Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Around the Word

BEA postscripts: The attendance figures for last week's BookExpo America are out, and the numbers were essentially flat compared to 2010 (down less than two percent). Bad omen? Or good news, all things considered? Check out this report from Publisher's Weekly and you be the judge. Once you are done, you can get a full flavor of who was actually there from this fun, witty analysis from Bloomsbury Press publisher Peter Ginna (aka Doctor Syntax) of the cast of characters who regularly populate BEA -- such as the swagaholics, schnittmans, and carrots.

Wanted, dead or alliterative: Last week we learned that the U.S. government has commissioned an intelligence unit to analyze the metaphors used in various languages for terroristic and other tips. This news inspired quite a bit of tittering from across the pond, with Michael Rosen of the Guardian exploring some of the "frightening" conclusions this over-interpretative Metaphor Program could reach to lampoon our spooks. For example, take these famous lines from Wordsworth: "The world is too much for us; late and soon/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers./ Little we see in Nature that is ours." Might the great romantic poet be labeled "anti-bourgeois subversive -- someone who will need to be watched." Or consider Hamlet's well-worn soliloquy or warriorisms ("slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"). "Clearly, Hamlet is a potential terrorist," Rosen writes. "And indeed he was. Or rather tried ineffectually to be. But the writer who conjured him up? Probably not."

How to become a pro at proposals: If you're new to book proposal writing game, or just looking for ways to sharpen your edge, we encourage you to chew on this tough-love post from the staff at Barrett-Koehler Publishers we recently unearthed. Though many writers think they have a great memoir or other nonfiction work to offer, there are some challenging questions you have to ask yourself before developing a viable, compelling pitch and getting it bought. For example: Is this book really needed? Why am I qualified to write this book? How will you actively market your book?

Finding the write quote: Knowing that writers may be the most self-referential beasts on the planet, literary agent Rachelle Gardner has posted a short, snappy guide to great adages about our craft. While some are philosophical -- "Only a mediocre writer is always at his best" (Somerset Maugham) -- others offer insightful practical advice. Take this gem from Kurt Vonnegut: "When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away, even if it's just a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaningless of modern life still have to drink water from time to time."

Friday, May 27, 2011

Around the Word (Catch-up Edition)

Now that we're done with BEA and our big workshop debut, we have been catching up on this week's news from the Word Wide Web. Here's a sampling of the stuff we found worth sharing.

Ditch the dash: Nothing gets writers fired up like vaguely-defined pieces of punctuation. In the latest flare-up in the grammar wars, Slate writer Noreen Malone recently made a full-throated case -- which we have mixed feelings on -- against the em dash. This all-purpose piece of punctuation is often overused, Malone contends, resulting in clunky, confusing sentences. The em dash was famously a favorite of the poet Emily Dickinson, and some literary critics see her use of the em dash as a sign of mental instability. So if you want to avoid writing that reads as crazy, Malone suggests, cut down on the number of em dashes -- though they can be useful at times -- in your prose.

The books of Ruth: The term "best seller" has been affixed to a wide range of novels, from The Grapes of Wrath to Valley of the Dolls to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Is there a common element to these divergent titles? To try to answer that question, writer Ruth Franklin devoted herself to reading more than 50 years worth of chart-toppers -- from the historical fiction of the early 20th century to the scandalous literary fiction of the 1960s to the crime-dominated charts of today. You can find her fascinating findings on Book Forum.

Leading literary locales: Amazon.com just released a list of the top 20 most well-read cities in America. Amazon created their list by compiling magazine, book and Kindle sales by location. Though New York didn't make the list -- maybe we're too busy hanging out at independent bookstores? -- cities from Seattle to Cincinnati to first-place Cambridge, Massachusetts did. And, since Florida is blessed with beach-read season pretty much year round, it was the state with the most cities on the list.

Learn to speak R2D2: Researchers at an Australian lab are deepening our understanding of how language develops by working with robots that have created their own lexicon. According to the BBC, the brilliant bots are programmed to make random sounds to signify locations around the office, name the places, tell other robots about them and play games using the locations. Sounds pretty cool to us, as long as they don't turn evil and we have to rely on Will Smith coming out of his super-sized trailer to save to world.

How to bring brio to your CEO bio: Executive biographies often read like laundry lists of leadership feats. But Ragan writer Russell Working reminds us that they don't have to be boring, offering a passel of tips from PR experts for spicing up this corporate staple. Using quotes, anecdotes and even a little humor can help you create a statement that will showcase your CEO's most likeable attributes and read more smoothly than a stuffy resume.

Call for commencement speeches: Our friend David Murray of Vital Speeches of the Day is compiling exemplary commencement addresses for the August issue of VSOTD. If you have written, read or heard a fantastic speech this graduation season, send your tip to him at vseditor@mcmurry.com by the June 27 deadline.

Ghostwriting Workshop Takeaways (Part II)

In the first installment of our workshop recap yesterday, we broke down the advice from our expert panel (Ellen Neuborne, Jason Ashlock, and Dan Gerstein) on how to go about landing your first ghostwriting client. Today we delve into the logistics of getting down to business and what it takes to build a ghostwriting practice.

