Books

Everyone's NaNoWriMo wrapping up OK? Other aspiring novelists working on drafts of anything right now? (Seriously, if you are and you're blogging/tweeting the experience, feel free to self-promote yourself, because we WILL read you. Honest.)

John Gilstrap, author of the bestselling thriller Nathan's Run, wrote recently about the things he's learned as an author.

Highlights:

I don't regret a moment of it, but looking back on that experience versus where I am now in the pantheon of writers, there are a few things I would do differently if I could climb into my Way-Back machine and fine-tune the past.

• I would insist on a multi-book deal. I was in the driver's seat in those days, and my agent at the time pressed hard for a one-book deal (hardcover only) with HarperCollins, and we auctioned off the paperback rights separately to Warner Books. I agreed, of course, because I didn't know any better, but in retrospect, that was a mistake. ...
• I would not trust the marketing and publicity departments. After the rock-star treatment I enjoyed during Nathan's Run's publishing cycle, I foolishly assumed that such was the rule for all books. I would write the novels, and the publisher would promote them. Wow, was that not true. By the time I caught on, way too many horses had already fled the barn.
• I would network more and make myself shamelessly visible....I knew nothing about the writers conference circuit until after Nathan's Run had been on the shelves for months....I hit the circuit pretty hard for At All Costs, but not so much for the succeeding two. By the time Six Minutes to Freedom came out—my nonfiction book—I figured that with the real star of the book still alive and on the speaker's circuit, no one would be all that interested in hearing from the author. That was a mistake. I allowed myself to disappear from my fan base, and to lose touch with far too many friends. Never again.

flickr: Bright Meadow

If you're looking for inspiration for your own novel, NaNoWriMoed or not (ours is at 8500 words, and yes, we just want to brag), read this piece.

Highlights: "The Mezzanine" author Nicholson Baker writes in a half-asleep state starting at 4 a.m. Margaret Atwood says writers should put one hand on the table and the other in the air to get ideas (har, har). Junot Diaz writes "90 percent" of his books in his head. Lots of writers swear by color-coded index cards, longhand, a specific font, a specific brand of pen.

Any writing superstitions/traditions you swear by?

1) Yes, we realize that "novelist" is not a "job" in the sense that you go to work and sit at a desk and collect a paycheck and at the end of the year, your employer sends you a W-2. So just call us MediaGigsDaily if it bothers you.

2) Our interview with successful NaNoWriMo novelist Jessica Burkhart is up under "Book Keeping."

An excerpt:

What's it like, actually writing a novel in 30 days?
Writing a novel in 30 days was my first experience writing book length fiction. I had no idea going into it if I would even be able to complete a chapter or two. I had started as a freelance writer when I was about 14 and wrote for magazines like Girl's Life. When i was 19, I heard about NaNoWriMo. I wondered, could I write a novel? Could I do that? Freelancing had started to feel stale for me, and I wanted to make a change.

I thought, 'This is a 30-day investment, to see if I can do it.' I felt overwhelmed at writing that length of a book; I'd been writing articles of 500 words, 1,200 words. My approach was to treat each chapter of my book as a freelance assignment, instead of thinking, 'Oh, I have to write this entire giant book.' [I thought,] 'I'm gonna write 1,200 words, get that section done, and then move onto the next assignment.' I was actually able to pull it off. I was a full-time college student while I was doing it. I was writing in class, I was writing between classes, at night, in the morning, and by the end of the month, I had the 50,000 words that I needed and a horrible, ugly, embarrassing draft of my first novel.

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you're not a member yet, you can register for as little as $55, and start reading those articles, receive discounts on mediabistro.com seminars and workshops, and receive all sorts of other bonuses.

Love it or hate it, NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. Eleven days away, in fact.

The madcap write-a-novel-in-30-days project is now in its 10th year. Haven't heard of it? Check out the About page on the site. In essence, however, the idea is that people all around the world will be "competing" (on the honor system) to write a novel (actually 50,000 words, which counts as a "novella") within 30 days. Some are crap, some have been published, by real publishers nonetheless (Sara Gruen's Flying Changes and Water For Elephants both started life as NaNovels).

If you still don't get it, click the jump to watch a video from the site, or just read this quote from the FAQ that seems to sum up the project:
"Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives."

