The Writer's Predicament
Warning: This blog contains venom.
If you haven’t been vaccinated against
“disgruntled writer’s venom,” don’t read it.
My new editor’s name was Brent Howard. This is the one and only time I will mention his name. From now on, I will refer to him only as Jerkoff. I Googled him after I found out he was my new editor and learned he had graduated from the University of Arkansas. A Razorback. A Wild Pig. Good for him. I called him and we small talked a little. I thought it might work out.
Here’s where it starts to get a little venomous. Do you remember how your mother always told you if you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all? I can’t say anything nice about the guy I mentioned above, so I won’t say anything at all. I will say some things about Jerkoff, however, and none of them will be nice.
NAL/Penguin and some woman named Kara Welcher or Kara Welsh or Kara Walsh (I’m not sure about her name, but I think she was the boss) decided they wouldn’t replace Kristen Weber, so they (she) dumped me on Jerkoff. He apparently already had eight or ten or a dozen authors he was dealing with and was none-too-thrilled about working with me. He made that crystal clear from the beginning. I’ll never forget the email he sent me after I sent him an email asking whether he had had time to familiarize himself with my work. His answer? He wasn’t like Kristen Weber. He wasn’t one of the chosen ones at the publishing house. He had to work for a living, and no, he hadn’t had time to familiarize himself and didn’t know when he’d be get around to it. (I saved the email, because as soon as I read it, having a background in law, I realized I might have to sue these bastards at some point in the future. I saved all of my correspondence with Jerkoff from that day forward. I plan to use it if I ever have to go to trial with them.)
I wrote back to him and asked him whether there might be another editor at NAL who wasn’t so busy, somebody who wouldn’t mind working with me, since he seemed to be overwhelmed and all. Instead of answering the email, he forwarded it to my agent and whined, which resulted in a call from Lukas Ortiz, who gave me a twenty-minute scolding on how I should not communicate with editors. I hadn’t had any problems communicating with Kristen Weber, so I was a bit perplexed. Lukas’s rant pissed me off almost as much as Jerkoff’s email. I felt like a kid who’d been dragged into the principal’s office and lectured over some unfathomable offense he didn’t commit. I bit my tongue and took it that day, but the conversation fundamentally changed the relationship between Lukas and I because I thought Lukas was supposed to be on my side. He was my agent, after all. I didn’t know at the time that he and his agency were negotiating some non-fiction, baseball book deal about Hank Greenberg with Jerkoff. How could I know that? And honestly, why would I care? Jerkoff was screwing me. He was ignoring me and my books. I reacted to him screwing me in a way that was, and always has been, natural to me — I confronted him — and my agent was making an angry phone call to… me?
It wasn’t good. I’d gone from the publishing penthouse (if you want to call mass market paperback and eight percent royalties a penthouse) to the publishing outhouse. Hell, I wasn’t even in the outhouse. I was in an open slit trench beyond the outhouse. And why? Because, in my humble opinion, Jerkoff felt “put upon” because Kara Welcher, Welsh, Walsh, whatever her name is, dumped me on him.
Let me just throw this out. Maybe I sucked. Maybe my worked sucked. Maybe my agent was dead wrong when he read my first manuscript, loved it, and decided to represent it. Maybe Kristen Weber was dead wrong when she bought my first three novels. Maybe Kara Welcher/Welsh/Walsh was dead wrong when she agreed with Kristen that my work was worthy of publication on a national level. Maybe Publisher’s Weekly was dead wrong when they gave me a starred review for “An Innocent Client” and maybe the people who give out the Macavity Awards were dead wrong when they made that novel a finalist in the “Best Debut Mystery” category. Maybe Joel Gotler (a respected Hollywood agent) and Alexandra Milchan (a respected producer) and Rod Lurie (a respected writer, director and producer) and the other people in Hollywood who wanted to option the book for a television series were dead wrong when they talked to me on the phone and flew me to a meeting and told me the book was brilliant. Maybe all the people who bought and enjoyed the novel were idiots.
Maybe Jerkoff was right.
Regardless of who was “right,” what happened was, under Jerkoff’s tender wings, “In Good Faith” suffocated. There wasn’t a dollar spent on promotion, to my knowledge, outside of the standard advance review copies being sent out. Jerkoff didn’t solicit a single new blurb. He wasn’t responsible for a single review. He nominated the book for nothing. I had a publicist, employed by Penguin, who had absolutely nothing to do. And why? I hate to say it, but I believe I’ve already answered the question twice. That book, and my career as a novelist, went south (temporarily) because Jerkoff felt “put upon.” It was so petty.
Next blog, we’ll talk about what’s really important in this business today and why I’m thinking seriously about suing Penguin for breach of contract. As a result of this blog, any hope I may have entertained about being published again by a “legacy” or “conventional” or “traditional” publisher is most likely dead in the water. My agents may even fire me.
We’ll see…
By the way, I don’t like the word “disgruntled.” I prefer “pissed off,” or maybe “righteously indignant.”
