book biz talk

I love GalleyCat, but the whiny editors and agents who’ve been writing in to bitch and moan about the publishing business haven’t taught me (or GalleyCat blogger Ron Hogan, as he notes) a thing. Anyone who’s really interested and has a good half hour or so to devote to the subject can delve deep into the reeds by reading recent interviews with two very knowledgeable players.

First up, Andrew Wylie, profiled in Portfolio:

New York literary agent Andrew Wylie seems perfectly happy to be known as “the Jackal”—the nickname that sticks even though he obtained it years ago in Britain during a publishing dustup whose baroque details have largely faded from memory. He’s equally unruffled when book editors and rival agents call him an “evil madman,” a “cold-eyed predator,” and a “monster.”

Much more interesting, detailed, and revealing is this interview with longtime agent Lynn Nesbit. Here are a few highlights:

On book people:

So you miss the personalities

Yes. I miss the fun. I tell Tina [Bennett] and Eric [Simonoff], “You missed the good days.” When I worked for Sterling Lord, I had a loft, a sort of duplex loft apartment on Barrow Street. And Michael Sissons, who’s now the head of Fraser & Dunlop, and Peter Matson, who’s also an agent, used to give these parties at my house. They would make these drinks of half brandy and half champagne, and people got so drunk. One night Rosalyn Drexler, the lady wrestler and the novelist, picked up Walter Minton and just threw him against the wall. I’ll never forget that. There was just more of a sense of fun.

So why was that lost?
It’s the corporate thing. People are too scared. It doesn’t attract eccentrics anymore.

On competition:

You represent so many of the original New Journalists. What was it like to be at the center of a movement like that?
When I first represented Tom Wolfe, I was younger than Tom. I was a kid. And when I went to sell Tom’s first book, his editor, Clay Felker, was the most important magazine editor in New York. I sent Tom’s book out for auction. Viking, with whom Clay had an arrangement as sort of editor at large, brought Tom in for a meeting with Tom Guinzburg. But on the auction day, Viking didn’t bid. So I thought that was curious. But they didn’t, and the book went to FSG.

A few days later I went to this big literary party at Rust Hills’s. I will never forget walking in. It was jammed with every writer and editor in New York. Clay was then dating Gloria Steinem, and Clay walked right over to me—this is like two days after the Tom thing—and he said, “You fucking cunt.” …

On editorial intervention:

How do you see your principal roles and responsibilities as an agent? Have they changed over time?
You are part of a writer’s support system—a very important part. The role of the agent is more important today than it was when I was starting out. Because the publishing world is so corporate, and editors move around so much, you are increasingly the only fixed point for the writer. That’s one way it’s changed. Another thing that I notice here, with younger agents like Tina and Eric, is that they do a lot of editing, and we didn’t do that when we were young. I think it’s partly because of the editors. There is such pressure on editors to come in with something that’s almost ready to go that the agents are assuming part of what the editors used to do.

When did you start to recognize that as a phenomenon?
Probably just in the last [eight?] years, or ten years.

Did you ever edit?
Not to the extent that they do.

On replenishing the ranks of book publishing people:

In terms of the book industry itself, what would you say are the most troubling or frustrating changes today?
What worries me is that there aren’t as many younger people who want to become editors as there used to be. Because at a certain point they get frustrated. There’s not enough money to make the job palatable, and they don’t have enough freedom. So they feel that they have this corporate bureaucracy imposed on them and yet they’re not making a decent enough salary. What I see is this flow of young editors becoming agents. There are hundreds of agents. I can’t believe how many there are. When I was starting out, there were agents, but not at the number there are now. Because today they can operate out of their apartments with a telephone. Or they think they can.

On the biggest problem facing the business today:

What is the single biggest problem with the book world today?
Distribution. Especially for smaller books. Because the bookstores won’t take a chance. And if a writer has a not-so-rosy track record, then they won’t order more and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then, if the book happens to get good reviews, you’re caught out of print and have to reprint and maybe the books don’t get to the stores fast enough. And distribution is a problem on the other end, too, with books that are overprinted, books that may get on the best-seller list. It may look good to the outside world, but the returns may negate the rosy picture.

On editors’ nerves about buying fiction:

What do you mean exactly by “nervous”?
Nervous that fiction is very difficult to sell. An editor wants to see something that’s more near completion, that the idea or the thrust behind a novel is more fully realized. Twenty-five years ago an editor would say, “Oh, this has promise,” and sign it up. Today, editors want to say no rather than yes. Unless they see it as a big book.

And this is because of corporate pressures? Profit pressures?
Profit pressures. You must know that fiction is very hard to sell. Today it’s almost that fiction needs to seem like it’s going to be an event. It almost has to open like a movie, on the commercial side, or else the editor has to be convinced its going to get such praise, such positive literary acclaim, that even if it doesn’t sell a lot you’re launching a real voice.

On losing readers (as a function of the culture, not as a function of lousy book marketing):

What other changes are you seeing?
I said this earlier as sort of a joke, but I’m beginning to think there are more writers than readers. I get these e-mails pouring in from people who want to write their life stories. It’s because of the memoir. Everybody thinks they have a story. I also feel there are fewer and fewer civilians—I mean people outside of our business—who I meet who have time to read. They all say, “I’d love to read, but I’m just too busy.” What worries me is that people are on blogs, Web sites—there is a lot of that going on—but they aren’t reading books. That phenomenon, to me, is not a product of the industry, it’s a product of how our culture is changing. People’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. And everybody has their specialty. I don’t ever look at blogs or Web sites because I would never get anything done. I’m tempted to because I hear about these great things.

On the future of books [e.a.]:

A lot of people seem to think an iPod-like device will come along for books….
Great. That would be terrific. I have no problem with that. The more forms in which people can read intellectual content, the better. I don’t care if they read it in a real book or on an iPod. If they’re more likely to read it on some device, great. I have no fear about that. I have no idea why people do. It’s the content that matters, the intellectual content. As long as we can keep it copyrighted. I also look forward to books on demand. Jason Epstein*** has been working on this machine for years, and he tells me that other people have been trying to do it too. The modes of distribution are so antiquated.

Epstein also seems to think that publishers are getting too big and will eventually collapse from their own bigness and fracture into smaller shops.
Like what’s happened in Hollywood. I think it will happen. I think it’s happening now, with all these imprints. There are so many imprints. And once they get the distribution figured out…. If these machines really do become effective, and there are more efficient ways of distributing books, then I think there will be more and more independent producers. And independent producers use a distribution outlet. So the publishers will be more like distributors. I think it could happen. I don’t know because this business is so primitive—the publishing business—so unsophisticated. It takes so many years to make a change here …

Well worth reading.

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*** Longtime readers will remember that I have written about Jason Epstein and his print-on-demand enterprise several times.