Giving Thanks--It Ain't As Hard As You Think

Let's see--what am I thankful for this year?

I could go through the whole usual litany of "things Celina is grateful for in 2011" but I'm sure you'd be bored.  The list is short and...well, quite frankly, you guys don't read my blog to see what I'm being nice about.  You want to see what's pissing me off.  So let's head to the top of the list, shall we?

I hate divas.

Now, I realize that's strange coming from a girl who worked in theater AND in drag shows for a long time, but it's the God-honest truth.  You know all the awards show speeches that thank the "little people?"  Well, who are the "little people" in publishing?

The cover artist. The content editor. The line editor. The proofreader. The book designer. The marketing people. The bookkeeper. The review coordinator.  The list goes on and on and on.  A whole lot of people go into creating a book.  Sure--the writer is responsible for the lion's share of it; after all, they WROTE the book.  But the steps of the publication process mean that a lot of different people touch that manuscript before it becomes a BOOK and makes it to readers.  

There is a growing trend I've noticed lately, one that I find more than a little disturbing: authors who feel they have the right--and the power--to treat the crew that works on their book disrespectfully.  Authors who talk out of their asses, criticizing...say, a cover artist, for example, for creating a cover based on the author's OWN DESCRIPTION of the theme and plot instead of reading the book and pulling an image directly from the author's brain and regurgitating it onto the page. Last year, as a matter of fact, an editor who is a dear friend of mine was told by an author that he would SUE HER for copyright violations if she "dumbed down" his manuscript by correcting his very (very,very) horrific use of the English language.

At least I assume it was English. It might have been Tagalog for all I know.

In fact, earlier this year PM (pre-Musa) I retracted a contract offer to a writer who took it upon himself to correct the CONTRACT (one that I did not write and didn't have anything to do with) and then expressed concern over the level of editing he would receive if the contract was any indication of the company's standards.  But what made THAT encounter resonate even more strongly (and heads up!  herein lies the lesson) happened a couple of months later, when the same author submitted the same manuscript to the same editor at a different company. 

Guess who didn't get a contract offer from Musa?

And you know what?--it's a damn shame.  The book was well-written, funny, timely--and with a good, strong editor and the proper platform could have done very well.  But that book lingers with the author as far as I know, and probably will for some time.

You see, all those "little people?" They are working on multiple books from numerous authors at varying levels of proficiency.  That artist is making five or six more covers this week.  The content editor has her next two books already lined up.  The proofreader just got done working with the best-known author in the house, who treated her with kindness and respect.  And THAT'S why the best-seller is loved by the staff--because courtesy and professionalism go a long way to greasing the gears of the process. 

So my Thanksgiving post this year isn't about turkey or family or Pilgrims. My Thanksgiving post is about the actual giving of thanks to the people who work with you on your book.  Be courteous. Be professional. Speak to these publishing pros like equals. You don't automatically assume god status when you sign a publishing contract. 

Don't demand. Ask.

There are enough divas in the world as it is.  In the publishing industry, we don't really have divas.  Instead, we have asshats--and that's the last title you want dangling from your name.  Because usually right behind it, there's another tag that's even worse.

Failure.

Let's Talk About Writer Etiquette...

I'm not the nicest person in the world.  In fact, there are times that I'm one of the most foul-tempered people on the face of the earth.  But there's one thing I always am.

Courteous.

Never underestimate the Pavlovian tutorial that is growing up in the South.  I still say yes ma'am, no sir, thank you and please to anyone that might conceivably be my elder.  I hold doors open for people.  I moderate my language around people I don't know well. It's just ingrained in me. That courtesy is necessary for success in the publishing industry.

For example--last year one of my editors came to me with a problem author.  At first I couldn't understand what the problem was. Then I opened the manuscript.  If the writer disagreed with the editorial change or suggestion, he left snide, nasty, rude comments in the margins. I mean REALLY rude comments.  This author had a bachelor in the 1880s American West living in a 'pioneer' cabin with running water AND a sofa. So because it was that editor's first book with us, I took over the edits, letting the author know that his ability to go through the editing process like a mature adult was the thread upon which the publication of his book hung. 

Guess who didn't stay with us when we moved the imprint to Musa?

Writers should inherently understand the power of the written word.  After all, words are the tools we use daily.  And yet, every time I see an author behaving like an asshat online--bashing their agent or their publisher, whining about their edits, or worse--responding rudely to a legitimate review or critique--that author's name goes onto my mental "Do NOT Publish" list.  You know--I can't remember my phone number half the time--but I sure as heck remember the name of an asshat writer.

So think carefully before you hit 'send'.  Make absolutely certain that what you say can't come back and bite you.  The best response to a vicious review? None.  Tweet about your cat or your word count or your favorite football team, but don't be stupid enough to bash your publisher or editor or agent in public.  Take that energy and funnel it into something productive.  

