Wellington Leg: Big time publishing entered the celebrity sweepstakes years ago slipping through a side door of the entertainment industry by fawning, flattering, and finally begging the doorman to let them in. Perhaps uneasy in silk shirts and gold chains publishing execs kept an emergency supply of tattered cardigans on hand in case a blogger sank its teeth into the bling and began to chew. You know how that hurts.
It’s More Fun to be a Rapper: The seminal error of the publishers was to focus on the author rather than the work. Like many mistakes this seems harmless enough in isolation but we’ve moved beyond marketing and promotion into a mad search for It Girls and Boys who have star quality. They look good. They sound good. Non Fiction publishers have the added twist that their authors squandered fortunes, ruined lives, eroded property values but they’re all better now and they look good. We can learn from this lesson from their tales: before you destroy your life and the lives of those around you, build a platform. Nothing’s more tawdry than the decline and fall of the weatherman.
Et tu, Fiction? Writers of fiction are notoriously unkempt. We mumble and blink a lot. Few of us are telegenic. Faced with this dilemma the industry created the fake memoir, a hybrid in the commercial tradition of cable television. This is based on a true story. Really, honest, I swear. One shot at Oprah, that’s all I ask. I inhaled exhaust fumes from a Buick Six writing this damned thing.
Promoting the author is the core of the Industry Belief System. The flaws in this approach are many and may prove ultimately fatal to the big guys in New York. Why? Even if the title breaks out follow up is tough. After all how many trips to rehab involve book length drama, crazed and vengeful relatives, long walks off short piers? The answer is one. One and you’re done. Your second book a novelized version of your memoir and your third book will never be written.
I would be more optimistic about the traditional publishing business if I am wrong about this and refocus on the work being presented. Can they? Sure they can, they still do on the margins of the business. Will they redeploy their resources, that’s the real question.
Archive for January, 2009
Praise the Work Ignore the Author
Monday, January 26th, 2009Sorry, We’re Out of Fiction
Friday, January 23rd, 2009Wellington Leg: Engineers at the towne’s primary public utility have turned off the fiction pipeline as a precaution, a spokesperson said. Wellington Industrial Gases has taken over the business of fiction publishing from a dozen defunct publishers. “According to the New York Times we’ve seen a surge in fiction reading,” said chief engineer Boris Morris. “We performed hydrostatic testing at several points along the fiction pipeline and decided to shut it down.” Regular readers may recall that Boris Morris served time for plagiarism a common form of industrial espionage.
Back Ups? With fiction supplies dwindling even as demand spikes Wellington Industrial Gases dispatched riders to the fog shrouded estate of the forty third earl. While 43 snoozed in his hammock the entire household was “thrown into a great confusion.” Quick thinking on the part of embittered dogsbody and memoir maven Urquhart Depew saved the day. “Tell 43 that the pizza guy is here,” he said.
Crisis of Confidence: After a post nap repast 43 mounted his steed and led the charge to the very spot where the fiction gusher lanced skyward above the shattered pipeline. Despite a heavy rain of chick lit and post modernist woe 43 donned his mail shirt and catchers mask before wading into the fray.
Blizzard Conditions: This section is narrated by eye witness Tuffy Tuffington: I’m standing on Boris’ shoulders to command a better view: from our vantage point we see the well head and the figure eight formation of pipelines labeled Current Fiction, Midllist, Funny, Unfunny, Fake Memoirs and Pulp fiction. The earl, or 43 as we call him these days, is armed only with classical appreciation classes and a blowtorch. Whoa, that’s a huge flare of escaping fiction! I think he’s found the bottleneck…it looks like a non-fiction book blocking the way.
Run for your lives.
It’s Ann Coulter!
Literary Beauty Tips
Saturday, January 17th, 2009Great Puffinghammer: Not far from the forty third earl’s country estate is the famous garage where he first conceived the idea that Voltaire was alive and well living the simple life as a Volvo mechanic. From these humble beginnings and without benefit of HTML, 43 labored into the night on his masterpiece Voltaire’s Miasma. “We now know that the Great Plague was caused by religious heresy and ground fog,” 43 writes. “The density of the former conspired with the quantum thickness of low lying clouds; now, therefore, we can conclude that wind power is the cure for the plague, wind and gushing prose are the pathways to healthe.”
Freshening Breezes: To achieve literary greatness one must endure windy conditions. “The gushing of the prose will occur after numerous tests of patience and endurance,” 43 notes. “Thus I withdrew to the atelier’s peaked roof to compleat my masterwork.”
