Category Archives: Lauren

January 25, 2013   Lauren   Lauren, reading  
5

Phases

A conversation Jim and I were having got me thinking about literary phases: he mentioned how much nonfiction he’d been reading lately, and it made me think how little nonfiction I’ve been reading lately.  Last year, my personal reading was all about YA—sure, I read other things, but the list was disproportionately skewed toward realistic fiction for teens.  On thinking about this, I’ve realized that I don’t so much have broad personal reading interests, but rotating interests.  Thinking back, in college I read every chick lit book there was till I came across one I couldn’t finish, and then I started in on literary Brit lit of the 80s and 90s.  But when I went one Amis novel too far, I switched off to lengthy magazine articles and didn’t pick up a book till I came across something impenetrable there.  This is apparently my reading personality, and it’s not unlike the way I consume music, television, and movies.  (I have a terrible habit of first seeing an actor whose work I enjoy and then watching their entire IMDB page in a short span of time, till I can’t stand to see their face.  Let me tell you, there are precious few actors whose output is always worth seeing.)  And it’s likewise true of genres, but there’s no call for turning my back (temporarily) every time I’m disappointed.  Intellectually I know that my love or hate for one book has no bearing on its competitor, but apparently when it comes to something as ethereal as what I’m in the mood for, an exciting novel or dreary tome dictates what will come next.  Now that I realize this, I wonder if I can counterprogram it—try to let that love spill and enthusiasm over into a new genre, or push forward in one in which I’m under-read despite what came before.

So I think I need to get some more narrative nonfiction on my to do read pile, and maybe I should spice things up with a thriller or two.  Any suggestions?

December 14, 2012   Lauren   holidays, Lauren, subsidiary rights, what we're looking for  
3

All I Want for Christmas

In honor of the holidays, I thought I’d share with you my Christmas wish list:

  • A universal territory schedule: If you have a book deal in English, you might’ve seen a long list of countries in the back of your contract, often labeled Schedule A.  That’s the territory schedule, my nemesis.  You see, the world gets carved up into blocks by the publishers buying rights, so there are a variety of territories you can sell, most often World (which includes translation rights as well), World English, US/Canada, or UK & Commonwealth.  Anything excluded from that is either reserved to the author, licensed exclusively to a second publisher, or part of the Open Market, which is primarily the world’s non-English-speaking countries, where US and UK publishers are typically free to distribute competing editions.  Sounds simple enough, right?

Except that apparently we can’t just agree that when we said UK & Commonwealth, we meant, you know, UK & Commonwealth.  There are the most common exceptions, like Commonwealth Canada going on over to the US side and non-Commonwealth Ireland getting grouped in on the UK side, for proximity reasons.  And then there are the many inane fights I have every year about whether Malaysia is Open Market or Commonwealth.  Hey, guess what debate is easily settled by the Commonwealth of Nations website?  (Fortunately we’re not believers in granting exclusive Europe to UK publishers, because otherwise I’d have to add “Israel is not in Europe” to my list of regular grievances.  This isn’t Eurovision or UEFA, my friends.)  And yet, we must argue these things all the time.  If you want to fight with me about whether or not you should get to sell books in Tristan da Cunha, I need you to fly me there and show me your distribution chain.  I will then contemplate your argument for several days on the beach and get back to you when I’ve decided.  Alternatively, I’d accept a Universal Schedule A that all of us in publishing agree to now, so we can stop having this conversation ad nauseam.  Then anyone who wants to pretend South Africa’s not a Commonwealth country or Iran is will have to say so, up front, when making their offer.

  •  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Popular science and interdisciplinary nonfiction.
  •  Mandatory naptime.  Look, I work in foreign rights, and it’s really important for me to be in tune with cultural differences.  So I’m going to start taking siestas.  I really think it’s going to do amazing things for our list in Spain.
  •  A robot that can be programmed to clear up my office clutter to my exact specifications each night when I leave, because I am very very particular, very very busy, and very very sick of tripping over the books that I knock on the ground each day.
  •  A wall-sized magnetic world map and teensy tiny book cover magnets so that when I sell a book, I can put it in the appropriate country, because how cool would that be?
  •  Peace on Earth, good will towards men.
  •  My two front teeth*
  •  You**

 

*Worst Christmas song ever?

**Best Christmas song ever.

November 30, 2012   Lauren   fun, Lauren, reading, recommendations, why we are agents  
8

Busman’s holiday

Last night, I had a meeting with my book club (not to be confused with DGLM book club, which meets next week).  On the subway home, I was thinking how much fun it had been to leave work and drink wine and talk about books.  The great thing is that while last night was for fun, it’s often my job to leave work and drink wine and talk about books.  At my lunch meeting yesterday (no wine, since publishing’s moved on from the drinking lunch, sadly), we talked about our own lists and a novel I’m shopping that I think this editor will love (now on submission to her, so fingers crossed!).  We also chatted extensively about books we’d read and loved that have nothing to do with either of our companies, which is pretty much what happens when I get together with friends as well.  Sometimes my personal life and my professional life are similar in the best possible ways.