Look and Act Like a Pro

Even though you're just beginning to navigate the waters of writing-for-hire, it's essential that you establish yourself as a professional. Writing may be your art, but that's only one half of the project at hand: you're also running a business -- a business for which you're the CEO, marketing department, and administrative assistant all rolled into one. Neuborne estimated she spends about half of her work day writing, and the other half building and managing client relations.

For the freelance ghostwriter, "work day" is a key term. Even if you're working on projects round the clock, Neuborne advised that you make your availability clear to your clients -- and that you make sure your availability isn't 24/7. "I don't give out all my numbers," she said. One business number and one emergency number is plenty, and just because you have three email addresses doesn't mean your clients need them all. Drawing boundaries between your personal life and your professional life helps develop what Neuborne called a "business mindset," and, she added, "people pick up on the vibe."

Similarly, all three panelists were quick to stress the importance of your web presentation. Personal vacation photos and over-sharing blogs may have their place on the Internet, but they definitely shouldn't appear on the page you use to present yourself to potential clients. Any content should be "an extension of your professional self," said Gerstein -- "that means no pictures of your cat."

The Act/Art of Pricing

At some point, you have to have "the talk" with a potential client: how much, exactly, are you going to charge? For better or worse, there's no easy answer. The fee depends on a confluence of considerations: the skill and experience of the ghost, the resources of the client, the scale and scope of the project, and the expected turnaround time, for starters. In other words, it's almost impossible to quote a fair price without first discussing the project details.

What do you say, then, when a prospective client asks you for numbers? The trick, says Gerstein, is to avoid getting too specific too fast -- you don't want to dodge the (perfectly reasonable!) question, but accuracy is key. Once you've tossed out a number, renegotiating tends to breed ill-will, and it's all too easy to find yourself working for less than minimum wage. A simple, direct answer -- something like "I want to get you a realistic quote as soon as possible, but I need to know more; so let's talk about it. . ." -- can help you get the information you need without alienating the client.

The Paper Chase (aka Contracts 101)

Negotiating contracts might not be the most glamorous part of the ghosting gig, but it's an essential piece of the professional puzzle. While Ashlock advocates enlisting an attorney - -or an agent, if you have one -- to look over your standard contract, Neuborne said she's managed just fine drafting solo. Over the years, she's honed in on her contract essentials, though she stressed that the details come down in part to the personal preferences of both the ghost and the client.

Neuborne says she works from two standard agreements, depending on the exact nature of the project. "Some gigs (in which my name will appear on the cover or I have a royalty share in the final book) require a collaboration agreement," she explained. "Some, such as book proposals and other 'work made for hire' arrangements, just need a basic fee-for-services contract." Either way, expectations should be set as clearly as possible from the get-go -- not only what's expected of you, but also what's expected of your client. How long do you have to deliver? How long does your client have to make changes before accepting your draft? How many rounds of revisions are you offering, and on what timeline?

Then, there's the question of pay. Neuborne and Gerstein both recommend breaking up your fee into a series of installments (usually two or three). That offers you some insurance -- if the client is in financial trouble or otherwise unreliable, you'll know before you get in too deep. The contract is also the place where you'll specify at what stage in the process you'll see returns. Do you get a check when the client receives your chapters, for example, or when the client approves them?  For more on contracting basics, Neuborne recommended aspiring ghosts check out her late ASJA collegue Sarah Wernick's website.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Ghostwriting Workshop Takeaways (Part I)

The intro to ghostwriting workshop we co-hosted with ASJA Tuesday night brought together a crowd of more than 40 aspiring ghosts (and a few established pros) at the NYU Journalism Institute, with many others watching the livestream online. We plan to have the video available for download in the next few days if you want to watch the full program on your own time.

But for now, we thought it might be helpful to break down the main takeaways from the discussion, which was led by Gotham President Dan Gerstein and featured master ghostwriter Ellen Neuborne and Movable Type literary agent Jason Ashlock. We'll start today with the expert panel's advice on how win to your first client. Tomorrow we'll get down to the nuts and bolts of establishing yourself as a ghostwriting pro.

Landing Your First Client

Like so much else (exercise regimens, spring cleaning), getting started is the hardest part -- it's the classic "you need experience to get experience" job-hunting conundrum. So how do you establish a ghosting track record? Neuborne, formerly a business reporter at USA Today and Business Week, began her professional ghostwriting career by collaborating with a former source. "That's the way a lot of journalists get into it," she said. Perhaps the simplest and most effective way to drum up business, Neuborne counseled, is to let your professional network know you're setting up shop writing-for-hire. The goal, initially, is to get an anchor client -- someone with a story they want you to help them tell.

As with any business venture, kicking off your ghosting career will have start-up costs. While Neuborne said she's now able to support her own literary projects entirely through ghostwriting, she took a loss on her first few projects. Be prepared, she said, for the first book (and maybe the second) to be a "loss leader" -- at this stage, you're being paid less in cash than in experience and professional credibility.

