Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

Posted on September 14, 2009 by betsylerner

Jim Carroll (August 1, 1950 – September 11, 2009) In the course of working together, Jim and I discovered two powerful bonds. The first that we both had August birthdays, born under a scorching sun. The second was a great delight in the numerals on the clock coming up in wonderful combinations like cherries on a slot machine. Whenever we spoke, we would mention recent sightings. Jim often awoke in the middle of the night at exactly 2:22 or 4:44. We loved it when four numbers in a row came up such as 11:11, or, most exciting, the clock’s equivalent of a royal flush, 12:34. His voice full of relish and mystery, he would always exclaim, “ah, a most propitious hour.”

Filed under: Client, Poetry | 5 Comments »

They Feed They Lion

Posted on September 11, 2009 by betsylerner

When I first thought of blogging, a couple of people close to me thought it was a bad idea given my “Impulse Control Problems.” I thought deeply about it and decided to take the plunge anyway. Today, I am ending this post in advance of saying some things I should not make public. And yes I want a mental health medal.

If you can stand another moment of me before signing off for the weekend, here’s a radio interview I did yesterday on publishing. I totally fudged the Google question; is it obvious?http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com/2009/09/betsy-lerner-and-rachel-resnick.html

Filed under: Media, The End of the World as We Know It | 6 Comments »

HOT FLASH, er, News Flash

Posted on September 10, 2009 by betsylerner

Naomi Wolf to Write History of the Vagina

By Leon Neyfakh

The New York Observer

Sptember 8, 2009 | 4:21 p.m

Naomi Wolf is going back to her roots. The journalist and author, who has seemingly been on a break for the past couple of years from writing books on the kinds of feminist themes that made her famous in the early 1990s, has signed on with the Ecco Press for a project tentatively titled A Cultural History of the Vagina.

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Remember yesterday we were talking about titles. Nation, I want to be in the jacket meeting for this one. I have a lot to contribute! First, please, dear god, don’t call it A Cultural History of the Vag. This is just a bad idea. Don’t use the word Vagina, Vag, or V. Isn’t that a novel by Pynchon anyway. Here are my “ideas.” Number one choice: Cunt! It’s a classic, classy, and as I’ve always found, fun to say. Next, to take a page from Courtney Love’s playbook, Hole. Or Philip Roth’s Slit. Poontang is too southern, I think. This is when I really miss being an editor, you know, mixing it up in the jacket meetings.

At the last publishing house I worked for, we were in a jacket meeting and the publisher said he wanted something like “fuck me” pumps for the image. Then he pointed to my Doc Marten’s and said, not like those. Right, I said, these are “fuck you” pumps. Friends, my days were numbered.

Filed under: Authors, Books | 11 Comments »

That’s Not My Name

Posted on September 9, 2009 by betsylerner

Titles. They can be a bitch. I always felt I had a bit of a knack for them because of my poetry days. You have to think up a lot of titles when you write poems. My finest (in my humble): “My Life as a Rash”; “Two Poets Assemble a VCR”, and my signature sestina, “Calories and Other Counts.”

First Place

I push my clients very hard to come up with good (selling) titles before we send out their books. And I toil beside them. It just makes it that much easier to sell if you can get the concept/tone/hook in the title. When the editor on the other end of the line says great title, you’re through the door.

Second Place

I’m always astonished by some of the titles for deals reported in Publisher’s Marketplace. Today, for instance, Pacific Rims. Is it just me or does this sound like a gay book set in Hawaii? Mahu Blood: this one is set in Hawaii and it’s a detective story. Mahu? Is this a fish?I love the sound of this one: Tarnsman of Gor, a 27-volume fantasy series (oh, to sell a franchise!). I really like Think of a Number. It’s a thriller and I love titles that take a figure of speech and creepify it. I felt that way about my client Eli Gottlieb’s Now You See Him. Then we have the generic titles: Small Miracles, Escape and, god help us, Window to the Soul.

