The Future is Happy Mutants

More thoughts on Ms. Le Guin's speech (added to the bottom below the ***) : 

I read it when she first spoke it and viewed it for this first time just now (*this morning). 

Here's what I think.

When I entered publishing in the mid-80's, it was transforming from a gentleman's business where a handshake was your word and your name your reputation.
Agents developed writers over the course of 3-5 books, they tried to help the writers grow in the direction (or some cases, directions, w/pseudonyms) of their strengths and passions. There were hundreds of independent publishers and bookstores. 

As I've started to write about in my blog, the world changed in the 90's with the advent of the internet and global access for most (not all, still now). It's rise ran on parallel tracks to the conglomeration of publishing houses, so that what used to be 20-30 independent houses were now one company, with different imprints under it's umbrella. Most of the owners not being American. The independent bookstores were having a loosing power with the depression-era rules of Returns, as they were having to deal with one large corporation vs small independent companies like their own. 

When I entered publishing the contracts for books didn't have "theme park" rights in them. When I left, they did. When I entered publishing the houses contracts didn't try to keep the writer's electronic rights of their work in perpetuity, by the end they did. I was on some of the first electronic rights panels for the ASJA that they held in Silicon Valley. I was the only non-lawyer. Things got ugly fast for the authors. I broke down electronic rights as quickly as I could, and fortunately, I was representing some of the most innovative writers, who also were innovative with technology, so I could demand and retain those rights. Most agents/authors weren't as lucky. Editors in NYC still didn't have email addresses on their business cards in 1994; I've been agentnazor@aol since 1990.

Getting back to nurturing writers and growing their careers while the publisher (or in my case, agent) makes a comfortable living. When I first started agenting, advances were modest to obscene. It was the 80's in NYC and I worked for the oldest and largest agency in NYC. By the time I became an independent agent in SF, publishers had to be provided with a Harper's index, of my making, to be convinced that whatever book, mostly non-fiction, I was going to sell 50K copies or they wouldn't even consider it. Thus, Ms. Le Guin's comparison to deodorant. Basically the author had to have a media plan, lecture agent and paying audience at the ready to be considered. If you were an author of fiction, the demands were higher ~ publication commitments, lecture circuits, writer's conferences and other such venues where the publisher could imagine the author earning out the more modest advance. Unless they were a darling of the moment, with built in media vehicle, and then the advance could be quite substantial. 

So when we talk about art, freedom, imagination and NYC publishing, I'll agree there is most definitely a disconnect. Many of the finest author/editor collaboration were divorced over the musical chairs of merging houses and the editors new mandates. It became all about the bottom line, not about the experienced veterans and finding new talent and keeping the perennial producers. They say that is their mandate, but they are actually professional gamblers, looking for the next big hit.

So I became disenchanted with publishing professionally (and personally, after having my own children it became hard to balance my energies ~ my writers were my first children~ having to be on a plane every 4-6 weeks). 

So I applaud Ms. Le Guin's speech and entirely get and agree with where she's coming from. Salud!

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As I left publishing a new phenomena was beginning ~ blogging, self-publishing and electronic self-publishing. Writers were now using the technology that had made it easy for the corporations to claim so much for so little, and cutting out the middle man (publisher) all together! The model was much like the music industry when it went from LPs to CDs to Digital. Now we had some post-traditional models.

My brother's (Linnell) band, The Might Be Giants, always anticipated and were early adopters of new technologies, so that when their audience reached around the world and the record labels, like publishing houses, were being gobbled up with the R&D mandates changing at the drop of a merger, he too went digitally independent. Now the band, as a 4 decade partnership, with an international following and several Grammy's can pick and chose how they want to sell and distribute their music.

Getting back to books. Dave Eggers,  Mark Frauenfelder and his wife, Carla Sinclair also succeed as early adopters and adapters. I first met them all in SF over 20 years ago, and I represented Mark and Carla's first books. 

Dave pitched some book ideas to me, but he was not quite ready to sit down and write the memoir that would put him on the map, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and the many other books, and educational nonprofits that would follow. He was working as one of the three Daves at Might Magazine. He was wildly witty and deeply referenced. The magazine would be bought be a NY publisher. He then moved to Brooklyn and started another magazine, more literary, called McSweeney's and wrote what would become his memoir. McSweeney's started to publish books, too. Including one for children that had a music CD that came with it. There were specific songs that accompanied the sections of the book. The CD was made by my brother's band; TMBG. As Dave's fame and fortune grew, his written work became more socially significant and his monies have been directed to help young people rise up through writing. I believe Ms. Le Guin would approve of his socialist and entrepreneurial  tendencies as a way to subvert the corporate run capitalist machinery that is traditional American publishing. 

Mark and Carla took things in different direction. When I first met them they'd been producing a paper zine called bOING bOING out their apartment for years on their Macs and through mail order, and digitally through small online venues like the WELL and other nerdy, literary and connected early hubs. They came to SF from LA to work at WiReD. Their offices for bOING bOING were on the 1st floor, catty-corner from Dave's Might Magazine, while WiReD was on the 3rd floor. I enjoyed them immensely as people and artists. They fire on all cylinders all the time, it's quite remarkable, really. The first book we worked on  was The Happy Mutant Handbook. It was a collective effort of the highest order, and as multifaceted as their circle of friends and their imaginations. It had DYI projects, Cartoons, fiction, interviews, travel and  more in it's pages. We had a list of 30-+ contributors, and many of them were willing to do it for a small fee, including Bruce Sterling who wrote the Introduction. It was bought by Riverhead Books for it's premiere list and it was the first book to be delivered completely digitally, and in 21 colors (?), to a New York publisher: ever! Carla then wrote a novel, with characters were a thinly disguised who's-who of the South Park (the digerati folks, not the animated show, including yours truly) about online gambling, entitled, Signal to Noise, published by HarperCollins. We also worked together on a reference/pop-culture book called NET CHICK, which was published by Holt.   After WiReD the two returned to LA and took their creative DYI and writing passions to the next level; Maker Faire (which takes places in multiple venues around the country each year), MAKE Magazine (run by Mark) while Carla is editor-in-chief of CRAFT and Wink. The both still write/create books, too. 

I have many writer friends that have launched their careers through blogs, websites, online zines and other non-traditional paper mediums. Some have gone straight from blog to workshop to ebook. Basically it is the distribution and knowing exactly who your audience is or could be that now makes it easier to take the gambling out of publishing and put the truly direct marketing to the test. 

These segments I'm creating each night are to try and develop an strong enough style, while I formulate a frame for the section of my life that I'll pick for my memoir and later possibly fiction and creative non-fiction (travel, natural science) writing. I'm fortunate to have supportive friends, family and colleagues (especially my pals who are still in publishing and egging me on). I know many young writers don't feel they have what it takes (connections, experiences, money, education) to make it in the traditional publishing world. So to them I say: read, read and read some more. Write, write and then write some more. When you have something you want to share, find a venue to share it. When you have enough work to make a book; publish it, post it, and connect it to the world. If the numbers of people asking for or buying your book get large enough, the traditional publishers will come to you. Then you decide, if you want them! 

I believe that America still is the place where people can make art, put it in the free market and pursue happiness. But I also believe it takes passion, commitment, wins + losses, trial and error, luck, and perseverance. The friends and family members I mention above never set out to be famous. They set out to make good work (music, writing, art, science projects, hairstyles, and so on). Put in the time to do the work, like Ms. Le Guin says; the world needs writers who know freedom and work with their imaginations so we can have innovators to be able to solve problems as they arrive in the future. 

Good Night, all, G'night.