My trick for that?  I create a character in my WIP that's mentally tagged as whoever has pissed me off.  Then, I kill them in the most cruel, vicious, disgusting fashion my fertile and evil little brain can cook up.  Then, when I see that asshat anywhere else online, I can just smile quietly and move on. "Thank you" and "Please" and "I appreciate it" will get you a heck of a lot further in any business.  Employ those words and the intentions behind them frequently.

Trust me when I say that--if you're on one publisher's DNP list, you're probably on quite a lot of them. It's never a good thing when the only thing between a writer and success is the writer.

Just When You Think You've Seen It All...

...some doofus comes along and convinces you otherwise.

After a couple of VERY hectic weeks dealing with Musa's launch and subsequent releases, all the AMP horrors, working on my own manuscripts and getting ready for World Fantasy Convention in San Diego next week, my sense of humor has pretty much evaporated.  Add in the fact that I turned forty-five a couple of days ago (quel horreur!), that Aurora the Regency line turned one, Aurora the toddler turns two tomorrow and my husband's birthday is Friday and it's no wonder that the only thing I laughed at today was a very unworthy thought that flitted around my mind about someone who wasn't there to defend themselves.  (Never fear--I jotted down the notes so I can incorporate that thought into a Jack the Ripper story coming soon near you!) 

At any rate, when I'm in a non-humorous mood I usually end up reading submissions.  Somehow, I've convinced my subconscious that I am less likely to contract a mediocre book when I'm foul-tempered.  Fortunately, that philosophy has been working out fairly well so far.  

As I was going through requested fulls, I came across a story that struck a chord with me. I was actually pretty excited by it.  So I put the story on the to be contracted list and moved on to the next.

But the story wouldn't get out of my head.  Normally, this is a GREAT thing.  When a story keeps pestering me while I read other submissions usually means I've landed on something really great.  But that's not really why I was obsessing on this story.

No--I had the feeling I'd read that story before. 

I use Firefox Thunderbird to coordinate all my various email accounts.  So I ran a search on the book title and came up with nothing unusual.  That should have been the end of the matter, but it wasn't.  I pored over the correspondence the author and I'd had and couldn't find anything to explain that niggling little feeling at the back of my mind that had been pestering me all night.  I pulled the story back up and read it again.  Yep. I had read that story somewhere before.  I double-checked the query letter to make sure that wasn't a rights reverted book.  No indication of that.  I was about to give up when something made me run a search on the author's email address.

And I hit pay dirt.

I had read that story before! In fact, I'd read it at Aspen Mountain Press a few months ago.  But--strangely enough, the story had had a different title. Different character names.  The author's name was slightly different.  Now I was even more curious.  The story was good; not outstanding, but a nice, easy edit and could be turned over quickly.  So why were all those alarm bells sounding in my head?  Just to set my mind at rest, I googled the original title and author name.

Everything became clear.

The book was already published--had just BEEN published, in fact, by another company.  I went to the sales page for the book and pulled up the excerpt.  Then I entered the first five or six words of the excerpt into the *Find* box of the manuscript and--lo and behold!--the excerpt on the sales page began in the second paragraph of page five in the manuscript in my hand.

The author was a self-plagiarist.  By changing the names and the title of the book, he was trying to sell rights to a manuscript that he no longer had to sell.  On top of that, the original manuscript had been contracted by AMP.  So two publishers already owned the publication rights the authors was trying to sell to me!

I wasn't the acquisitions editor who'd read the original manuscript; I'd found the manuscript in the AMP email accounts when I took over and skimmed through the story then.  

Now, let me be frank: the author is a good writer.  The story was well-told. But just changing character names or titles does NOT make a manuscript new intellectual property.  Save for the name changes, the two manuscripts were word for word identical. 

I'd heard of self-plagiarism. I'm guilty of snatching scenes from trunked novels fifteen years ago and making them work in some new story.  But I never would have thought of retitling The Reckoning of Asphodel or Bride of Death and submitting them to a different publisher while they were still under contract.  After all, I would get busted. No one kills an Elf like me. But also, I think a bit more logically.  Why take the risk? Why publish a competing version of a book already on the market?  Why not...write something new?

There just wasn't a way to give this writer the benefit of the doubt.  One doesn't mistakenly change the names and title and submit an already and recently published book to a new company--one where the chances of discovery were slimmer.  But in the end, how could the writer ever have guessed that the editorial director at this new house had actually read the manuscript before? 

These days with the caching capabilities of computers and internet search engines, you'd have to be really...well, stupid to think that no one would catch on.  It's not like this book was near the end of the contract either--the other publisher had released the story under its original name in June of this year.  And yet three months later, the same story was submitted to Musa?  

No, I don't think this was any kind of accident. As much as I'd like to find a way for this to be accidental, I just can't.  And now there's a writer--a darn good writer too--whose work I will never be able to trust as original.  

In the end, that's just another lesson I needed to learn. I informed the author's publisher of what had happened, forwarding the manuscripts I'd been sent and filed the correspondence away in what my husband not-so-jokingly calls my jackass folder.  And man, oh man am I grateful that I listened to that niggling little voice in my head. 

Shame that little voice was silent all through my twenties.  I'd be a lot richer today if I'd listened then.