Third Place

Filed under: Books, Publishing | 8 Comments »

It’s Doom Alone That Counts

Posted on September 8, 2009 by betsylerner

Dan Brown, Dan Brown, Dan Brown, Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown. Dan Brown

Looks nice, right?

Look, I’m really happy for the booksellers, for the printers and paper factories. Five million copies is a huge boon for everyone in the book business up and down the food chain. I’m most happy for the book stores whose business has been hit hard. I. Am. Happy. Okay? I haven’t heard a bad word about Dan Brown, either. Unlike Mitch Albom who reportedly is a monster. (See how safe I feel picking on rich, successful writers? What a chicken shit, Lerner.) It’s just that reading this morning’s paper made me kind of sick, outlining all the Dan Brown hype including Matt Lauer’s countdown (barf) and Jeff Bezos nearly creaming his pants: “Last week Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, posted a breathless memo to customers on the Amazon.com home page, informing them that the company was taking “one of the most anticipated publishing events of all time” very seriously. “We’ve agreed to keep our stockpile under 24-hour guard in its own chain-link enclosure, with two locks requiring two separate people for entry.” Two whole locks! I hope the Ocean’s Eleven crew isn’t planning to crack this one.

It was kind of excruciating to read, sitting on the train, reading the fourth draft of a novel that probably won’t sell, but you love the author and are devoted to her. I understand Tucker Max’s next book is called Assholes Finish First. I’m going to pre-order a copy from Amazon.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Posted on September 7, 2009 by betsylerner

Media Alert: Tonight on the History Channel (9 P.M. EST) Linda Kasabian tells the story of the nine months leading up to the Manson murders. Kasabian stood guard outside Sharon Tate’s home while Manson and his followers committed mass murder. She became a witness for Vincent Bugliosi, the chief prosecutor in the case, and was granted immunity. It’s forty freakin’ years later. What the hell does she look like? And what can she possibly say? I’ve always wondered what Kasabian was thinking/doing as she waited in the car. Did she listen to the radio? Whistle?

I’m sure I was obsessed with the Manson murders in part because they happened on my birthday, August 9. It was 1969, the summer of Woodstock (I got a button with a guitar and a dove design), Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and the Brady Bunch premiered. I was nine years old, wearing mix and match Danskins, glued to the tv.

Five years later, Bugliosi published his account of the murders and trial in Helter Skelter. This set off a feeding frenzy; I read The Godfather, Serpico, The Valachi Papers, and my favorite of all time, In Cold Blood. I’m not sure what attracted me, at fifteen, to these gruesome stories. I suspect it had something to do with trying to contemplate what I had decided was a godless world, where random violence rained down on innocent people. There was something sexual about it, too, though I didn’t know that then. Prurient and thrilling.These, too, were the first books I read that I could call page-turners. And that’s when I got hooked, in earnest, to reading.

Filed under: Books, The End of the World as We Know It | 5 Comments »

I’m Not Too Blind To See

Posted on September 4, 2009 by betsylerner

In a favorite scene from Entourage, the actor Jeremy Piven, aka Ari Gold, exclaims after making a mega deal for the guy with puppy eyes, Adrien Something, “You should call me Helen Keller because I’m a fuckin’ miracle worker.”

InToday,Nation, I struck such a deal and I’m not talking about a seven figure book contract. More impressive, I got my husband to agree to excuse me from going to a family wedding and spending Labor Day weekend at my in-laws which is our family tradition. Take it in. Take another minute. It’s okay.

The reason. The only reason: to write, of course. If you’re not writing this weekend, I hope you’re having sushi with Pevin. But hold on to your chopsticks, I hear he scarfs the stuff. Love, Betsy

Filed under: Agent | 5 Comments »

Etymology

Posted on September 3, 2009 by betsylerner

Unpacking unearthed a rare treasure: my pocket Oxford Dictionary which I bought in London in 1981, otherwise known as junior year abroad. I purchased it at Foyles, the venerable London book store, more like a church to me. The dictionary had been lost for at least a decade, so long that I had forgotten about it. But the moment I held it in my hand, the size and heft of a small prayer book, that lost and lonely year returned to me.

