Writing Classes
RICHARD BALKIN TAUGHT A WRITING COURSE; I TOOK 4 CLASSES
DIARY 13923
1/12/79
RICHARD BALKIN CLASS 1
Aaron, young and Jewish-capped, and Gene, bluff and all-American, are there as I enter almost exactly at 6:30, and then Irving, an ever-questioning teacher, enters and we start about 6:40, interrupted by Jack's arrival a few minutes later, and he's had porno scripts made into movies and might have an agent interested in a book of his. Richard starts by giving an outline of the class so we can leave if we don't want it. I: He starts with definitions: "dust jacket" has "flap copy," usually description of the book and bio on the rear one, and "blurbs" on the back. "Case-bound book" is hard cover, since the cardboard inside the covers is called a "case." "End papers are glued to the covers, and the first printed page is usually the "half-title page" followed by the "full-title page" followed by the "copyright page" followed by the table of contents and whatever. "Signatures" are in multiples of 16 or 32, the "headband" is sewn across the signatures, "stamping die" embosses titles into the spine and cover, "Smythe sewn" means stitched with string, and Dover paperbacks still do it for their reprinting in the last 10 years. "Perfect bound" is without string, edges of signatures sawed off and glue applied, so they don't last very long, but don't have to come in signatures. II: Choosing a publisher: there are different kinds of publishers: mass-market such as Dell, Bantam, and Avon; textbook, etc, and different divisions in a typical house: scientific-technical, textbook, el-hi, professional books, trade books. Trade books are fiction or nonfiction, and appear IN general bookstores. The $25-30 LMP has good information, it's the main book he uses, has a subject index, and about 10% of the personnel move in a year, so it's up-to-date. The 1978 Writers Market is BEST, Writer's Handbook, from Boston, is inferior: it's not up to date. Articles in Writer Market OK. "International Directory of Small Presses" is countercultural LMP, good for stories and poetry. There are 7000 publishers in the US, 1500 in LMP are trade publishers, 1500 small presses. EACH has a "fall and spring list" in "their" image. KNOW THEIR IMAGE. Write to the publishers to SEE their fall and spring catalogs. Post card to publicity director via LMP. If they NEVER publish "your type of book," they never WILL. If they JUST published a book of the same SETTING (such as Spain), it's OK. A book that's SIMILAR they WON'T take, unless their book is a best-seller. They want COMPATIBLE books, not COMPETITIVE books. "Most publishers are ruthless, that's why you're HERE, though you may not KNOW it yet." Publishing in GENERAL run NOW by accountants and conglomerates. SO, to summarize finding a publisher:
1. Write to publisher and check the fall and spring catalogs.
2. Check LMP with their various lists.
3. Go to bookstores and see who published the books of the type you write.
4. Go over your OWN bookshelves and see who writes the books you like.
5. Publishers Trade-list Annual (in library) COMBINES last year's catalogs.
6. AVOID THE TOP DOZEN OR TWO DOZEN PUBLISHERS (unless you have an AGENT, or unless you have a PARTICULARLY compatible book). If YOU know their name, it's NOT the place to go, which is NOT true of textbooks. These have HUGE "slush piles," unsolicited, 4000-5000/year, but these COMPETE with KNOWN agents and authors. AT LEAST 90 trade book publishers are BETTER than these. Go to library and Scribner's and Barnes and Noble (NOT annex) and your shelf. LMP: If they've published 5 titles they're small, 50-60 medium and GOOD try. An "imprint" (a Cass Canfield book) is like a SUBSIDIARY of a company, never SEND both. "Genres" are types of books: cookbooks, animal books, science fiction, gothics.
7. Work up a LIST before submitting a book (8-10) and send it AGAIN after rejections. Look in LMP and get a NAME: send it to the Vice-President or Executive Editor or Editor in Chief of the division, at LEAST you'll be MORE likely to get a MORE serious response, or you can phone, in mass-market books, and find the name of the Gothic or Science-Fiction editor.
8. If you KNOW somebody, or somebody who knows somebody, WRITE and use them. NEVER phone.
9. First question from editor: Does it fit into our list?
10. MOST manuscripts come from agents, from published authors, from fellow editors, and from institutions, scouts, foreign sources, and LOTS "over the transom." None of these points ALONE will help, but all TOGETHER might help SOME.
