Betsy Lerner

Faces Come Out of the Rain

Posted on May 31, 2010 by betsylerner

On the other hand

Hello Betsy,

Thank you for making yourself available for questions. I’ve read conflicting opinions about the following:

Is it a good idea to include a photograph in the bio portion of the book proposal?

Thank you,

Name Withheld

Dear Name Withheld:

No, it is not. I’ve seen quite a few. Everything from 8 x 10 glossy head shots to a guy standing in a motor boat holding a big fish. I’ve seen bikini clad women, candid photos of friends at Hooters, college year book photos, at a lectern giving a speech, you name it. Unless you are a body builder writing about body building, please keep your pecs to yourself. For some reason author photos look amateurish and grasping when they arrive with proposals and manuscripts. How then can it be explained why we love having them inside book jackets?

Another publishing conundrum.

Thanks for writing. Betsy

Filed under: Authors, Protocol | 21 Comments »

Any Love Is Good Love

Posted on May 28, 2010 by betsylerner

Dear Betsy

I have just finished reading your book “The Forest for the Trees” which I picked up in a second hand bookstore and as soon as I started to read it turned into a “must have”. I have to say the book was a very enjoyable read in its on right. I feel that even with all the difficulties described, the literary world is not an exclusive club that one is shut out from. In that sense you have demystified the business of publishing and given it a human attainable quality. For that I thank you. Now for the question(s): Your book is a few years old. Obviously much in it still applies, but are their any sections or chapters you feel would now have to be complety re-wriiten in view of today´s market? Or do you think that inspite of all the tecnological changes basically the book world is for the most part still the same ?

Thank you and kind regards. Name Left Off (Portugal)

Dear Portugal:

I love second hand book stores, but I can’t believe some a-hole sold my book, unless they were aware that a fully revised edition would be released in October, 2010. And there is the answer to your question. A lot has changed. Email was just beginning to take hold when I wrote the book ten years ago. Now all newborns emerge with a blue tooth in their ear and a bar code on their butts. When I started in publishing 25 years ago, we still sent telexes to Europe and Asia, writers banged on typewriters and editors drank at lunch. Now, people are reading on devices, tweeting, and editors carry yoga mats around town. Barf!

I have to proof the pages for the revision over the weekend. I’m curious to see if it’s as seamless and scintillating as I think it is. Ha Ha.

Well, I tried. The old girl is ten and I can’t believe it. You know, I started the blog to convince the publisher to let me revise the book; it was just a tool to convince him that there was still a market. But now, the blog has gone much further than the book for me. And I just want to thank everyone who reads, links, lurks, and especially the bold, the few, who comment. You are an amazing group of readers and writers and, what the fuck, I love you.

Hope you have a great holiday weekend. I’m back on Tuesday. Get some writing done. Betsy

Filed under: Books, The End of the World as We Know It, Writing | 17 Comments »

I’ll Cry If I Want To

Posted on May 27, 2010 by betsylerner

Came to NYC to go to BEA parties: Google, Bookforum, Tin House. Wore my one frock, high heels (and if you know me this is absurd), and a touch of make-up. It was 92 degrees a full moon refused to focus above the Chrysler Building. I had my game face on when something happened, not a panic attack exactly, just a flush of anxiety tinged with desperation and petulance. Did I really want to go? Who would I see? Should show my face. Why? And so it goes, a revolving door of doubt, immaturity, ennui. Am I part of this world? Am I a part of any world? The funny thing is, I always have a really good time at parties. I suspect that when your expectation is dread, nothing can be so terrible.

Instead, at the charmless midtown hotel, my husband and I shared a can of peanuts and a bottle of wine. We had a really good talk, even about some really difficult stuff to talk about. The moon came into focus.

Dearest darling readers of this blog: are you party animals or do you chew off your own limb in some dark corner of your mind. xxo

p.s. this post is late because I was too cheap/principled to pay for wi-fi in the hotel in case you were wondering.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 36 Comments »

This Is Not Your Beautiful House

Posted on May 25, 2010 by betsylerner

Yes, I am aware that the Book Expo is on. Do I care? Yes and no. When I was a little girl, my dad took me to lumber trade shows and I loved them. Especially the displays of knobs and pulls, hundreds of them. Racing down the aisles in search of candy and any free crap we could get our hands on like levelers and mini tool boxes (which I still have).

I hear things are heating up at the Javitz Center with dog fights breaking out over e-book royalties, the undead everywhere, and Barbra Streisand as the big draw with her book about her “passion” for design, which is a euphemism for control which is about how no matter what she achieves her mother will never be impressed. (Anyone else belong to that club?)

I understand that there will be fewer giveaways, fewer galleys, and t-shirts, and tote bags. Fare thee well swag! Fare thee well bowls of candy for grubby hands! When I was younger, the best part of the fair was scoring free galleys of favorite writers, sometimes getting them signed. Going to parties at night and sleeping with Knopf writers. (You know who you are.) Ha ha. The best part for me was scouring the small presses and university presses, such cool shit. Just soaking it all in, each publisher’s booth with its glossy blown up jackets. Watching people in meetings talk like squirels with their mouths full of nuts.

Do I care about BEA? Yes and no. It seems like more dancing on the Titanic. Earlier today when I looked up above the convention center I saw something quite extraordinary: our beloved books getting in formation and flying away high above the Javitz Center, above the sad fray.

I’m glad I got to do this with my life. Lucky.