Reflecting on this brought to mind the debate those of us in publishing go through before every long weekend or vacation: work reading or pleasure reading or both?  We breathlessly discuss which books we’re taking on our vacations.  There’s intense analysis of the towering To Read piles and lengthy lists—what to bring?  How many?  E-reader or hard copy or both?  What are you reading?  Which of these did you like more?  Should I bring some manuscripts or put all work aside?

I can’t recall ever hearing someone in publishing say, “I can’t wait for vacation!  I’m not going to read anything.”  A total vacation from publishing means cramming your suitcase with a huge stack of books that you don’t have a vested interest in, not taking a break from books.

It occurs to me that publishing is an industry all about the busman’s holiday. Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Any suggestions for what to cram into my suitcase for my vacation next month?

November 16, 2012   DG&B   fun, holidays, Lauren  
2

Gratitude

I think I’ve used the word grateful more in the last few weeks than in the previous year combined.  It’s not just Thanksgiving just around the corner, but the many discussions centering around how the city is doing in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  With gratitude on my mind, I hope you’ll all forgive a Thanksgiving post just a bit early.

I’m thankful for:

Living on high ground.  Being fortunate enough to be spared damage when others aren’t.  The fact that I have people in my life who’d be able to help me out and take me in if I hadn’t been.  Working with people whose emails didn’t say, “I need to hear back from you on this,” but instead “I hope everything is okay for you.” and “I know that you’re probably catching up right now, so no rush.”

The stellar year that DGLM is having.  Especially the clients that make that possible.  I can hardly keep up with the best of list appearances and readers’ choice awards for our clients!  And while we’re the kind of busy that makes our heads spin, that’s the kind of busy that pays the bills, too.  All that and I get to be proud of what I do and excited about what I get to read.

My colleagues, who challenge and inform and entertain me daily.  Jane’s vision in pushing us all to see change as opportunity rather than threat.  The fact that the same incredible team that was the agency when I began is with the agency now, more than seven years on.  And the fact that even now they still answer my questions without much complaint.

An industry that’s got it’s fair number of challenges, but is still full of vibrant, intelligent, creative, exciting people.

My family–it’s not been the easiest year for them all, but they handle it with grace and they’re still intact, in spite of everything.  My sister and her family moving back to New York State from Puerto Rico.  I’m sad that we never made it to the bioluminescent bay, but I’m really looking forward to harassing my nephews in person on a more regular basis.  The fact that my nephews aren’t old enough to be sick of me yet.

The fact that you all are for some crazy reason bothering to read what I write.  Thanks, everyone!

October 05, 2012   Lauren   e-books, fun, future of publishing, Lauren  
8

Infographic to the rescue!

This week (month? year?) has been a whirlwind of much very good news and happy business, but with my brain in nonstop to-do-list-conquering mode, I’ve been struggling to come up with a good blog topic in between phone calls, emails, and contracts.  Happily the good people of Publishers Weekly sent me a blog topic in my email as if to say, “Don’t worry, Lauren!  It’s Friday, and people love infographics.”  (Thanks, PW!)

This visual distillation of some of the key e-book findings of Aptara’s 4th Annual eBook Survey of Publishers has some interesting information to tell us.  It also raises some questions:

Who are these 1 out of 5 publishers who do not produce e-books?

And of the 31% producing enhanced e-books, how many are producing enough that we’d notice?  I’m assuming just one counts as a yes.

Only 44% of publishers report that Amazon is their most lucrative sales channel?  This is surprising to me.  More surprising?  The publishers’ own websites being in second place.  Even distant second, I’d never have guessed that.

And why do publishers prefer the iPad as an e-reading device?

 

What questions does it raise for you?  And have you actually bought e-books directly from a publisher website?

September 07, 2012   Lauren   holidays, Lauren, reading, recommendations  
2

Choice

Today, my friends, is a very important day!  It’s my sister’s birthday.  Well, ok, it’s also National Buy a Book Day.  I will admit I don’t know much about the organization behind it, but I think we all get the gist.

So now we are left with a difficult choice:  what to buy.  I’m going to head to the store on my way home to pick something up, but I’m not sure what it should be.  I’m currently reading Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers (for DGLM bookclub) and then need to start Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife (for my personal bookclub).  There are at least 18 million books on the TBR pile at home, plus the bookshelves, plus the bookcases behind me right here at the office.  And that’s not even counting the things I’m reading for professional reasons.  But I can’t just not buy a book on National Buy a Book Day.  I’d be letting down the nation!

