Posted on October 26, 2011 by betsylerner
Partner lunch today. I know, it conjures images of a dark paneled conference room, glass pitchers of ice water quietly sweating, legal pads and interns that stepped out of the J. Crew catalogue. But here at DCL Agency, partner’s lunch is a tuna melt (with swiss on rye) at a neighborhood diner where the pickles are fat and the slaw is sweet. I gotta say I’m the luckiest motherfucker in the world with my partners. With all of my colleagues. It’s hard to explain because it’s not like we’re all Googly with po-mo offices and free grilled salmon and cous-cous lunches every day . It’s not like we play ping pong in the office and go on retreats where we reflect on e-book pricing and the fate of memoirs, or how to read a royalty statement. We don’t finish each other’s sentences, complete each other, or begin where the other ends.
What’s your agency like?
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Posted on October 25, 2011 by betsylerner
I went to a publishing party tonight hosted by Macmillan. I rarely attend these sort of functions any more because I live in Alaska. But I felt it I should fly the company colors, see and be seen, prove for once and for all that I am not pressing my hand into a disc of clay and spray painting it gold, or making a macaroni picture of a toucan or setting sun. What did I wear? How was my hair? How many business cards exchanged? Glasses of Chardonnay? I was hoping to drop in the fact that I represent an NBA finalist into a few conversations, but the conversational segue proved elusive. I did my best not to monopolize one person for fear of never finding another person to talk to. A lot of people dye their hair. I still I wish I were a man and could wear a suit and tie. I had fun. Nobody died.
How do you make out at parties?
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Posted on October 24, 2011 by betsylerner
 Hello Betsy!
I love reading your blog, so I hope you don’t mind if I bug you with a question I’ve been pondering. 🙂
About two years ago, my first YA book was picked up by BDA*. But the book didn’t sell, and my agent took a new job, leaving the agency.
Now I’ve finished another project, and am getting ready to start the agent hunt all over again. My question is, when I write my query letter to try and nab a new agent, should I mention that I was once repped by BDA? Or would that just make me look bad (since the book didn’t sell)? I have no idea what to do, and would greatly appreciate your expert advice!Thanks so much!
Dear Awkward Spot:
It is impressive that you were taken on by BDA, but it isn’t particularly helpful since the book didn’t sell, and the agent went AWOL, and no one else in the agency tried to snap you up. Telling a new agent that you were left at the altar of a BDA doesn’t really help your cause. It’s like telling someone you went to Harvard but dropped out after freshman year, or was one of the first employees at Google but traded in your stock and quit before they went public, or found a two thousand dollar Burberry jacket in your size on sale for $400 at the Barney’s warehouse sale, but you wavered and some freak in Tori Burch flip flops nabbed it. In other words, no one cares about what might have happened. So leave it off. Start fresh. Your history with BDA will become important when your new agent is coming up with a submission strategy — so at some point during your preliminary conversations you should mention that an earlier book was circulated. But I’d wait until you were past the first date.
Love, Betsy
*Big Deal Agency
What would you do?
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Posted on October 23, 2011 by betsylerner
I get through the revision of my screenplay this weekend. I am high for about ten minutes, take the dog for a walk. Pass a house with deluxe Halloween decorations, a spider’s web over the entire front entry way and porch, lights strung through trees, grave stones littering the lawn. Who has the energy let alone the cash for that crap? Then I think about dinner and wonder if the brussels sprouts have gone bad. Turning a corner, a family of four moves slowly up the block. Two small children on bright bikes wearing helmets that dwarf their heads scrape their way along the pavement. The parents hold hands and I don’t feel my usual disdain. I realize that I have not changed the script enough. New tires but the same engine. I look down the street and see the pretty houses, lawns neat, the tyranny of shrubbery. Why do I feel like sobbing? A man rolls his recycling bin out to the sidewalk. Is anyone waiting inside, is the kettle is on? Why can’t I turn my eyes on my own work the way I do for the writers I work with?
Why is it so fucking hard to see your own work clearly?
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Posted on October 20, 2011 by betsylerner
Tonight was the opening of CAMERA SOLO, Patti Smith’s photography show at the Wadsworth Atheneum. It was very nice of her to choose a museum in Hartford, Connecticut, home of Wallace Stevens, Mark Twain, Katharine Hepburn and Totie Fields. The photographs are intimate, full of personal references, a poet’s associations. Virginia Woolf’s cane, Roberto Bolano’s chair, Robert Mapplethorpe’s slippers, her father’s cup, Whitman’s tomb, Blake’s grave, Brancusi’s grave, Hesse’s typewriter, Keats’ bed, and Rimbaud’s utensils. And then she rocked the capital.