Filed under: Publishing, The End of the World as We Know It | 23 Comments »

Address It To My Wife

Posted on May 24, 2010 by betsylerner

As you could have probably guessed, my “Ask Betsy” feature of the blog is getting a lot of traffic. However, most of the emails are not questions. Most readers are using it to pitch their projects. So, it’s sort of a slush pile/question box. At first, I was really pissed about it. It’s not at all difficult to find my agency email for chrissakes. Then I thought maybe I was being too uptight. I mean for fuck’s sake, who cares where a great project comes from, my agency email, my blog email, my ass. So I dutifully read through the queries hoping to discover the next Ordinary People (according to publishing lore, it was found in the slush).

So far, no luck. Needle, meet haystack. What does bother me is that I actually do answer all of these queries and then the person writes again and asks me to look at a nonfiction project once I explain that I’m not taking on fiction. Or, they ask me to review an alternative pitch, or recommend other agents, or give them a detailed critique of their writing. I could do all of these things, but I have to charge. A LOT.

I really love the questions and if you have one I’d love to hear from you. If you want to pitch your project, then please send it to Mail@dclagency.com and address it to my attention. But please understand that I will not respond as your lovable self-loathing blogger but rather as the hard-hearted bitch agent that I am.

Filed under: Agent, Protocol | 17 Comments »

When I Get That Feeling

Posted on May 23, 2010 by betsylerner

When I was in the 11th grade, I read the Hite Report among a number of other books in a campaign to learn what I feared I might not experience. In my quest for “knowledge,” I learned a few things I had not known. At that time, I wrote a poem for my creative writing class and in it I used the word “masturbate.” Fair enough, except I spelled it “masterbate.”

My teacher, Mr. B., a man who did not look good in the double knits he favored, wrote the following in the margin, “Dr. Freud?” I had, by this time, also read enough of Freud to know what he meant. He called me into his office to talk about the poem. He had rectangular glasses that were always askew on his mostly bald head and a beard he trimmed as stiff as my father’s shoe shine brush.

Friends, why couldn’t the history teacher/tennis coach call me into his office and whisk me away in his lemon-colored TR6 the way he had a senior with long blond hair and a great stroke? Mr. B. wanted to know what I meant by the poem, by that word. I wish I could have screwed up my courage and said, “fuck you,” or “what do think I meant?” or “is that a boner in your tan polyester slacks?” but instead I just shrugged, mumbled, and left.

I am interested in stories of humiliation at the hands of writing teachers.

Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It | 20 Comments »

I Love All My Haters…Take 2

Posted on May 20, 2010 by betsylerner

My top ten quarterly hate list:

1. The term “game changer” especially when referring to Avatar.

2. Criticizing a person for not being on Facebook. What’s it to you?

3. Calling oneself a “technophobe” or “Luddite” as if that’s interesting.

4. The proliferation of Greek yogurt

5. Canceling Law & Order. Where’s the outrage?

6. “Loving” your Kindle

7. J Crew

8. “I have that on my netflix cue,” as a response to talking about a movie.

9. In advance, the movie of Eat Pray Love.

10. That there are no fucking movies to see.

If there’s something I’ve missed, please let me know.

Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It | 51 Comments »

Sometimes the Lights All Shining on Me

Posted on May 19, 2010 by betsylerner

An editor told me that pictures of cute animals increase traffic exponentially. I'm not proud.

If the best moment in an agent’s life is telling a writer that a publisher has made an offer on his or her book, the worse is when, about three weeks after publication, it becomes clear that without an act of god the book is likely to slip beneath the waves. How do you tell a drowning man there’s no raft?

The tour that didn’t materialize, reviews that didn’t appear, feature articles failed to showcase you at your desk, your cocker spaniels aloof on the couch. You had to throw your own publication party and your editor didn’t come. Or your agent for that matter.

I’ve never met an author who didn’t think that publishing a book would change his life. The problem is you never think it’s going to be a change for the worse. Some writers never recover from their book going unnoticed, some can’t take the negative reviews (JDS). Even those who get good attention can get stage fright. Can’t live up to or live down from expectations. And some, just some, can access their gift, harness their desire, and get back to work.

If you have been published, what was it like? Did you get rich, famous, laid? Did you get another contract? Did the book help you in achieving other career goals. Did your father stop calling you a bum? If you have not yet been published, what is your fantasy about what might happen. Don’t be shy.

Filed under: Authors, Publishing | 45 Comments »

I’m Not Happy When I Try To Fake It

Posted on May 18, 2010 by betsylerner

What was your first literary orgasm? Roger W. Straus, venerable co-founder of FSG, claimed it was The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock. I was always roll the trousers, eat the fuckin’ peach. I’m more of a Four Quartets gal myself. Today, at the psychopharmacologist’s, we were talking about the usual shit meaning my brain and my doctor quoted Eliot’s “April is the cruelest month.” Well, I’m the cruelest patient and quoting one of the most famous lines of poetry in the world to make a “connection” to me is pathetic. Let’s agree: you won’t quote hideously famous lines of poetry to me (does so much really depend upon a red wheelbarrow?) and I won’t quote the DSM-IV to you.

Let’s get back to literary love. What was the first book that took you prisoner. That changed everything. I’m not saying it made you think that you had to write. Rather, that you could now live. For me, cliched as it sounds, Ariel. First love.

Filed under: Authors, Books, Poetry | 41 Comments »

It’s Only Castles Burning

Posted on May 17, 2010 by betsylerner

Are all writers narcy? Is it an occupational hazard or prerequisite for the job? I once dated a writer whose bedroom was lined with framed jackets of all his books. After I slept with him, he loaded me up with copies of all of his books as I was leaving. Thanks! How narcissistic are you and does it help or hurt? What does it really feel like to sit down with that notebook or computer? Just you, beautiful, terrible you? And what of those pages staring back?