DIARY 13951
1/16/79
RICHARD BALKIN CLASS 2
PREPARING A PROPOSAL---I got in at 6:35, Gene saying "Started a few minutes already." Multiple submissions: CONSIDERED unethical, some DO some DON'T. Agents DO, but AUTHORS being caught doing it would be RESENTED, though it's unlikely to happen. Letter can be sent after a month, stating story and name, saying "Please let me know in 2 weeks." After 2 MORE weeks, say "I'll submit it elsewhere in 2 weeks if I don't hear from you." Don't send original that'll only get dog-eared, send a good xerox. "We like it"; "Great, I'd like to think it over, can you send me a blank contract?" If then it's a multiple submission, write you OTHER letters and say "Let's hear in 2 weeks." To second publisher, if it happens, "Ask for outrageous advance---if they say $3000, you say $10,000. Trade editors deal with agents over 50% of the time, so they'll agree if you say "My new agent will contact you." You CAN say, "I'll have to think it over, try to do better." Text: outline and a couple of sample chapters. DON'T set deadline in INITIAL letter 95% of publishers treat authors with CONTEMPT. Fads---running, women's lib, mopeds, home computers---you're too late NOW, by about 2 years.
Roughly $15,000 for publisher to publish a book---so make a proposal WORTH it! You have to prove to publisher that you're an AUTHORITY on the subject: RESEARCH and COMPETITION and be RIGHT about it, so you'll stand authoritarian. HIS proposal had a short cover letter, two paragraphs, somewhat glib.
Hardly EVER discuss price of book in a letter.
Agents covered in the xeroxed reading. You can ASK background, but it's undiplomatic to ask "Who do you represent?" GOOD: What kinds of books do you usually handle?" and you might get some current titles. Agents know more people and can get a better deal---BUT only 140 agents and 7000 publishers! So it may be harder to get an AGENT than to get a publisher.
"I believe it's best to try to sell your first book on your own."
If you KNOW someone, or know someone who knows someone, TRY to get an agent to read it. What happens to outline and couple chapters at publishing house---NO MATTER who you addressed the letter to:
1) Logged in (untyped is unread, except for Theodore Gaster, who scribes).
2) First reader averages 10 pages or less; if it's READABLE, it gets READ. Then it's either completely rejected or it goes to a second reader, or more.
3) Second/third/fourth readers/editor has to ask the following questions:
a) Is the book suitable for our house?
b) Is the book suitable for this editor (CAN'T, however, turn down a BEST-SELLER!)
c) Is it well written?
d) Will it sell 6-7000 copies (in trade) or 50,000 copies (9n mass market)?
e) Does the editor who'll get it have TIME for it now?
f) Other editors: do YOU like this book for our house?
g) Subsidiary rights? Book club? Paperbacks? First serial? England? Some editors, getting no BOOK CLUB bids to spread out costs, REJECT.
h) Other books LIKE this IN works at OTHER houses? Check "Subject Guide in Books in Print for books that ALREADY exist, or send someone to library.
i) Royalties, advances, rights department, and come up with ESTIMATE!
4) Editorial conferences every week or two weeks to discuss possible books for list.
5) Check AGAINST checklist, handed around but not copies, for:
a) Marketing evaluation and previous authors' sales
b) December June SALES conference responses
c) Projected ADVANCE sales BEFORE publication
d) First year's sales
e) Shelf-life over three-year period
F) Subsidiary rights
g) Promotion and advertising budget
h) Product evaluation: PROJECTION of profits
i) Copies, price # pages, features, artwork, libel.
Cover page 40: Figure 1. "3 of 4 books LOSE publisher's money."
6. PRODUCTION department gets specifications on size, length, art, from EDITOR and furnishes PRODUCTION costs. Anything less than 40% of production cost "donated" won't tip scales, but use $2-4000 for additional. PROMOTION is good idea.
Covered page 37: ALL sales people who haven't read the BOOK talk about MONEY. ALL MONEY, NO LITERARY VALUE. Proposal HELPS EDITOR WITH THIS SALES PITCH!
Fiction: You're gambling, hoping the gamble will pay off.
REGIONAL publishers don't pay Gore Vidal $1M for his next book, have 3-martini lunches, and have HUGE overhead like the 2 dozen biggies in NYC.