So are you planning to do it? Let us know...

continued...

flickr: liewcf; share alike.

We've heard that the beleaguered company may have finally paid up.

Our phone calls to CCI weren't returned, so we thought we'd throw it out to you guys: Is anyone still waiting on checks?

You already know about Muck Rack, which lets you find and follow journalists on Twitter.

Now HighSpot's collected a list of book industry people. Who knows, maybe your next agent is just 140 characters away.

Authors on Twitter are compiled in a separate list. Obviously, if you're looking for a particular author, his/her Twitter feed is probably prominently located on his or her Web site. But this list is helpfully sorted by genre, so if you're looking to virtually connect with authors who write the same type of thing as you do, this could be pretty helpful.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's parent company has restructured its debt to avoid "any risk" of bankruptcy, according to Bookseller and our sister blog GalleyCat.

The refinancing will reduce the company's debt load by more than one billion dollars, and undoubtedly save some jobs at HMH.

Why is this bad news for some freelancers? Because those who worked for book packager Curriculum Concepts International (CCI), which counts HMH as one of its clients, haven't been paid since February.

Rumor was that CCI was waiting for payments from HMH, which was waiting until the debt restructuring went through.

Well, it's gone through. Have you been paid, CCI freelancers?

Our friends at GalleyCat steered us toward the Publisher's Weekly annual survey, in which we learn that 35% of employees in the publishing industry didn't get any raise last year, while another 21% got a raise of less than 3 percent. And seven in ten of the respondents to the survey said their company had instituted a salary freeze.

Almost 40 percent of editorial employees felt worried about the future of their jobs, but hey—only 11 percent overall feel "very insecure" about having a job in the future! That 11 percent may be an all-time high, but that means almost 9/10 of you aren't stressing out too much and are just focusing on getting your shit done.

And in the most blood-pressure-aggravating statistic of the day, the number of employees getting bonuses fell from 53 percent to 45 percent, and the average bonus declined—except for managers, who received bonuses that increased, on average, by $5000.

What follows is a (partial) transcript of the Publishing's Next Edition panel at the Circus, moderated by Dan Costa, executive editor of PCMag.com, featuring Anil Dash of Six Apart, Eileen Gittins, founder of Blurb, and Rob Samuels, director of mobile product development for NYTimes.com.

EG: What is the audience for a 1000 page book? Should that go into print? Kindle? Why isn't that book serialized?

AD: The barrier shouldn't be whether someone who's never heard of that topic decides if there's a market for it. Being a creator can be enough to get someone to respond to it. If you're willing to invest in something you probably have enough passion to make that a success.

DC: What is the technology that makes print-on-demand possible?
EG: FakeSteveJobs turned his blog into a book overnight. We have created "slurpers" that slurp content from blogs. Questions: Can we make money on each book and will I go to jail? (Copyright is complicated--Blurb doesn't police content.)

DC: What advice would you give to my daughter who is about to graduate and is going into the media business?

EG: Marry well. (laughter) No longer is the day where you'll walk into the NYTimes and work your way up? Build your brand. Everybody who works at Blurb is an entrepreneur because we're not expecting lifetime servitude.

RS: Become acquainted with the current device trends. Find out how your experience is relevant to social networking. Learn about the technology that may be outside your comfort zone as an aspiring journalist.

AD: only the old people are worried about technology. the thing you have in spades in 22 is an irrational passion for things that seem like the most important thing in the world. find these things you're that passionate about. give voice to them however you can. If you have this thing you love beyond all reason and you don't expect to have any money and you're willing to work cheap because you're just starting out....you'll be fine.

While TV, newspapers, and ad agencies are all reporting dismal earnings, GalleyCat finds that publishing is still pretty strong.

Penguin's revenue rose 6.7 percent last year, and Hachette Book Group's 26 percent increase in revenue was the "major driver" behind its parent company's 1.4 percent increase in sales.

And though HarperCollins had what Publisher's Weekly calls "a particularly bad" second half of the year last year, revenue fell 16%—a veritable picnic compared to the plummets in revenue we're seeing in other media industries. Remember, 20% down is the new flat.

And all five major publishers remained profitable, with both Hachette and Penguin reporting profits of more than 10 percent.