Mostly I remember my single room adorned with one single poster, Diane Arbus’ twins. How every night, I’d stretch out with my Hardy, Dickens, or Larkin and finish off a cheap bottle of red wine and a sleeve of peanuts from the corner grocery. Every night the shop owner seemed genuinely pleased to see me; while I acted as if I had never been there before and would certainly never return. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this little dictionary back. You can hold it open in one hand and snap it shut like a purse. A phone number is scrawled in the end papers, 212-874-8954. Anyone?

Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It | 5 Comments »

All In the Family

Posted on September 2, 2009 by betsylerner

Publishing Industry Gets a Laugh Track

By Jason Boog on Sep 02, 2009 10:23 AM

Comedy scriptwriter Gail Lerner scored a deal with CBS for a new sitcom set in the hilarious world of contemporary publishing.

According to Hollywood Reporter, the show will follow the adventures of a book editor and her friends, and has the tentative title: “Open Books.” Lerner has worked on “Will & Grace,” co-executive produced for ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” and had a stint working on CBS’ “Worst Week.” She wrote what she knew: Lerner worked a stint as a publishing temp and her [older by ten years] sister Betsy Lerner spent 15 years as an editor and now runs a publishing website. [Hello, fact checker, that’s a blog. And I’m now an agent not a website publisher for the record.]

Here’s an inspiring quote from Lerner [the younger] that should cheer all publishers, from the article: “Publishing is a lot like sitcoms. Although both are supposedly dying, that only makes people more passionate about creating the next great novel or show.”

That’s my kid sis.

Filed under: The End of the World as We Know It | 7 Comments »

Don’t You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?

Posted on September 1, 2009 by betsylerner

This is the kind of letter I get most often. I think it must be terrifying to deal with agents if you don’t have any experience, if you’re afraid to alienate one when you’re not certain if another is interested, when everything you’ve been hoping for…happens.

Betsy,
I have an offer of representation that I was at first excited about but after speaking with the offering agent I was less excited. Three other agents have my manuscript and I have notified them of the offer. I’ve stopped sending queries but still have some queries out there. My question: If I receive more requests for my manuscript is it okay to send the materials and tell the agent that I’ve had an offer I’m luke warm about?
How would you handle this situation? I don’t want to do anything unethical but also want to find the agent that is the best match for me.
Thanks,
happily confused

Dear HC: First, I’m dying to know what put you off the agent you were originally excited about? Simple common halitosis? Excessive name-dropping? Invited you to lunch at Balthazar which is so 2000?

So far, you ‘ve done everything right by alerting the agents who have your material. This is called LEVERAGE and we rarely have the chance to exercise it unless we are Google or George Clooney.

You’ve stopped sending it out. Good. But what about the queries you haven’t heard from? I think you should let those agents know that you’ve had a number of positive responses thus far and if they can look at it sooner rather than later you’d love to know what they think. I just got an email like that from a woman with two projects. I took a quick look at both (and if you’ve been reading this blog you know I hate considering two projects at once). Still, she came highly recommended and others were sniffing her petticoats. I was glad for the heads up. I might have passed more quickly, which is always the fear when forcing someone’s hand. But you’ve got to act. And I’d keep the agent with bad breath on the hook just in case the others don’t pan out, unless you wouldn’t want to work with him under any circumstances.

I think I’ve answered all your questions. Will you please come back and tell us how you made out, superstar? Also, if this project is so hot, have you ever heard of an agent called Betsy Lerner? Her breath is sweet mint, her name dropping levels respectable, tasteful even, and her restaurant selection more traditional than trendy, which is cool.

Filed under: Agent, Protocol | 5 Comments »

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