Category Archives: Lauren

January 13, 2012   Lauren   Barnes and Noble, e-books, independent bookstores, Lauren, retailers, selling  
24

Bricks and mortar (and Lego Men)

I’ve gone on the record here a number of times about my pro-bookstore bias, so I won’t go into it again, but let me start by saying this isn’t a physical vs. digital post.  For now at least, we can all agree that physical bookstores exist, and there are people who still wish to patronize them.  I am one of those people, but I respect that there are people who have other preferences.

I wandered around the B&N behemoth at the top of Union Square the other day and thought about the ways that stores innovate in what are not the easiest times.  As I passed the sizable Lego section of the store on the escalator (and glanced down at the enormous book-reading Lego Men that I’d strongly consider purchasing if they were for sale), I realized that it’s well past the time that I cringed in response to non-book space in the store.  Don’t get me wrong: when that particular store expanded their Nook…nook, I was very happy they found space from the DVD/music area and not the bookshelves.  But even when I forced myself, I found I was happy that people who might not go out of their way to buy books have to pass tons of books on their way over to build at the Lego table.  What use are shelves and shelves and shelves of books that will be returned if no one goes into the store to buy them, after all?  However complex the economics, eyes on books seems better than not.

Over the years, we’ve seen stores adding cafés and media and toys and games.  We’ve seen stores try to find a home for themselves in a world of e-books with things like the Nook and the customized e-book shelf talkers that Melville House offers indies, as recently reported by Laura Miller in Salon.  When I worked at B&N, the store I was in had recently begun an events program (which was nothing new in general, but it’d previously been deemed too small to find the space for them), with signings, readings, story time and writing groups.  Whatever the results may be in this time of great change for the industry, I’m pleased any time I see that a piece of the intricate publishing ecosystem won’t go down without a fight (so long as it’s not at the expense of authors, of course—the rest of us are nothing without them).

For those of you who sometimes shop in physical bookstores, what do you see stores doing in a bid for survival?  Any great ideas that you think should be adopted more widely?  Any ideas you wish they’d try?

December 16, 2011   Lauren   fun, interns, Lauren, why we are agents  
0

I didn’t know it would be so complicated

Having just returned to my desk from a heartbreaking session of “Lauren takes 25 minutes to do math she could’ve done in 2 minutes when she was 12,” I’m reminded of a chat I had with one of DGLM’s fine departing Fall 2011 interns at the holiday party last night.  He’d come to the agency thinking that publishing is all about editorial, and the biggest lesson he’d learned in his time here was how very much more there is to it.  The misperception that editors sit at their desks and edit and agents sit at their desks and read slush all day and there isn’t anyone else but the writers has been corrected many times (though seemingly not enough to stop well meaning strangers from saying “I’d love to be able to read all day!” while making cocktail party small talk).  Still, I think the sheer variety of things that anyone in publishing does with their time is really hard to wrap your mind around unless you’re in the midst of it.

Today alone I have put my editor hat on to get a client an edit memo, my lawyer’s beret to help sort out some out of print language in a contract amendment, my mathematician’s beanie to calculate the deductions at source on an incoming Spanish wire accounted in Euros, my secretary’s Stetson to input a new deal in our database, my publicist’s sombrero to track down some press mentions of a client’s newly launched novel, and my journalist’s fez to research “types of hats” on Wikipedia.  All the while wearing my agent’s fedora and sending out 150,762 emails.  (Roughly.)  Tortured headgear metaphors aside, agents are many things on any given day, and far more than I’ve even been today.  It’s one of my favorite things about this career—it never gets boring.

I know that as I started working here almost 7 years ago, I really didn’t have much concept of what agents do:  read, edit, sell?  That seemed like it’d cover it.  As our intern said, “I didn’t know it would be so complicated.”  Other than the algebra, I’m pretty happy that it is.