"He gives up after 25 publishers, but maybe 26th would buy autograph book for 5-40,000 copies, but no one KNOWS.
EDITORIAL MEETING gets all items questioned and picked apart. His book: "It's a gas" on farting, won't "fit image of house." "Lyle Stuart told me, we did that book on the Ptomaine 10 years ago and it didn't sell." Others "We're not the right house for that kind of book."
Maybe 20 are presented, maybe 3 are taken. Another angle: author difficult to work with? Legal problems? SAMPLE is the BEST work, so what's the WORST the book's gonna be? $7500 advance? Get it for $4000 and we'll take it? Can photos from 100 to 20 and we'll do it. Call in an expert or have someone CHECK it. Let's look at answers and results at NEXT meeting. IF book has come THIS far and is rejected, you MAY get SOME encouragement, but in 99% of the cases you will NOT know why it was turned down, so you won't have to give them a REBUTTAL. NO DIALOGS NEEDED IN REJECTION. Decisions to publish books are GROUP decisions, not individual decisions. For FIRST authors, SAMPLE must be FINISHED BEST, only an EXPERIENCED author can expect PATIENCE. (So I conclude I was wrong with 1st/3rd person question?) Editor in TRADE house has 8-12 books/year. Editor in MASS MARKET has 30-40 books/year. Trade book editors WANT to feel they had a hand in shaping; magazine editors may change articles DRASTICALLY. Sales managers DO read books, so in some cases literary qualities DO count. QUESTION A: Fiction versus nonfiction (Acid House): 65% of books are new fiction. Fiction sells LOTS, but they're looking for BLOCKBUSTERS. If they're not HAPPY with 1/4 the book, ask for advance before showing them half. They're reluctant to accept books from first novelists because they know they often have trouble FINISHING a book. QUESTION B: PART of track record having REWRITTEN A book---can put it in my EXPERIENCE as an indexer, but not as part of the cover letter of a book---since my name isn't on it, it won't help, but it WOULD help if I knew the SALES figures on it!
DIARY 14005
1/27/79
RICHARD BALKIN CLASS 3
Class starts at 6:35, all 5 there except Adam, the cute new guy from last week who seems not to have paid at all, and probably won't be back---what a way to get free classes! He goes through the contract, which I didn't bring, but I kept referring to Irving's at my side, and took lots of notes: "THIS is a standard trade-book contract, but Simon and Schuster has a 30-page contract, the biggest. Discuss clauses IF you've been offered one. It's NOT "Take it or leave it," even for the FIRST book, and you CAN negotiate. Most books are financial flops: 3-4000 in sales, no subsidiary or foreign rights, and in that case the clauses are NOT important, but if the book SELLS, then the clauses are VERY important. 80% of the splits are conventionally nonnegotiable splits. There are trade/cloth rights and subsidiary rights, listed in the contract, and book-club rights are typical at 50-50. If Richard Balkin says it's negotiable, it IS, despite what an editor may say. If you GET a contract, join the Author's Build ($30-35/year), and they have a GOOD bulletin 4-6 times/year, and members can talk to their LAWYER and get free advice, 15 minutes of which will pay for the year's membership. For SECOND book, try to get an agent. Even giving you an OFFER means they have a possible range in mind for an advance. SPONSORING editor will call or write you. Texts come out in October and in March/April. TELL them "I'll withhold decision until I look at a blank contract." Blank contract is called the BOILER PLATE, no advance, no shares are listed, but most else is IN it. Professional book contract may be shorter. Cloth/trade royalty is usually 10% of list for first 5000 copies, 121/2% for 5000-10,000 copies, and 15% for more. TEXT/PROFESSIONAL book is 15% of NET price---if LIST is $9.95, royalty is 99.5¢. List - Average discount (about 45%) = Net (about 55%), which would be 83¢ for 15%. An advance is always AN ADVANCE AGAINST ROYALTIES, BUT IT IS TOTALLY NONrefundable, no matter WHAT they say. AGENTS put clause into contract, so you don't HAVE to sign a contract WITH the agent. All checks ARE made out to the agent! Get a BUDGET for permissions or artwork, usually part of the advance. $2000 advance + $500 artwork must get back $2500 from royalties to repay. ROYALTY statement is sent to agent, too, and a copy is sent to the author "so agent can't cheat." Jan 1-June 30 is one pay period, though they're not required to pay until 90-120 days AFTER, and when you GET a royalty statement, it's usually about a week late. SOME small publishers have "cash flow problems" (Latham?) and don't PAY royalties at all! Now CONTRACT:
Clause 1: Grant of rights. Crossing out KEEPS foreign and U.K. rights, and keeps ENGLISH rights to Denmark and Japan, etc.