Editor’s note: This may be a reference to 43′s captivity in a chimney. Despite the Guinness people’s studied indifference few can argue with the notion that 88 days in a Santa suit is a world’s record.
If You Don’t Look Good, We Don’t Feel the Burn: Few have mastered authorial deprivation as well as 43 who now looks back to his garage days as the happiest of times. “With Lars replacing timing belts and bent rods and the steady hum of volcanic activity I found the ideale locale to put pen to paper while committing to beautifying authors everywhere.”
A Jar of Polish: “After compleating a first draft 43 then applies the Earl’s Own Prose Polisher and Defoliator.” Spread liberally over the pages this amazing substance renders a first draft into a finished product while moisturizing too!”
Editor’s Note: This assumes a few things: one, the first draft is typed. Don’t try this with handwritten work as the result often resembles finger painting.
NB: Lars is Lars Kierkegaard, Publicist of Doom. Regular readers will recall 43′s ill-fated author tour with Lars behind the wheel. They threw a rod while evading Roman skirmishers near Roseburg, Oregon.
This article fell into a vat of the Earl’s Own and was lost to posterity.
Hats Off: Josh Bezell, Norman Green
Thursday, January 15th, 2009Wellington Leg: Beat the Reaper is Josh Bezell’s debut novel from Little Brown. Yes, the editor is Reagan Arthur. I mention that because since October you’ve come looking for her in unprecedented waves of curiosity; probably a delayed reaction to the financial collapse since Ben Bernanke and Lederhosen are frequent searches too. Can the Federal Reserve expand its balance sheet to infinity? That’s where the Lederhosen will prove invaluable, a firewall against future inflation.
Tweeking the Zeitgeist: Beat the Reaper is appalling fun and you’ll be ashamed of yourselves for enjoying it ( sorry for the Jesuitical interpretation of pleasure.) As they say in the show, the dude can bring it, all footnoted for anatomical reference. The cover art screams graphic novel probably designed to attract wayward youth to the joys of vivisection. Paced like an episode of 24 the novel travels between the here and now and a startling past. After reading this novel you’ll never be sick again or, if you are unwell, you won’t mention it.
I’d like to watch Newt Gingrich read Beat the Reaper. For a few minutes anyway.
The Last Gig by Norman Green. Published by St. Martins Press. Another quality read this one features Alessandra Martillo a Repo Woman from Brownsville, one part waif, one part ninja Al manages to survive in a violent business with street smarts run wild. In lesser hands this might be a cartoon but author Green is better than that, better than most at rendering the ultimate hopelessness of living Al’s life. This is a serious work with shades of Daniel Judson, Jonathan Lethem, hell, Charles Dickens. Green isn’t giving the genre tropes the high hat he simply makes them more interesting with his admirable restraint.
Things We Need, Things We Don’t
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009Wellington Leg: Life stops when the job is lost. Before it starts again a period of uncertainty brings about enough reflection to alter a few habits, discard some junk, scale down the activity level. Economists talk about the velocity of money, how fast it moves when times are good. That money has slowed to a crawl is part of the reflective process, the opposite of impulse buying. Money is scarce, sticking to the fingers of whoever has it, reallocated by instinct or formal plan to the basic necessities.
There is less traffic. Like the measles or chicken pox most recessions are waning by the time they are recognized. This time is different because our naked emperor is running down Wall Street with peasants and pitchforks in hot pursuit; hey, those scars on the limestone are from the riots in the Twenties. Where are the Pinkertons for crying out loud? Whatever happened to irrational exuberance? That was fun, by the way.
Maybe the Population is Reading After All: After all the analysis it turns out that people are reading more fiction. They’re eating fried baloney sandwiches and Velveeta a substance not native to this earth. We’re doing all kinds of crazy things. Grab a book and a pitchfork. Get down tonight.
NYT Calls It: Poets To Blame
Monday, January 5th, 2009Wellington Leg: As surely as Friday night bends before Monday morning the New York Times can be relied upon to clarify the most confusing crisis in recent publishing history, Motoko Rich writing in the January 5th edition has an article entitled Puttin’ Off the Ritz: The New Austerity in Publishing. My first thoughts? Do the kids understand Putting on the Ritz? Will people in Alaska think the article is about Vladimir Putin? Did the Times merge with Mad Magazine? Let’s tackle the small issues first.