Once you've got a book -- or two or three -- under your belt, you can start advertising yourself as a "professional ghostwriter." It's a title that's in demand, said Ashlock, who counts finding writers to attach to "established platforms" among his primary duties as an agent. If his first task is to find people with great stories who are well-positioned to sell books (think politicians, reality TV stars, celebrity chefs, etc.), his second task is to find the writers who can guide those stories to paper. Accordingly, agents can be a key source of work for ghosts with bookish ambitions.

A lot of the ghosts Ashlock now works with regularly were already collaborating with author/experts when they first caught his attention. Still, he said, it's possible for an aspiring book ghost to get the attention of an agent without being attached to a pre-existing project. It's even possible before you've got a bibliography of books to your name. Ashlock's main consideration: "What intersection does a potential ghost have with a particular market?" Often, he said, he'll work with a ghost who doesn't have a trail of best-sellers behind them if they have a track record of writing for national audiences about a particular topic and in a particular voice that matches a project he's got percolating. In other words: along with a healthy dose of serendipity, a strong package of targeted clips delivered at the right time can be enough to win a first gig.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Kardashian Name Game

As you may have noticed, we have been taking a brief break from our regular perusing of the Word Wide Web while we've been preparing for our free workshop Tuesday night and attending BEA. But we felt we had no choice but to interrupt our interlude when we saw the following, too-good-to-be-bad headline on Publishers Marketplace this afternoon:

The Kardashians Are "Writing" A Novel, Together, and Fans Can Help Title It

We were not sure what was more shocking/amusing about this news -- that the first sisters of reality TV were being paid handsomely to pen a piece of fiction, or that they were inviting the Twitterverse to submit names for the book as part of a contest (first prize is a "walk-on role" in the novel). Who knew these special K's were as gluttonous for punishment as they are for attention generally?

If you'd like to enter, here are the instructions provided by the publisher:
Follow @HarperCollins.
Tweet your 2- or 3-word title suggestion in ALL CAPS.
Use the hashtag #TitleMeK.
(Deadline is May 27 at 12 noon)
We literally can't wait to keep up with the comedic entries this will inspire. So we invite our friends to chime in with their suggestions in the comments section below. We'll get the ball rolling with Gotham President Dan Gerstein's blue ribbon submission: FROM HERE TO PATERNITY.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Around the Word

Book biz breakthroughs: In case you were unplugged over the weekend, the publishing industry got quite a 1-2 punch of news heading into this week's BEA extravaganza. First, Amazon reported on Thursday that e-books have outsold print books on its site for the first time ever. Though analysts are quick to caution that e-books still make up a relatively small share of the market (around 14 percent), this is sure to add to the digital buzz already surrounding BEA. Second, Liberty Media announced a $1 billion offer to buy book giant Barnes & Noble. Though its taken the booksellers more than a year to find a buyer, analysts at the Wall Street Journal attribute the beefy buyout to B&N's significant share of the e-book market. Is a Kindle-Nook battle royale on the horizon?

Change you can believe in: With the publishing industry's e-volution accelerating on a daily basis, Men With Pens blogger Vangile Makwakwa today suggests that writers should be asking themselves what they can/need to do to adapt and keep pace. Among her tips: Reconnect with your personal mission, acquire new skills and surround yourself with writers you admire.

Best Indie Books of the Year: The Independent Publisher Book Awards recently announced the winners of their 2011 IPPY Award gold medals, honoring 13 books out of 4,000 entries. Prize categories included: Most Outstanding Design, Most Inspirational to Youth, Most Original Concept, and (our favorite), Most Likely to Save the Planet. You can find the full list of winners here.

You don't say: Our early favorite for the word nerd list of the year is a throwback -- a compilation of "Words We Don't Say" that New York magazine editor Kurt Andersen posted Luther-ian fashion on an office bulletin board before being fired in 1997. The document was recently rediscovered by Andersen's successor, Hugo Lindgren, and republished on the 6th Floor Blog of the New York Times Magazine (which Lindgren now runs). Reflecting on his unwitting inheritance, Lindgren said that it is "still a pretty useful list of phoney-baloney vocabulary that editors are well advised to excise from their stories." Some of the proscribed bits of pretension: "queried,""fin de siecle," "duo," and "zeitgeist." Take a look for yourself and let us know if you think any of Andersen's cross-offs were off-base.

REMINDER: How To Break Into Ghostwriting Workshop on Tuesday

Calling all aspiring ghosts. . . . We hope you can join us for the free workshop we are co-hosting Tuesday night with ASJA on how to get into the ghostwriting game.
 
We will be meeting at the NYU Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Square (at East 5th Street), on the 7th Floor. The discussion will start at 6 p.m. and run until 7:30. Snacks and drinks will be served.

For those of you who would like to watch online, ASJA will be livestreaming the workshop on their site. You can find the link at: http://www.asja.org/calendar/calendar.php