Clause 2: Copyrights---in AUTHOR'S name, and NEW copyrights laws PROTECT authors.
Clause 3: Manuscript clause: DATE: ASK for in-writing extension (of 2-3 months 2-3 months BEFORE the deadline, if it'll be late by more than a month), and contract CAN be cancelled for LATENESS---and you'll be PRESSURED to return nonreturnable advance. If your book isn't up to snuff, or is UNSATISFACTORY in final form and CONTENT (They CAN be fickle!), they CAN cancel. You COULD sue the publisher to PUBLISH, but it'll COST a lot and you might LOSE. DON'T let publisher talk you OUT of advance, EITHER. It IS convention: all publishers DO give advances. An ADVANCE is a publisher's RIGHT to make MONEY on your BOOK. Whether you or the publisher pays for artwork, preparation of final copy, and getting permission rights is negotiable. "Fair use" clause allows you to publish UP to a paragraph or 500 words from other books, WITHOUT fee.
Clause 4: Warranty Indemnity clause---libel to suing. Whatever happens, you're stuck---this is NONnegotiable. HOWEVER, most people sue PUBLISHER. If RISKY, have a lawyer do a LIBEL reading for $300, to CLEAR it. If it's CLEAR that you're following form and content of someone else's book, but paraphrasing, it's still plagiarism.
Clause 6: Publisher's determinants: YOU have little to say, they know what their LIST is when they call you. You CAN say "Wanna see FLAP copy?" and cover design. Advance is usually half on signing and half on final delivery, and NOT on publication. MOST advances for trade fiction and nonfiction is $2000-$4000. They'll pay ABOUT their estimate of first year's profit as royalties. "Skip it" for offer of LESS than $2000 advance, since it'll cost THEM $15,000 to PUBLISH. Only BIG books (about $10,000) get BIG PUSH. Anything LESS than 10-15% is poor, or less than 121/2% of NET. SHOULD be 15% OVER 10,000. Large trade/qualities (like Hesse) paperbacks can be anything like 5-71/2%. He passes around contract from Exposition Press which asks for $9,`000 for a $12.50 book, for 3000 copies, but only 600 to START, and 75 copies to the author, and he said it just doesn't work for the vanity presses at ALL.
Clause 10: points a-g are conventionally 50-50, and h-o are conventionally 50-50, BUT the author can NEGOTIATE h-o for 75-90% for himself.
MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS (small, like "The Bantam Book"), for sci-fi books like Bantam and Fawcett and Avon, you get 6% for first 150,000, 8% for next 150,000, and 10% after, but MOST don't sell more than 50,000 copies---but that's still $6,000! ALL contract negotiations are for SUCCESSFUL book's advantages. Paperback rights (and book club) sales are usually sold BEFORE book comes out in cloth (and you get 50% of that on FIRST royalty statement), say a $5000 advance, sells for $3,000 in royalties, and publisher sells $10,000 publication rights, so $5,000 is yours, and you get $3,000 in all. If you order 20 copies of the book, you'll get a bill, but you IGNORE it, and they SUBTRACT it from royalties. They'll WITHHOLD up to 20% of royalties that they owe you for RETURNS that average 15-20%. BOOKSTORE billed for 10,000 copies, they OWE you $1000, but they DEDUCT $200 pending returns. And this is nonnegotiable. Publisher has contact with paperback house, and author gets 50%, again advance on royalties, again, after advance for rights are paid off you get 50% of 10% or paperback royalty statements, too. Humber of reserve books can be negotiated by the agent, not the author. \Clause 11, payments: Publishers CAN decide title of book, but if you're VOCAL about it, they'll at least listens, but you're usually wrong: they're right, THEY'RE interested in SALES.
Clause 14, get 6-10 books, and 40% discount.
