Dead Sextons at Europa 2/16
I just got word we’ll be opening for Michale Graves, formerly of The Misfits, at Europa in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We’ll go on around 9 and the cover is $10. That’s 98 Meserole Ave. at the corner of Manhattan Ave., G train to Nassau. It should be f-in crazy.
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Anne K. Yoder over at KGB Bar’s journal interviewed Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians of Melville House.
I don’t know when this article came out, if it’s recent or not. Speaking again about the divide between art and commerce, here’s the most interesting part of the interview for me:
KGB: Do you deal with agents at all?
DLJ: No, not very regularly. Occasionally, but the pie just isn’t big enough.
VM: We’ve had agents mess up deals that both we and the author wanted to happen. We try to work with them sparingly. Although there are some agents out there who seem to understand the pressures. And I imagine you would need an agent. But at the same time, those writers who are not, should we say, fodder for the big houses are still operating on the model that they need an agent, which is really not the case.
DLJ: It’s no criticism of them, though. They are what they are. They have businesses and they need to make money, and they need to survive. But there are two publishing models, and in this model, the agent is another person with needs that don’t benefit their client. And they can’t admit that. If you need an agent to deal with Melville House, then Valerie and I are not doing our job.
We have had many instances of writers, even well-known writers, bringing us a book project that no other publisher would do because it’s small or different or weird or out of their norm. And we’re happy to do it and excited to do it, and an agent will step in and say, “If you can’t give us an advance, you’re not getting that book.” And we won’t get that book and so that book is never ever made.
VM: They’ve actually just finished off books in their entirety. Not like it will be sold to somebody else, but it just won’t exist.
DLJ: This is what happened to Stephen Dixon. He fired his agent to come to us. That’s the state of the art at the moment. Agents are the most fascinating turf in publishing right now. They really are defining the differences between independent publishing and conglomerate publishing in a more definitive way than the Hudson River is. It’s really the battle ground, and how that all shakes down in the future.
Another aspect is thinking about writers: most writers hate their publisher and love their agent. The day may come when they regret that. If a big publisher drops them and they have to go to an indie, it takes some understanding and a leap to be prepared and to navigate that journey.
There’s an innate distrust of publishers, and that’s because for the last twenty years the big houses have behaved despicably. There was an instance in 1995, or some time in the first half of the nineties, when HarperCollins—in one fell swoop—dropped 100 writers. One hundred so-called mid-list writers. It was big news at the time because there were some very big names on that list. And they were just dropped because their books weren’t selling so well—it’s not that they weren’t making a profit, but that they weren’t making enough of a profit. Shit like that should make you distrust the big publishers. There should have been a revolt. People in those publishing houses should have revolted the way André Schiffrin revolted when stuff like that started going on within the Random House empire. But his reaction was a rare one. So I understand the distrust. But if you think about independent publishing as a kind of mom-and-pop business, and start seeing yourself as a partner in that, it’s a much more traditional model for publishing and it’s not too hard to comprehend.
VM: And it’s a lot more fun.
DLJ: It’s a lot more fun to be more involved with your book. Once I asked Stephen Dixon how this is working out for him, how he thought about working with Melville House. He said he loved it because it was the first time in his career that he’s been able to get the publisher on the phone.
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Book Trailers
Laura Miller over at Salon writes about why she feels book trailers on YouTube are silly here.
The first time I ever saw a book trailer was last spring for Monkeybicycle 6, and it was sort of silly, but intentionally silly, and that made it good. Since then, I’ve seen tons of authors reading their work on YouTube and promoting books this way.
I agree with Miller that sometimes it doesn’t work. But I don’t feel that books aren’t videos and videos just make us want more videos.
Frankly, I feel like any visual mention of something, if done reasonably well—whether a poster on the subway or a video on YouTube—always makes me want to investigate further. It could be about a book, a movie, an album, anything really.
It’s not easy to get books into people’s hands. We need to use every resource at our disposal.
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In This Alone Impulse
Shya Scanlon’s new book of poetry, In This Alone Impulse, is now available for preorder here. Shya is a damn fine poet. I got to see him read in December, and if you get the chance, definitely check him out.
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Dead Sextons at Zebulon, 3/17
I just found out we’ll be playing Zebulon in Williamsburg on St. Patrick’s Day at 10pm. The last time we were there, I had a good talk with the owner about Otto Link mouthpieces. Turned out he was a sax player, too. C’mon out, if you’re able. 258 Wythe between N. 3rd and Metropolitan, L to Bedford. I’ll post again closer to the date.
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Death of the Slush Pile: Why?
This WSJ article on the death of the slush pile has been getting batted around various blogs this week. One thing I feel like the writer should’ve addressed with more than one sentence is the current economic climate. That’s the real answer to the question: Why is the slush pile being phased out? There’s not enough manpower to read this stuff, and if times were better, I think it’s safe to say there would be. I believe these things go in cycles, and when publishing houses figure out how to reconfigure themselves to make money, more unsolicited work will get attention. There may be more writers than ever, but there are also more readers than ever. I honestly believe that. And so does the Paris Review, apparently. This is why they’re tapping interns and graduate students as readers. If times were better, these interns would be paid.
To add to this article, though, I could also say that, in my experience, editors not reading anything not recommended by agents also extends down a level to agents not reading anything not recommended by agented writers. The point is, it’s always better to know people and make connections to get your foot in the door. But I still believe that if times were better in the publishing industry, the slush would get more attention.
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A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Rick Rofihe sent me a link to the trailer of Wise Blood a few weeks back, and it made me want to read some Flannery O’Connor. I wound up stumbling on the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Man, it creeped me the hell out. Mainly because of the grandmother character and the way she speaks to the cold-blooded serial killer. Something about that whole exchange makes the story that much creepier. It’s just a masterful piece of writing. I’ve seen O’Connor’s stuff called Southern Gothic, and this would probably fall into that realm. Check it out if you get a chance.
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Good Weed in the Lit World
Here, Jacket Copy has their list of top 10 books about marijuana aka “10 Choice Weed Books.” I love that title.
Here, found on a list of how not to be a horrible writer in 2010, “If you have to write about drugs, don’t write about pot. Candy is more interesting than pot is. Knives are almost always cool.”
Maybe the good books on grass have all been written? I can’t say. It seems like the best ones come from the ’60s and before. I’ll read anything by Terry Southern.
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There’s a very interesting essay from last week on the Perils of Fiction, talking about how people we know interpret our fiction. I think this is something that comes up for every writer as soon as he/she has someone else read what they’ve written. In the comments, there’s a good discussion about how much of our real lives actually gets into the fiction we write.
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Writing in trains
Here’s a great article in The Millions about writing while riding the subway. This is how I’ve gotten a lot work done over the past few years. I think, as they’re saying, the main reason is not enough hours in the day. The other is to ward off the solitude at a desk in an apartment someplace. It’s not always ideal—sometimes there’s just too much goin’ on to really write well. But a lot of times, it’s the perfect environment.
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Recent Entries
- Dead Sextons at Europa 2/16
- Interview with Melville House Founders
- Book Trailers
- In This Alone Impulse
- Dead Sextons at Zebulon, 3/17
- Death of the Slush Pile: Why?
- A Good Man Is Hard to Find
- Good Weed in the Lit World
- First Post of the New Decade: Back at The Millions
- Writing in trains
- Kerouac and Don Draper from ‘Mad Men’
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