December 09, 2011   Lauren   fun, Lauren  
5

Never tell anyone where the tulips go

I may have mentioned this before, but I love reading obsessively about creepy/mysterious things.  I can’t look away—I just keep going till I’m afraid of my own hair brushing against my shoulder and it’s way past my bedtime but impossible to sleep.  If it is incomprehensible and unsettling, but in a way that’s somewhat fantastical and odd (Morgellon’s, Somerton Man, Dyatlov Pass), then I am going to become obsessed.*

One of my favorite bookish mysteries is, naturally, the Voynich Manuscript.  Basically, for several hundred years this probably 15th century manuscript has been the subject of scrutiny, because it’s composed of script no one can read and illustrations no one understands.  It’s often suspected to be a code or some transcription of some known language or languages the author didn’t know how to write, but it’s been thoroughly examined by amateurs and professionals alike, and no one can figure it out.  UNTIL NOW:  a Finnish businessman claims that he’s cracked the code (with God’s help).  It’s both a prophecy and a record of plants the writer had.  So it’s like Nostradamus’s gardening book, but more secretive?

So yes, there’s a part of me that would like this guy to be right so we’d know what it’s really all about, but it’s also sort of sad to think of the mystery being resolved.  Some mysteries should stay mysterious, you know?  And sure, this guy could be wrong or nutty or absolutely spot on—till we have a confirmed answer, there’s no telling for sure whose suppositions are right.  I guess if he’s right, though, the mystery left behind is why someone would actually bother to write down prophecy that no one else would read.  I mean, surely the point of prophecy is to warn people or at the very least to look back smugly with the proof you were right all along.

What do you guys think?  Let’s pretend he’s right and play amateur detective here.  What plant-related information (because it does fairly clearly seem to depict plants) can you imagine having that is so important it must be tracked in obsessive detail, but so secretive you cannot possibly let anyone ever read about it?  Any ideas?  Or favorite pet theories on what’s really going on?

*P.S.  If you have favorite creepy mysteries I may not know about, please share.

December 02, 2011   Lauren   fun, holidays, Lauren, reading  
6

‘Tis the season?

As the holiday season is inescapably upon us now, I was wondering whether to buy a Christmas tree even though I wouldn’t be home on Christmas itself. When I determined, after much internal debate, that lights and borrowing a friends unneeded pre-lit fake tree was the way to go, I decided that if I were going to decorate, I’d need Christmas music.  I polled the fine people of Twitter and got many lovely sounding suggestions, but I realized that plenty of people I know apparently have favorite Christmas albums—and I don’t.  I guess I’d never noticed it was something people felt strongly about (except in that they are pro- or anti-Christmas songs generally).

What I do have, however, are favorite books.  (And movies: if you have never seen Jim Henson’s A Christmas Toy, which is basically like a Muppet-y precursor to Toy Story, do yourself a favor and make it happen this holiday season.*)  As tradition dictates in many a family, of course, Christmas Eve is time for ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas I still remember laughing riotously every time the father “threw up” the sash, childishly making vomit noises with my siblings.  And when I say I remember that, I mean I probably did it last Christmas.  Another family tradition is reading A Wish for Wings That Work, the story of Opus the Penguin (from the comic strip Bloom County)—you can probably work out the plot from the title.

What about you?  I feel like I might need a bit more forced holiday cheer than usual to de-Scrooge myself before I really full on embrace the season.  Any recommendations for holiday books?

*You know I barely need an excuse to talk Henson, but FYI, I loved The Muppets.  Probably the best Muppet movie possible in a post-Jim Henson world, in my opinion.

November 18, 2011   Lauren   fun, Lauren  
1

Bookish travel

As the weather turns sharply colder and the holiday decorations start cropping up—as well as the Union Square holiday market, much to Former Intern Bridget’s delight—I inevitably start dreaming about vacations.  Admittedly, I’m not a tropical beach vacation kind of gal, so it doesn’t make a ton of sense.  Still, I find myself thinking about where I’ll go next and how lovely it will be and making up elaborate plans for cities I may or may not ever visit.  Helpfully, National Geographic Traveler has come up with a list of the Top 10 Literary Cities (h/t LA Times book blog).  Now I can pretend my wanderlust is totally work related and blog about it.