Clause 16, discontinuance of manufacture (or termination, or cancellation) and you NEED the rights to revert to YOU if a) They're not offering: not in (Interesting that on DIARY 14001 I said these were SHORT notes, and they're the LONGEST so far, the other two classes were *3 pages each) catalog or in Books in Print. He likes Rider 25, it's GOOD and NEGOTIABLE. He gives example of a TV movie done 10 years after the book is printed that they decide to reprint for.
Clause 18: Options (offer next book to THEM): this is understandable since they usually lose money on first novels, you CAN strike it, is negotiable, but at LEAST say that it's PENDING good relationships and a good offer. At LEAST say they DON'T take it at the SAME rights and prices as FIRST, say "At rates to be negotiated later."
Clause 9 (2): 71/2% on $19.95 book put out in CHEAPER edition and sold for $6.99 at Marlboro's. If "remainder" price is LESS than cost, you get NOTHING. Dover is REPRINT publisher, not remainderer. Agent can add a clause: publisher has to CONSULT with agent. Publisher's interests are USUALLY author's interests: MONEY AND DISTRIBUTION. Questions on artwork next time. Read the rest of the material in the handout. Next time: publicity, sales, vanity presses, small presses, self-publicity. Ask LATER: Send index-book to FORMER index publishers, or fear that they'll just reissue the OLD books, though I can made a case for REPLACING the British-oriented books with an American-oriented one, giving PRICES in this fluctuating market that might be a bit HIGHER than usual---and do publishers ever BOYCOTT books because it'll cost PUBLISHERS MORE MONEY??
He stays around answering questions until 8:45, says he has to leave, gives the guy who brings in a Women's Lib cartoon-re-quotation book the name of a few publishers, though he says quite frankly "I don't think it will sell," and he's not interested in handling a few books put to him by others in the class, but I still hold out the hope that he'll be interested in handling ONLY my indexing book FIRST, until it sells, and then maybe trying to sell him on some of my OTHER books: and it's interesting to have STARTED trying to publish the MOST far-out stuff, and now thinking of getting a toe in the door with the TAMEST possible book, trying to get leverage for ODD BALLS.
DIARY 14027
1/30/79
RICHARD BALKIN CLASS 4
It starts at 6:33 with Jack and Aaron and Gene there, and Irving "Der Doctor Professor" as Richard calls him, gets in at 6:40. He plans to end at 8:15 for questions, but I'd gotten there at 5:55 and monopolized him until 6:20 (see DIARY 14030) about my OWN books and possible publishers. THEN he gets into the topic for the evening: MARKETING is MOST IMPORTANT part of selling. Marketing MAKES OR BREAKS a book. About 10% of publishing's books are PUSHED and these "self-fulfill the prophecy that they'll make money." 10% of the books get 80% of the energy---the others are just hopes that ride along.
MARKETING IS COMPRISED OF:
1) Publicity, which is free advertising, which generates interest in the INDUSTRY and to the PUBLIC, enhances RIGHTS-sales for mass-markets and book clubs and film and TV (though the last two are small since the publishers usually don't get ANY of it, usually 100% to the author and agent). It includes the author's questionnaire: add romance and pizzazz and get on TALK shows. You need to supply a list of a)_ Blurb-people for book jacket: people in FIELD with NAMES to say good things. 5-10 names---and then the publishers request the blurbs. No one gives blurbs for novels except as FAVOR, nor for texts. B) 10-30 "national opinion makers" who might get a copy of the FINISHED book and comment on it for ADS. Blurbers get bound galleys. E.G. President of PTA mentioning your book on child abuse. C) Review media: Newspapers, magazines, journals, maybe 50-100 places who get sent a PRESS RELEASE that goes out WITH the book: for reviewer assignments in OTHER media, for talk-show interviews' screening, for 8-9000 newspapers in US. 150 press releases with REVIEW copies, and 850 PRs somewhere ELSE, so that if YOU type up 500 pressure sensitive labels, they'll send them out to who you think of. Balkin sent 100 AGENTS PRs of HIS book, typing labels. D) Personal letter to THE person in publicity who's handling YOUR book, who can NOW do more for you than the EDITOR can! And give him reasons to go on radio and TV, or hometown visits, or autograph parties, or say "I'm a member of ASI, send to membership a PR." 2-3% of people respond to mail order, but in the publishing-oriented business-placement it may be closer to 5-10% return. There are relatively FEW bookstores and EVERYONE competes for space. Author's tours, radio and TV can be done through publicity. PW is SO important, publishers send GALLEYS, BOUND to PW---12-50 sent for blurbs. Particularly to Library Journal, PW, and Kirkus---reviews 6 weeks BEFORE publication date. GOOD REVIEW in LJ, PW, or K will GENERATE subsidiary sales. Publication date is 6 weeks from pages printed and bound, for review copies.
