they had signed a deal for a first novel from Nicole “Snooki” Palazzi. If you’re not up on your pop-culture stars, Snooki is a developmentally-disabled Italian American who regularly appears on an exploitative MTV series called Jersey Shore. As a for-profit enterprise, it’s not wrong of Simon & Schuster to attempt to profit from Snooki’s celebrity, and I don’t fault the book deal on that basis. But having seen clips of Snooki communicating with the demons in her head it’s obvious that her capacity to write a coherent sentence, let alone a book, falls somewhere between the potential literary genius of metamorphic rock and small furry animals. If a ghostwriter hasn’t already been hired it’s inevitable that most of the words and all of the structure in her book will come from someone other than the credited author. Yet this fraudulent business arrangement is being funded and driven by an upstanding member of a publishing community which collectively insists on respect not simply as a money-making enterprise, but as a cultural bastion of taste and merit.

Contrast this with Knopf’s announcement last week of a $2.5 million book deal for the next novel by Kiran Desai. I’ve never read anything Kiran Desai has written, but there seems to be general agreement she can write, if not that she is an important voice. It might at first appear that Knopf spent all that money on the quality of Desai’s writing, except that’s demonstrably not the case. The deal was brokered not for a finished work, but over a four-page proposal. For all I know Desai’s next book will be unmitigated genius from start to finish, but it’s at least theoretically possible that hopes for the project may not be realized despite everyone’s best efforts. What that means is that either Knopf decided to gamble all that money on the quality of Desai’s next book, or Knopf already did the math on the market and expected sales even if the book stinks, and concluded they will make their money back and more.

While Shooki’s book is a fraud, and Desai’s book may aspire to the greatest of literary heights, the people throwing money at these projects are almost certainly doing so solely on the basis of the economics of the market segments they serve. From a cultural perspective, putting Snooki’s book out is pure capitalism, including the fact that the whole project is a lie. But so is Knopf’s bankrolling of Desai’s next project. If one is respected and one is not respected, that says nothing about why money changed hands.

It changed hands in both cases because these names will sell. In neither case was quality the determining factor.

— Mark Barrett

Burning Desire

October 4, 2010 By Mark 2 Comments

I had occasion over the weekend to dig through some old boxes of scripts and stories I wrote years ago. I found some duplicate copies and stuff I no longer cared about and decided to get right of the dead weight.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard about writers burning their early works, but it seems to have been a fairly common occurrence. And I can understand the appeal. Fire as metaphor and ritual seems to be a human constant, signaling everything from death to purification to rebirth.

I had about five thousand pages to dispose of, and believe me, I wanted to burn them. I wanted the act, the warmth of the fire, and the ashes. Particularly the ashes.

Because we live in a world dying from greenhouses gasses, such things are frowned upon these days, and recycling is the norm. So I recycled.

But I wanted to look into that fire.

— Mark Barrett

Cover Design Week Conclusion

October 3, 2010 By Mark 1 Comment

This post concludes the extended two-week run of Cover Design Week. To see the previous posts, click the CDW tag below.

If you’re thinking about hiring a cover designer the critical first step is thoroughly considering your needs, abilities and tolerances. Because of the work I’ve put in I now know why I’m looking for help with the TYOTE redesign, and what it is I want to come away with when I have someone help me. This in turn helps me define the qualities I’m looking for in a designer, apart from any budgetary limitations.

As to who I’ll hire I don’t know yet. I received a number of helpful responses in reply to my request for recommendations, and I encourage you to ask for recs from people you know or writers whose covers you like. You may not get a response from everyone, but if you’re polite and patient I’m confident you’ll end up with designers worth considering.

Having previously noted that cost is not a useful metric for determining quality or effectiveness in a book cover, and that nobody really knows how a particular cover design will impact sales, the objective I’m now aiming for is a cover I like. Because every independent writer is also their own marketing department and sales force, I think it’s important to have confidence in the first impression my book will be making.

The obvious problem is that not only do some writers have no idea how to design their own book cover, they may not (or should not) trust their own eye when looking at the work of others. If you think you’re in that boat, ask a few friends or peers for feedback on designs you’re considering. (Do NOT put someone else between you and the person designing your cover. You will complicate the process, diminish the effectiveness of the collaboration, and learn little or nothing that will help you the next time.)

Finally, I think there’s an obvious point that needs to be made about all of this. No matter how much time and money you have, no matter how talented you (and your designer, if you hire one) are, there are diminishing returns to agonizing about your cover. And that point arrives fairly quickly.

While we’ve all seen covers we found horrendous, the truth is that most covers are acceptable. Your goal, then, should not be designing the perfect cover, but avoiding the unadulterated abomination.

— Mark Barrett

Contemplating the TYOTE Cover (Re)Design

October 1, 2010 By Mark 4 Comments

This post is part of Cover Design Week. To see other posts click the CDW tag below.

Here is a large version of the cover of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm (TYOTE):

You can see a smaller version in the right-hand column on this page, and on the Smashwords page where the collection is currently being sold. [Book removed 01/03/17.]

One of the few practical things I knew when I set about designing the cover was that the small image would be more important than the large image. The reason was that the cover would almost always be shown as a thumbnail to interested readers, rendering subtleties all but indistinguishable.

For that reason, along with aesthetic reasons I’ll get to momentarily, I decided to make the title of the work and my name clearly visible at almost any size, and to make the composition simple enough that it wouldn’t be corrupted by a reduction in size. Whatever you think about the design, I feel confident I achieved this practical goal. I did have to resign myself to the fact that the subtitle would not be visible at reduced size, but I felt that was an acceptable loss. Whether this calls into question the inclusion of a subtitle I’m still not sure. [ Read more ]