I’m feeling rather ahead of the game, having been to cities 1-4 and 8.  I didn’t find myself doing many bookish things when I took a trip to Edinburgh a few years back, but I do remember wandering into a “close” near the castle and suddenly understanding the title of a book I’d been shelving at work a few weeks before—it had sounded suitably atmospheric that I’d not quite registered that I didn’t know what the word meant, but then seeing it on a street sign the lightbulb went off.  Dublin gets the #2 spot, which makes perfect sense to me, having studied Irish lit and spent a fair amount of time there.  On my last visit, I browsed an incredible manuscript collection at the Chester Beatty Library for hours when the rain and poor planning diverted my former roommate and I from our previous plans.  Once, before I’d even been to London, I planned a walking tour based on some combination of Oliver Twist and Martin Amis’s London Fields for a college class—though admittedly in the times I’ve been there, I never recreated it.  I have, however, spent hours in the British Museum, including the pretty extraordinary reading room.  And Paris I know more from books than anywhere else, so my wandering about was very much driven by things I recognized from literature.  Washington, DC, I’ll admit, I’ve never experienced in a literary way.

What about you?  How many of these cities do you know?  Any recommendations for when I make my way to the others?

November 11, 2011   Lauren   fun, Lauren, publishers  
1

Who doesn’t love a good diagram?

It’s been a crazy week, so I find myself scrambling at the end of the day to get this blog entry out of my head and onto your screen.  Fortunately, the fine folks at Publishing Trendsetter have provided pictures to make it all as easy as possible for me (via @publisherslunch).  One of the first questions authors often ask after the joy of the “I want to work with you!” conversation gives way to the practicalities is, “So, now what?”

Authors write, write, write.  And revise, revise, revise.  And query, query, query.  Many of them study, learn, and research as much as possible by the time they get there.  But fundamentally, the publishing process is kind of mystifying.  Even working within the publishing machine, there are departments you only vaguely understand.  The production team…produces things?  This is where Publishing Trendsetter comes in.  With charts and videos, they explain the process beginning to end. Who does what, when, and why.

Now we can all understand just a little bit better who plays what role in making the magic of books happen.

November 04, 2011   Lauren   controversy, fun, Lauren, opinion  
9

Crossing a line, so not an ocean

Apparently when S&S tried to sell one of their latest into the big box stores, Walmart and Target declined to pick up copies.  Former Daily Show exec producer David Javerbaum’s The Last Testament: A Memoir (by God) has offended the sensibilities of their buyers—or they perceive it will offend the sensibilities of their customers enough that it’s not worth carrying.  I will admit right now that I am not the consumer they have in mind when they raise that fear, but to each his own in that regard.  Much as I find the idea of Javerbaum’s book (and his @TheTweetofGod Twitter account) pretty funny, I can see why someone for whom blasphemy means something other than entertainment might oppose it.  And I don’t see a private entity not selling something as akin to censorship, so I don’t morally oppose their choice.

The thing that shocks me here is that S&S UK backed out.  We always hear about how we’re so much more religious and PC in this country than the UK—and as a fan of British panel quiz shows, I can guarantee you that political correctness has not taken root in UK society to the extent it has here—so it’s a surprising development.  The UK market tends to be more cautious about controversial books, since their libel laws are much less defendant friendly than those here in the US, but I’m having a hard time imagining that S&S fears God will bring suit.  I’m really not sure why it is they changed their minds, but I’m pretty surprised to see that S&S US went full steam ahead and S&S UK said no.  Perhaps it’s the Daily Show factor?  Maybe in the US, the damage will be offset by the show’s loyal following, but in the UK, there’s less of a fan base to appeal to.

So, dear readers, what say you?  Offensive?  Offensive enough to boycott over?  Offensive enough not to publish at all for fear of poor sales or backlash?  Thoughts on why the UK pulled the plug?  It’s an interesting turn of events, for sure.  And some fantastic publicity for the book either way.

October 28, 2011   Lauren   fun, Lauren, Twitter  
21

Alright, I did it.

Seeing as you’re reading this right now, you can personally attest to the fact that brevity is not, nor has it ever been, my forté.  This reason, more than anything, has always stopped me from signing up for Twitter.  I’ll admit, I hated Twitter when it first cropped up, but most of my initial annoyances with it seem to have faded away.  I still thought it was not for me:  it takes me roughly 7 times longer to express something simply than to ramble on about it.  And my overly wordy style, even when technically fewer than 140 characters, is probably not really suited to the medium.  Plus, I already spend my Friday afternoons worrying about boring all of you!