2) Promotion: selling books AT point of sales: streamers and boxes at the bookstores. Mailers to ALL agents, printing seasonal catalogs, flyers to bookstores, Christmas catalogs: Abrams imprints BOOKSHOP'S name so THEY can send it out. Buttons, shopping bags, dump-ins, special RACKS even. American Booksellers Association in June---BOOTHS for next season's books.
Academic conventions and professional; conventions have booths too. Bookstore gets 1) Mail, 2) Conventions, 3) Salesmen, and 4) PW for reviews. American Library Association has yearly convention and meeting. University Press breaks even on 2200 copies, and 1000 libraries can EVEN it. Children's books are for libraries, too. NOW library budgets are LOW and they buy LESS.
3) Advertising: Make public aware, CREATE readers (1/2 trade sales are from BOOK clubs), influence bookstore buyers, wholesaler/distributor (who delivers daily, buys in quantity and gets heavy discount), influences AUTHORS and AGENTS to make them THINK they're selling---though publishers think they know it's not worth putting a $7000 ad in the Times Magazine. But Mailer wants it, he gets it as PR. Coupon ads in journals are FUNCTIONAL and they DO many times pay. "What DOES sell the book?" Publishers believe in WORD OF MOUTH, which starts with a small circle of admirers, publicity HELPS. To influence REVIEWERS---to GET subsidiary rights for paperback, movie, book clubs. $40,000 PAPERBACK sale puts ORIGINAL publisher $5000 in BLACK. Author can give a couple thousand for SALE-ADS, or mail out 5000 flyers, or put in a coupon ad. Coupon ads get DIRECT sale and INDIRECT sale: it IS an ad and readers may but it in a bookstore. 10% of projected first year's revenues: $9.95 book discounted to $5, so 5000 copies will sell $25,000, so $21500 for 1/3-page Times ad. Publisher's Weekly has twice-yearly "books forthcoming," January 20, 1979, for GREAT one, but look at the library, since it costs $30/year. MODEST books get NO ads, and top 10% get BULK. Book passed: ACCENT ON BROADCASTING, Randie Levine, for TV and radio spot.
4) Sales: Sales CONFERENCES important: salesmen push book, editor has 1-2 minutes to push YOUR title---getting a HANDLE (and he LIKES my "Gay Love Story" for "John"), and THAT'S where they set the EXPECTED sales which leads into the fulfilled prophecy since salesmen are TOLD which to push!
5) Distribution: complicated and haphazard---and VERY outdated: the 4000 publishers all have DIFFERENT discounts and depots and mass confusion that a few dozen central centers could handle well computer-wise, but don't do it.
6) Subsidiary rights: sell first-serial (prepublication, like in New York Magazine), second-serial (post-publication, like serialized in some women's magazines), book club, Reader's Digest, paperback, British, movie, TV. He closes with "UNPLEASANT REALITIES ABOUT NOT GETTING PUBLISHED." 4-5 rejected proposals is NOTHING, it's hard to get published first time. Look into International Directory of Small Publishers. Avoid top 25, go to NEXT 25, and then to university presses, small presses, self-publishing via "How to Publish Your Own Book" by Mueller, his own Harlo Press in Chicago for 30 years---about HALF the price and BETTER than vanity presses. INTO PRINT says how to publish professional books and textbooks yourself. HOW TO GET HAPPILY PUBLISHED is good on fiction and poetry. Can he suggest an agent? "I don't LIKE any," and it's not a service: if you're GOOD, I'll take you, he as much as says. Write or phone ILA (Independent Literary Agents), which are 50-60 NEW agents, and ask for list of them, DON'T go to an agent with NOTHING published. Agents don't WANT people writing to them. "I'm busy, I work 6 days a week, I have enough to do," as RB says. LESS likely to get an AGENT than a PUBLISHER when you're still unpublished! And then he continues to answer my science-fiction questions, see DIARY 14030.