Conveniently, I polled friends earlier this week on how they choose books, which might help me decide.  The two smartest people I know more or less say they read whatever I tell them to.  There’s one vote for genre.  One for reading free samples on her e-reader.  One for free e-books.  One for bookclub.  One sarcastic and one serious vote for judging a book by its cover (along with a vote for those books that are faced out on the shelves).  One for random book reviews.  One for the literary press/blogosphere.  Interestingly, no one said bestseller lists, though I’m sure that’s a factor for many.

Though my friend Chuck didn’t weigh in on the poll, he shared this parody video for “Call Me Maybe” (you don’t know how much it’s hurting me not to throw a comma in there) from Open Books bookstore in Chicago, which sounds like a pretty great organization dedicated to literacy.  The video seems to advocate choosing books by staring at people reading print editions on public transportation, so that’s an option, too:

So I think that does it: I can’t just tell me what to read without knowing the answer first.  I like to read across genres.  I don’t ever feel like I have time for free samples and feel obligated to buy books to support my industry.  I already have my next two bookclub books at home.  I don’t have time between now and leaving to wander through reviews and the literary press.  Covers might work, but we all know what they say about that.  And I have to buy the book before I get on the subway.  So I’m just going to go ahead and buy the book the video recommends at the end—I’ve been thinking about it anyway, considering how the publishing community on Twitter has been raving about it.

So…what are you buying today?  And how’d you pick?

August 24, 2012   Lauren   gratitude, Lauren, opinion  
22

Acknowledged

First, let me confess:  before I worked in publishing, I’m pretty sure I’d never read the acknowledgments in any book.  Now that I do, I read them only to see who edited the book and who sold it.  I’ve long assumed, actually, that acknowledgments are read almost exclusively by the people who think they might spot their names.  (And I while I admit that is vain, I have done multiple tours of the bookstores I worked at in college and grad school to revel in the glory of my name being in the books I’d once have been shelving.)  Why would anyone else even read them?*

Well apparently Sam Sacks does.  And he’s none too pleased about it over at The New Yorker‘s Page-Turner blog (link via @BookCourt).  He sees them as a symptom of the relentless buzz of promotion and self-promotion that swirls around publishing and makes a plea for them not to sully the books themselves.  I think there’s certainly an argument to be made that they’re silly and superfluous, but I’ve never thought they did the book or reader any damage.  They’re pretty easily avoided, in fact.

So, am I wrong?  Do you hungrily devour authors’ thank yous?  Or hate them with a fiery passion?

 

*My friend Rebecca recently said that they’re like the commentary tracks on DVDs, which is a delightful way to think of them, but I’d guess more people listen to those than read acknowledgments anyway.

 

July 13, 2012   Lauren   Lauren, queries, what we're looking for  
7

Calling all queriers!

As rights director for the agency, I’m grateful for the freedom to both work on subrights and maintain my own small client list. I love subrights—the nuances of various markets are really fascinating to me, and it’s amazing to be able to call up an author to tell them people in a country they barely know exists want to read their book—but it’s also exciting to be able to shepherd authors on my own list through all stages of their career.  I’ve been really happy of late to be extremely excited by what I’m reading, both published and looking to be published, and it’s really helped me narrow down what I am, right now, most interested in seeing more of.  So without further ado:

 

  • The thing I’ve always wanted, but rarely found, is popular science.  I am a science nerd but also easily confused by it, and my brain shuts down when things get too tricky.  My litmus test for pop sci is: Am I excited about this?  Do I know what I’m excited about?  If you’ve got the project that can get me to say yes on both of these, please, please, please send it my way.
  • I’m likewise interested in pop psychology—if you’ve got the credentials and the voice to talk about why our brains do what they do, I want in.
  • Beyond our own minds, I’m interested in the world at large.  I’m always on the look out for accessible, important, well credentialed reportage.
  • As I think so many of us are, I’m also looking for those books that are nebulously described as “Big Think” or “like Malcolm Gladwell.”  One of the things that I’ve always wanted to be able to do better is to draw together insights from different facets of life to put things into context, so I love interdisciplinary nonfiction that makes me think in ways I would never have come up with myself.
  • I have also been looking for a long time for some serious but irreverent cultural study of the internet age—I’m endlessly fascinated by the politics of online communities, the way people interact online, the strange ways that social networks transform our thoughts and speech, the impact of the digital age on how we integrate perhaps unreliable information, etc.  Someone with the vision to unpack all of that in an engaging and relatable way would be very welcome on my list.
  • And on a similar note, I’m always fond of treatments of pop culture that take things just shy of too seriously.  There’s nothing I love more than nerdy obsessiveness with things that theoretically don’t matter, but can give us insight into the world if given their due.
  • Of course, I’m also still looking for fiction, which I do get a ton of queries for, running pretty much the full span of genres, which I appreciate.  Right now the two things I don’t think I’m seeing as much of as I’d like are middle grade adventure and grounded YA.  As with anything else, I’m looking for something that’s got the whole package, whether commercial or literary:  voice, characters, and plot.  Why settle for one when you can have all three?  And I remain a sucker for an exquisitely executed sentence.

