Meanwhile back in the year one.
As 2009 begins, I find myself channeling Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. I'm not sure why, but I hope it presages more of a "Songs from the Wood" kind of year than an "Aqualung" one for all of us.
In my final column of 2008, I posed the giddily optimistic--under current circumstances--question, "What if it all works out?" Author and marketing wizard M.J. Rose asked if she could reprint it on her great blog, Buzz, Balls & Hype. I said yes, and then discovered that the request triggered a strange sort of nostalgia. I started a blog in the fall of 2004 called Fresh Eyes: A Bookseller's Journal. This was during the Paleolithic era, when there were only a few million instead of a gigazillion blogs roaming the virtual savanna. M.J. was there long before I was, and her request made me wonder what was on my blog mind in January, 2005, when I was still a full-time bookseller and buyer. What follows is a blend of quotation and paraphrase, but since the words are mine, I'll go light on the punctuation:
2005: As a bookseller, I've met people at every level of the so-called publishing pipeline, though of course I spend the bulk of my time with that most elusive of creatures, the reader. I voraciously ingest all news about the business. I often talk with publishing folks by e-mail or in person. I try to read the ever-altering surface of the business the way a sailor reads ripples caused by wind shifts.
I do not feel jaded by the industry, nor do I feel alienated from the publishing world, nor do I think that most publishers and editors are out of touch with the readers I work with every day. I feel weirdly hopeful in the face of every negative bar chart and snarky column, even though I'm a devoted fatalist at heart.
There's a scene in the football movie North Dallas Forty that I often recall whenever I'm thinking about my "place" in the publishing industry. Wide receiver Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) has been summoned a meeting at the corporate, high-rise headquarters of the team's owner, Conrad Hunter Enterprises (Oil, Electronics, Chemicals, Construction, Export-Import, Hotels, etc.).
In the lobby, Elliott is cornered by Mr. Hunter himself, who puts a friendly arm on Phil's shoulder and not-so-subtly reminds him who the fox is in the pecking order of this big biz chicken coop. "Now, Phil, people who confuse brains and luck can get in a whole lot of trouble," Hunter says in a Texas drawl that comes across as both paternal and manipulative. "Seeing through the game is not the same as winning the game."
Seeing through the game is not the same as winning the game.
News about the business of books, whether positive or negative, is crucial and useful, but it's just one ingredient in an extremely complex recipe. Skill is important. Luck is important. Timing is important. Publicity is important. Everything is important.
Some of it can be controlled.
I can't help but see through the game. I still think I can win it. There is a lot of negativity out there. Writers work hard, often for little or no financial reward (so do booksellers; some choices I made, huh?). They've been hurt by rejection and less than aggressive marketing efforts from their publishers. They feel, often justifiably, that they have to do all the work themselves to get their books any attention.
Editors are swamped with manuscripts good and bad, solicited and unsolicited. Sales and publicity departments must handle too many books at once. Bookstore buyers spend hours every day looking at hundreds of titles, reciting a litany that runs something like, "five of those, two of those, no, no, no, one, no, two . . ."
Everybody's buried. Everybody thinks that no one else understands.
We need to understand, however, the positive as well as the negative. I don't think we're all whining. In fact, we're equal parts Pollyanna and Eeyore.
2009: I'll be in New York next week for a few days, and at some point in every conversation I have with people who work in this business, one of us will ask, "What are you reading?"
It's still about the books.
Skating away,
Skating away,
Skating away on the thin ice of a new day.
Tie those laces tight, my friends. Maybe the ice will hold--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)