Yuk, yuk. (Mike Royko, RIP.)
If you haven’t been vaccinated against
“disgruntled writer’s venom,” don’t read it.
My new editor’s name was Brent Howard. This is the one and only time I will mention his name. From now on, I will refer to him only as Jerkoff. I Googled him after I found out he was my new editor and learned he had graduated from the University of Arkansas. A Razorback. A Wild Pig. Good for him. I called him and we small talked a little. I thought it might work out.
Here’s where it starts to get a little venomous. Do you remember how your mother always told you if you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all? I can’t say anything nice about the guy I mentioned above, so I won’t say anything at all. I will say some things about Jerkoff, however, and none of them will be nice.
NAL/Penguin and some woman named Kara Welcher or Kara Welsh or Kara Walsh (I’m not sure about her name, but I think she was the boss) decided they wouldn’t replace Kristen Weber, so they (she) dumped me on Jerkoff. He apparently already had eight or ten or a dozen authors he was dealing with and was none-too-thrilled about working with me. He made that crystal clear from the beginning. I’ll never forget the email he sent me after I sent him an email asking whether he had had time to familiarize himself with my work. His answer? He wasn’t like Kristen Weber. He wasn’t one of the chosen ones at the publishing house. He had to work for a living, and no, he hadn’t had time to familiarize himself and didn’t know when he’d be get around to it. (I saved the email, because as soon as I read it, having a background in law, I realized I might have to sue these bastards at some point in the future. I saved all of my correspondence with Jerkoff from that day forward. I plan to use it if I ever have to go to trial with them.)
I wrote back to him and asked him whether there might be another editor at NAL who wasn’t so busy, somebody who wouldn’t mind working with me, since he seemed to be overwhelmed and all. Instead of answering the email, he forwarded it to my agent and whined, which resulted in a call from Lukas Ortiz, who gave me a twenty-minute scolding on how I should not communicate with editors. I hadn’t had any problems communicating with Kristen Weber, so I was a bit perplexed. Lukas’s rant pissed me off almost as much as Jerkoff’s email. I felt like a kid who’d been dragged into the principal’s office and lectured over some unfathomable offense he didn’t commit. I bit my tongue and took it that day, but the conversation fundamentally changed the relationship between Lukas and I because I thought Lukas was supposed to be on my side. He was my agent, after all. I didn’t know at the time that he and his agency were negotiating some non-fiction, baseball book deal about Hank Greenberg with Jerkoff. How could I know that? And honestly, why would I care? Jerkoff was screwing me. He was ignoring me and my books. I reacted to him screwing me in a way that was, and always has been, natural to me — I confronted him — and my agent was making an angry phone call to… me?
It wasn’t good. I’d gone from the publishing penthouse (if you want to call mass market paperback and eight percent royalties a penthouse) to the publishing outhouse. Hell, I wasn’t even in the outhouse. I was in an open slit trench beyond the outhouse. And why? Because, in my humble opinion, Jerkoff felt “put upon” because Kara Welcher, Welsh, Walsh, whatever her name is, dumped me on him.
Let me just throw this out. Maybe I sucked. Maybe my worked sucked. Maybe my agent was dead wrong when he read my first manuscript, loved it, and decided to represent it. Maybe Kristen Weber was dead wrong when she bought my first three novels. Maybe Kara Welcher/Welsh/Walsh was dead wrong when she agreed with Kristen that my work was worthy of publication on a national level. Maybe Publisher’s Weekly was dead wrong when they gave me a starred review for “An Innocent Client” and maybe the people who give out the Macavity Awards were dead wrong when they made that novel a finalist in the “Best Debut Mystery” category. Maybe Joel Gotler (a respected Hollywood agent) and Alexandra Milchan (a respected producer) and Rod Lurie (a respected writer, director and producer) and the other people in Hollywood who wanted to option the book for a television series were dead wrong when they talked to me on the phone and flew me to a meeting and told me the book was brilliant. Maybe all the people who bought and enjoyed the novel were idiots.
Maybe Jerkoff was right.
Regardless of who was “right,” what happened was, under Jerkoff’s tender wings, “In Good Faith” suffocated. There wasn’t a dollar spent on promotion, to my knowledge, outside of the standard advance review copies being sent out. Jerkoff didn’t solicit a single new blurb. He wasn’t responsible for a single review. He nominated the book for nothing. I had a publicist, employed by Penguin, who had absolutely nothing to do. And why? I hate to say it, but I believe I’ve already answered the question twice. That book, and my career as a novelist, went south (temporarily) because Jerkoff felt “put upon.” It was so petty.
Next blog, we’ll talk about what’s really important in this business today and why I’m thinking seriously about suing Penguin for breach of contract. As a result of this blog, any hope I may have entertained about being published again by a “legacy” or “conventional” or “traditional” publisher is most likely dead in the water. My agents may even fire me.
We’ll see…
By the way, I don’t like the word “disgruntled.” I prefer “pissed off,” or maybe “righteously indignant.”
Yuk, yuk. (Mike Royko, RIP.)
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