DIARY 14030
Also 1/30/79
RICHARD BALKIN CLASS 4---SPECIFIC DETAILS FOR ME!
1) Indexing (which he calls "Handbook of Indexing") I have 40 pages, which is 1/8 of the 320 pages he'd require for a 212-page book that could sell for $12.95 or $13.95 in hardback. There's NO WAY of getting number of indexers. Say of 30,000 new books, 7-7500 have indexes. Then add journals, encyclopedias, and DON'T belabor the market, since it seems to be ENOUGH there. There are 3000 universities, so maybe the MAJOR ones, and public libraries, will guy. PUBLISHERS may furnish a market of 500-2000. Freelance indexers the rest. Chicago Manual is NEVER competition, since they sell a $1 pamphlet only. Make MY credibility clear in the proposal. Publishers: Bowker and Chicago University Press (though they're stingy). THEN HE SAYS TO PHONE HIM WHEN THE PROPOSAL'S READY (662-5451) and have him find the status of a NEW company he knows about which wants to put out a BASIC SERIES of publishing tools, so MINE would fit RIGHT INTO the series, and would get LOTS of push from a just-starting company, which sounds like REASONABILITY.
2) JOYI, he suggests pulling out the best stuff and getting it published as an ARTICLE in Penthouse or like place. Or co-author with an MD or PhD and go to Psychology Today. 2500-5000 word article, OR go with a book to Macmillan, which did the Hite Report, or write 2-page query and get commitment for at least a SMALL article or SOME interest in the subject matter.
3) ACID HOUSE---AGAIN, an article, though fiction versus nonfiction depends on the SUBJECT Matter, Not on the east of selling (when I force him to the wall to admit it's easier to sell a first nonfiction book than a first novel). HE thinks it's an OLD subject, from 60s, but if an article sells a) nonfiction to Psychology Today, b) fiction as chapter from a work in process.
4) THROWBACK---I listen to another's question: "For BEST-selling book, it's STILL better to go to hardcover publisher and hope it GOES and have an AUCTION for mass-market paperback, but in science fiction it's easier to get PUBLISHED in mass-market. RB considers himself a sci-fi buff, "discovered Lem a year ago," and I ask about Lem (mine and quirkiness) versus Sturgeon and Sheckley (who he says he knows, warmth and characters), and he says "people in publishing have to be catholic and nondiscriminatory. I handle LITTLE fiction and mostly nonfiction."
5) "JOHN" nonfiction is NOT YET faddish in the area of gay relationships, but since I want to be serious, I should sell it as a serious book, and thus not send it to Lyle Stuart. "The Gay Love Story" he likes as a handle.
6) TRAVEL ANECDOTES I jotted down but didn't ask him anything about.
7) ACTUALISM ARTICLE isn't part of his business since he said he wasn't interested in recommending markets for magazines, another reason to publish BEFORE going to him.
He almost apologized at the end for being so negative and pessimistic, but he sincerely believes that's what the business is like. He said that to make $10,000 a year, barely enough to live on, you have to sell $100,000 worth of material, so there ARE no agents who are amateurs, they're ALL experts if they can sell $200,000 worth of stuff to have an income of $20,000 a year, which from his statements he didn't seem to be quite up to YET. But he wished us all luck, was rather warm at the end, and I SLIGHTLY annoyed him at 5:55 which he said was a BIT early, and there was a girl on crutches who pleaded with him to serve her tea in her room, so I don't know if THAT was the Swados, or some Michael Swados that I saw on his bookshelf as an author. He said he only had his "snake" books in one section for reading, but the others were haphazard. He didn't seem to be encouraging anyone beside me, but as I went out the door he said, so silently no one else could hear, "I'll be in touch with you," though he might not have any indication of where I am, but I guess he'll remember the indexing book, saying that I should pad it out to many chapters with different kinds of indexing information, saying the competition is only from Britain, that there's none good in print, though HE says something about the reprinted edition that the New York Public Library sells, so I have to look into THAT at least, though the other listings of Books in Print showed them to be out of print, except for the Shin book (25 pages) in his bibliography list. So I hope I haven't heard the LAST of Richard Balkin!