Webcam vs. Flying to posh resort. Scary, but not Death Race scary. Annual sales meetings are held by telephone until dad gets the phone bill. Some IT wanker will be summarily fired; the party will be held in a bar on Jane Street. After that it’s back to the Coronado for a Billy Wilder retrospective.
Relentless string of recycled headlines: IT wankers fired en masse. No more bicycle messengers and take the subway unless it’s raining or something. This means you.
Binky Steals the Show: Amanda Urban who represents Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison cuts the problem to the quick with this observation: “Books can only support a certain retail price,” she said. “It’s not like you can have books that can be Manolo Blahniks and books that can be Cole Haan. Books are books. A book by James Patterson costs the same as a book by some poet.” The italics belong to me, yo. Even if armed with a minimal knowledge of shoes you can see where Ms. Urban is going here: James Patterson and some poet? What is this Soviet Russia? Someone might point out that a painting by Goya costs the same as a sprayer compressor. Who would you want painting your apartment?
Poetry Prices Remain Stubbornly High: Like the Times and the Wall Street Journal I take a dim view of stagflation. The solution? Let’s send these poets some chin music. With Borders struggling and midtown restaurants empty let’s show the poets what deep discounting really means.
Adventure!
Sunday, January 4th, 2009Great Wellington Bog: Since our cliffhanger ending revealed nothing Mrs. Forest Forthetrees of Hugging Stalin Way writes to ask: “Is the forty third earl all right? How far can one man roll?”
Fourteen Statute Miles: Due to budget cuts and massive layoffs The Druidical & Literary can no longer verify news items. With that in mind we can report that 43 rolled from Wellington Aerodrome to Oslo, Norway, a distance of five thousand eight hundred nautical miles. Since Norway and the Dowager Princess remain locked in a diplomatic feud over North Sea oil the immediate outlook is unfavorable. Armed only with a snippet from a recent manuscript 43 faces the full fury of Norwegian literary criticism.
Our Newest Feature: This saga is the perfect lead in for our new series Adventure! Legians are invited to share their stories of encounters with prehistoric beasts, angry clerks, hedge fund managers, or gun toting conservative commentators! One local resident claims to have been Blago’s Hair Stylist on the gritty streets of Chicago.
“I had just finished Blago’s haircut when I realized it had grown back in! That’s when gun-toting Tush Rimbaugh came on the radio to report Klatu’s arrival in suburban DC. Blago gave me a tip…so I rushed out to buy the Chicago Tribune’s editorial staff before I realized I only had a nickel.” Mister Don of Rising Care and Woe.
Mister Don is the winner of this week’s Adventure!
T. Rex Love-Handles reporting.
Carta Blanca
Friday, January 2nd, 2009Wellington Aerodrome: I’m standing near the fog enshrouded departure apron at Wellington Aerodrome. Not far from the entrance a man in a fedora is kissing a woman while a Vichy official looks on. A small plane idles on the tarmac; yes, it’s the beginning of the earl’s author tour. The man of the hour is seated atop a stack of steamer trunks…I think he’s dozed off.
From Goth to Henley Hornbrook: 43′s tour will take him north to Goth where he first achieved fame in the overflow parking lot adjacent to COSTCO. Few can forget how he drove back three Roman legions by simply reading aloud from his seminal work Voltaire’s Miasma. 43 returned to Wellington Leg a hero, with MIssion Accomplished emblazoned on his customized Wellbryd.
Layoffs Looming: In an ironic note security will be provided by Roman soldiers made redundant in November’s massive layoffs. That’s why the Tower is festooned with Latin phrases pilots can’t read. After landing his homemade three wheeler and taxiing to a halt local air freight hauler Wendell Wilkie waved his copy of Caesar’s Conquest. “I thought Gaul was divided into three parts,” he complained. “Now it’s only two.”
43 Awakens: As Wendell refueled the forty third earl rolled off the steamer trunks, down the taxi way and onto the active runway. The famed north south runway can receive aeroplanes larger than oxen according to the Aerodrome’s breathless brochure. “Save the earl,” someone cried, but there was little enthusiasm as he rolled on before disappearing onto the Tenth tee of the exclusive Netherly Hills Country Club.
The man kissing the blond shakes hands with the Vichy official, claps Wendell on the back and says,”Fly her out of here.”
At this writing the fate of 43′s author tour in unclear. This is cub reporter Tuffy Tuffington covering the literary beat.