 

So writers, start your query engines.  I’ll be waiting for you at labramo@dystel.com.  (Personal preferences:  Email queries, please, with the query in the body of the email, sample material in an attachment, in Word if at all possible.)

June 29, 2012   Lauren   Lauren, opinion, writing  
9

What are you in this for?

One of the pieces lighting up the publishing internet this week is Corinne Purtill’s confession in Salon that the book she wrote should really not have been written.  Essentially, she realizes that she wrote her book for all the wrong reasons, and the fact that it didn’t sell was because it ought not to have:  she was writing a book not because she loves to write, but because she’d like to be an author.  She eventually faced reality: “One of the most sobering realizations of this experience was that for most of that time I was not working because I was an artist who must write or die, or because I was a crusading journalist who saw truth and needed to tell it. I was a self-absorbed striver reaching for another brass ring, and I used words as the best way to get there.”

 

Reading this really resonated for me on a personal level: from childhood writing aspirations that boiled down to wanting to be told I was smart, through my brief pre-law stint in college because I had declared that I would be a lawyer when I was 11 and hadn’t yet bothered to think about it more thoroughly, to the MA I got en route to a PhD I wanted to have but would never have enjoyed acquiring.  There’s nothing wrong with aspiration, surely.  It annoys me when anyone uses the word ambitious as a slur, as if that was a thing one should be ashamed to be.  And yet, I think we need to be honest with ourselves about why we do the things we do.  If you do not love the means to the greatness you hope to achieve, why put yourself through it?  The higher you aim, the worse the odds, so you really have to be sure that you’re in it for the right reasons even if also for the self-aggrandizing ones, just in case all you get out of it is the enjoyment and personal sense of accomplishment.

 

Of course the more you love your work, the more passionate you are, the harder it is to take the more painful aspects of publishing’s realities (rejection, bad reviews, poor sales, etc).   But in the end, whatever may come of publishing as distinct from writing, you have the fact that you are a writer, that the process matters and engages and invigorates you.  There’s tremendous value in that.

June 15, 2012   Lauren   fun, genre, Lauren, opinion, reading  
5

Diversity

One of the greatest things that publishing has done for me (besides pay my rent, for which my landlord is surely grateful!) is broaden my horizons dramatically.  As the DGLM old guard will surely attest, I showed up here as a huge snob, albeit a snob without much love for the classics.  This meant, as you might imagine, there wasn’t much variety in the books that I enjoyed.  Much of the advice I received when I started here was along the lines of “Get over yourself” because of my great wiser-than-thou proclamations on what was just not good enough for me.  It’s actually a testament to his restraint that Jim has never punched me in the face, actually.  I was insufferable.

 

But more than that, I was wrong.  Holding books to a high standard is important, and I still do it, but it took me a while to recognize that books don’t all have to serve the same purpose to be worthy.  Now I’m lucky that when I found myself in Barnes & Noble yesterday, where I’d gone for a magazine but needed to buy a book to hold to my 2012 rule about not walking out of any bookstore without a new book in my bag, I felt like I had all the choices in the world.  Ultimately I was weighing my options between a book of critical cultural essays and young adult historical fiction—a debate that took me about 7 minutes of standing thoughtfully near an escalator, deciding whether to go up or down a floor.  But I could just as easily picked up a new paranormal romance or thriller, or a sports book or political polemic.  That’s the great thing about books—whatever experience you’re looking for, there’s always different book to turn to.

 

Working in publishing, particularly as an agent, I find I sometimes forget that not all readers read this way.  When selecting a book for the book club I started with friends, several people decided to bow out based on the choice, because it’s not their kind of thing.  It startled me to realize that I’m not the kind of person who’d feel that way anymore—if it wasn’t my kind of thing, I’d want the social pressure to read it and experience something new.  I might still have my tastes and preferences, but I’m now someone who is always willing to give a book a shot.

 

What about you?  Do you stick to what you know you love (because, frankly, whatever the category you’re unlikely to run out of books!) or branch out?  Do you love books across genres and categories or prefer to stick to one or two?  And if you’re a writer, how do you think the diversity or lack thereof in what you read impacts your writing?


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