What are your sacred objects?
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Posted on October 19, 2011 by betsylerner
Writers fuckin’ hate other writers. Old writers hate young writers. Young writers hate old writers. Women writers resent male writers. Men don’t even regard women. Teachers hate their students. Students want to run their teachers over and take their place. Everyone really hates New Yorker writers.
Here’s why: money, prizes, acclaim, talent, and staying power. Not enough to go around. This article in New York Magazine is pretty benign, snoozy even, but there is a little penis envy to enjoy.
Here are some things writers have said to me over the years: I really love so and so, too bad his new novel isn’t that good. I liked her novel a lot, I did, but did it really deserve the Pulitzer? He’s a great stylist, a writer’s writer, but does it really add up. He’s a really good writer, it’s too bad he doesn’t sell. He stopped writing good books like a decade ago, but of course I have the utmost respect. I’m not saying he’s selling out, but zombies?
What is the nastiest thing you’ve ever said about another writer?
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Posted on October 18, 2011 by betsylerner
It’s 10:30, do you know where your clients are? Writing, flogging, blogging, reading, watching re-runs? Drinking, spanking, on-line banking? Looking at art books, reading The Believer? Fighting with their spouse, sexting their neighbor, walking the golden, rolling a doobie. Correcting their pages, emailing their agent, snacking and by that I mean “snacking.” Watching Entourage, admiring Ari, making crepes, singing Adele, shaving legs. Writing in their diaries, cranking out footnotes, on-line dating, on-line shopping, playing poker, commenting.
What about you?
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Posted on October 17, 2011 by betsylerner
As you can imagine, I get a lot of requests from writers to promote their books on this blog. Well, sweet love, the only books I promote are my clients’ books, my books, and books by people I’ve slept with. I can not be bought. Until today. I’m flogging The Great Typo Hunt not because I’ve slept with the authors (together or separately), not because I’ve read the book and admire it, or because the on-line marketing guy gave me fifty dollars. No, the reason I’m plugging The Great Typo Hunt is because they sent me the book with tchatzkies. And not just any tchatzkies, but my favorite: office supplies. If you haven’t seen me cruise a Staples or beautiful old stationery store, you really don’t know where I live or how I make it through the day.
So fellas, Jeff and Benjamin, when you’re done with this norshkeit, marry those girls you mention in your acknowledgments and grow up. The world is filled with mistakes that you can’t fix. Until then, good luck with the book and thanks for the Chisel Tip Dry Erase Marker.
What’s your favorite stationery store item? OR, what mistake would you erase?
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Posted on October 16, 2011 by betsylerner
Look, I knew when I joined the race of percenters that I would have to make some changes in my life. I was okay with coming into rooms under the door, I was okay with people making a sign of the cross and running to the nearest clove of garlic when I told them what I did. I didn’t mind handing in my beautiful white editorial wings, or my shabby chic couch with pale rosettes. I was okay with cat eyes and hair inside my mouth. With having two mouths and an instruction manual for speaking out of both sides of both of them. Or the pull cord that comes out of my fleshy side, or the way my excretions are black and ash, or when I look in the mirror I see the face of the last man I lied to.
Revising question: What lies have you told agents? Tell the truth
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Posted on October 13, 2011 by betsylerner
Obviously, I’m going to be in an uncharacteristically good mood for the next month. What does a good mood look like on a determinedly glass half empty kind of girl jacked up on mood stabilizers, you ask. It’s hell. First, I spend the month trying to fit into my DKNY suit from 2003. This alone basically robs me of any joy. Next, if I even allow myself an iota of pride, I will be struck dead or murdered by the strange young man who showed up at my house last week who resembled Paul Theroux. I was on the phone and he asked if he should come back. Okay, I said, not really thinking it through, and now I’m convinced I will walk into my living room and he will there, or sitting at my desk when I turn on the lights in my office. My people are not good with good news. We believe in golems and Vaseline. Borscht and sour cream. Sour cream? Who would make cream sour? Maybe I should just enjoy it, god forbid.
Who is going to kill you?
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Betsy Lerner 