But all that ends today.  Today I capitulated in the battle with myself (better luck next time, me) and signed up.  There are things I quite like about Twitter.  It’s a nice way to keep connected with clients and publishing colleagues—especially those I only see at events and conferences.   Some celebrities I enjoy are on there, being amusing or informative.    And I’m a big fan of the clever hashtag (perhaps Twitter’s greatest contribution to discourse).  It’s also a potentially valuable promotional resource, with a bit of luck, and I might as well know the ins and outs of it if I’m going to discuss it with clients.  I’ve been quietly stalking Twitter for some time now (following Twitter accounts via Google Reader), but today I decided it was probably best to actually engage with it.  Now I just need to make a pact with myself to only allow 3 attempts to phrase a thought in the requisite characters or concede it wasn’t worth sharing in the first place.

So Twitter fans, please feel free to come follow me @LaurenAbramo.

Of course, that means I now have to figure out whom to follow, so would you please offer recommendations below?  Authors, publishing folk, and excellent tweeters of all stripes welcomed.

October 14, 2011   Lauren   Lauren, libraries, opinion  
7

Oh.

Normally I turn to Cracked for levity which begets fascination which begets something vaguely unsettling and distressing, but not actually of importance to my existence (an article I usually get to about 15 minutes before I’m going to go to bed, which is the perfect time to be creeped out by the world).  Okay, so maybe “6 Reasons We’re in Another ‘Book-Burning’ Period in History” didn’t exactly sound like a rollicking good time, but I was expecting Cracked to deliver something funny and dubiously connected.  I wasn’t expecting a really sad breakdown of what libraries do when there’s no more money to keep the books they’ve already got: burn them.  Even if they are incredibly valuable first editions or of some historical significance or perhaps the only extant copy (physical or otherwise).  Because it’s the most cost effective thing to do and needs to be done and there’s no money to do what many of us would think makes sense and because maybe in some ways the digital age means throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  My reading process was very much “But why can’t they…?  Oh.  But surely they could…?  Oh.”

It seems like this is something worth contemplating, as we face down an age in which we value physical objects less and less and digital ones more and more.  It’s a pretty safe guess that today’s children’s children will not have anywhere near the attachment to books as objects that I do—I grew up as the world was beginning this shift, so even my grasp is at times tenuous, where things like music and photos are concerned—so it seems like maybe this problem will more or less go away on its own.  Not because we’ll stop burning books, but because people like me will stop being around to find it sad and surprising.

So it saddens me, perhaps for dubious reasons, that this is the reality.  I have no answers, and I strongly suspect that the people who do these things don’t come to the decision lightly.  But I do know we have some librarians lurking round these parts, so I wonder if you’ve ever had to face this very task.  Have you found an alternative solution?  Or found a way to come to terms with tossing books onto the pyre?  Is it just the symbolism that’s getting me down?

October 07, 2011   Lauren   children's books, fun, Lauren, opinion  
16

“I refuse to lie to children.”

Lovable curmudgeon Maurice Sendak, interviewed by the Guardian on the occasion of the publication of his new book, is the sort of man who says what he’s thinking.  The interview is, more or less, a list of the things that happen to piss him off.  It’s charming in the way angry people speaking their mind tends to be, so long as you aren’t personally on the wrong side of it.  But it seems to me it goes hand-in-hand with his explanation of the darkness of his latest book: “I refuse to lie to children.  I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.”  Sendak, it appears, is honest in all aspects of his life.

It seems to me there’s probably no better medium for honesty than picture books.  I hesitate to judge whether one should refuse to ever lie to children—specifically one’s own children—because I don’t have them myself and am not sure what I’d do in a tough spot.  However, children’s books do often seem to try to speak to some larger truths, and there seems little point in trying to do that if you’re just going to obfuscate.  I’m not sure that it’s really that terrible to present the world to them as a happy place where hippos go to parties and put lampshades on their heads when you’re just trying to teach them how to count.  (Though, spoiler alert, even that book ends with one super sad hippo whose friends have abandoned him.)  The children’s books I can think of that don’t deal in anything particularly dark or bleak seem to me to form just one piece of the picture for kids.  I guess as long as we make sure children have lots of books, they’ll get to learn about their world from all sides.

What do you think?  Anyone out there writing for children who is contemplating these issues?  Or parents, do you consider the worldview of the story before you buy your child a picture book?

« Older posts
Newer posts »