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Dave Copeland

 

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February 23, 2007

Interesting email of the day: I'd like to say this is because of my burgeoning international fame as an author, but somehow I think I'm being mistaken for Stuart Copeland:
Subject: Greetings from your Web site

Hello, My name is Rafal. I am from Poland. My English is not very good. I am Autograph Collector. I am your and The Police (my femous band) big fan ! Please, send to me your two original signed autographs - one for me and one for my brother ;).
My adress:

XXXX
Thanks!
Im really waiting for it!
Best wishes!
Your big fan:
Rafal Tamila
What the hell? I'm gonna send him a couple of autographs anyhow.

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Posted at 10:13 AM

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February 21, 2007

Amazon Connect: I've been playing around with this Amazon program this morning. Apparently, once Barricade verifies me as the author of Blood & Volume, I'll be able to post messages directly to my customers. I've been having trouble updating the feed from this blog (recent posts don;t seem to load), but it still seems like a great promotional tool for any one trying to move books on Amazon.

My profile is here. If you use Amazon -- and it seems there are a lot of people who do use Amazon like a MySpace for book nerds -- add me as a friend.

Thanks for the tip, Taryn.

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Posted at 11:58 AM

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February 19, 2007

This dreadful life: I was in Kinko's the other day, picking up a 24 by 36 inch blow up of the Blood & Volume cover that we'll be using for the book release party, the documentary and other appearances. The guy ringing me out, if I had to guess, was in his mid-fifties and took an immediate interest in the artwork and the book.

He asked a series of increasingly "in the know" questions. Was I self-published or did I have a publisher? Which house? How long did it take me to write the book?

"You're talking to a writer, you know," he said after his inquisition.

A writer who was still chasing the dream, and still making slightly more than minimum wage. Still wearing a uniform to work.

"So are you working on anything at the moment?" I asked after he told me about a book that was "pure pulp" that he and a team of writers had written in 11 days in the 1970's.

"I have a couple of projects I'm working on." But it wasn't too convincing and it had the tone I'm a little too familiar with -- the tone of someone who has some good ideas but between work and family and other commitments, no time to get those ideas off the ground.

In a day in age when companies can outsource contract writing jobs for the price of 10 or 20 words per penny and when even the top glossy magazines are still paying the same per-word rate they paid 40 years ago, writing doesn't always seem like an occupation. It's a lottery. For every Grisham and King there are tens of thousands of writers -- some talented, some not -- working menial jobs and wracking up debt while waiting for a break that may never come.

If I'm going to get a break, it's going to happen this year. Beyond the release of Blood & Volume, there's a chance I could sell the film option to the book. There's a chance the documentary focusing on me and the book will be a huge indie success. In April, RCF and I head to L.A. to pitch "Camp" to anyone who will listen, and our prospects seem better than average.

There's a good chance all of these things will click and regular readers of this space will be able to say "I knew him when..." But at the same time there's a chance none of it will come together and I'll still be here a year from now telling you all about the next book (which is quite funny), the next film project (which is unique) or some other project which hasn't even been hatched yet.

It's an ugly, nerve-wracking way to make a living and there are days when the old me -- the me that was angry, bitterly begging for a heart attack and hopped up on too much coffee but shrouded in the security of a 9-to-5 job -- doesn't seem all that bad. When people ask me "How did you get into writing?" or "Why did you choose journalism as a career?" I tell them "It's the only thing I know how to do."

And they laugh because they think I'm joking.

The point of all this? I don't know. Attribute it to too much cold and flu medicine and too much time to do nothing but think about my career as daytime television commercials for the ITT Technical Institute play in between grim-faced Sokolove ads.

Or maybe just wish me luck. The next six months pretty much determine whether I win the lottery or become some hack who needs to decide whether its time to grow up and get a real job or start working at Kinko's as I devise a new plan to take one last shot at the title.

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Posted at 2:11 PM

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February 5, 2007

Will work for (insert valuable compensation here): Last week I casually mentioned in a post that I had been to New York for "a job interview -- more on that later." I guess later should have come sooner as it was confusing enough to lead some people to wonder if I'm moving away from Boston again (I'm not).

But I am looking for full-time employment, at least until I become rich and famous off of some of the other projects I mention far too often on this site (and in last week's post). My real job for the next few months is all book promotion all the time (with some teaching and writing thrown in), but when that dies down I'd like something a bit less nerve-wracking than freelancing (and I hope it's the job I interviewed for last week -- I'd be a Boston-based correspondent for a trade; I'd have company-paid health insurance and benefits but my pay structure would be like that of a freelancer, meaning my earnings would be dictated by my productivity. And to make the transition back into the 9-to-5 world smoother I'd get to work from home).

Freelancing was a temporary fix to get through grad school and writing my first book. But after more than two years of doing it my ultimate analysis is that freelance writing sucks. Don't get me wrong -- it's been a great learning experience and it definitely taught me a lot about managing my own time and staying productive, but I'm ready for a job where I can focus on the job and not all the administrative crap that comes along with running a freelance business.

Pay rates for freelancers have taken a huge hit in the two and a half years I've been doing it, and I've also noticed that a lot of people are moving the bigger contract writing and editing jobs in house. Meanwhile, companies that are still contracting work out are finding it's a buyer's market, with thousands of alleged writers willing to write for pennies per hour (I was recently asked if I wanted to bid on a job where I'd write 200 articles of 400 words a piece. The "winning" bidder agreed to a rate of $1 per article).

With rates like that, it starts to get a bit frustrating as you try to figure out how you'll cover your overhead: health insurance alone costs $4,000 a year. A byline in a major glossy is a great pay day and lot of fun, but they are few and far between for all but the best freelancers. I'm certain I could get as many of those as I have been -- if not more -- if I were working full time.

Beyond that, every day is a job hunt, and once you've hunted down the job you have to hunt down your payment. Freelancers are known for being the last to get paid; it's not like we're the electric company, who can turn off the lights when someone refuses or stalls in paying us. By the time it's time to pay us, they have what they need from us and companies and clients take advantage of that. In the time I have been doing this I have been stiffed for more than $6,000 -- small- and medium-sized payments that weren't worth pursuing in court or through collections agencies (it's not cost-effective to try to track down $1,500 you're owed by a client in Australia). Even when they do pay, it's rarely when they say it will be.

So why the long post on my frustration? Two reasons. First, I get asked all the time if it's worth doing it, living the dream that a lot of writers strive for. And for me, the answer has been "not really." Freelancing is right for some people but it's no longer right for me. If I were married and on someone else's health insurance, or if I wanted to work part time and was in a position where I didn't have to worry about when (or even if) the checks will come in, I'd be all over it. And regardless of what happens moving forward, I will continue to freelance at least part-time.

The second reason is directed at regular readers and friends: keep your ears open for me. I'm obviously looking for something writing-related, but I've also gotten a big kick out of teaching these first few weeks of the spring semester so I'd like to get some more adjunct work or even a faculty position at a New England-based college. I definitely have a track record for working independently and would prefer something in the realm of telecommuting, but that is certainly not a necessity. And, as always, I continue to look for freelance work: fair paying and long-term contract work suits me best given my current schedule, but I can always find time for a quick-hit job.

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Posted at 9:52 AM

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January 21, 2007

People generally don't puke or end up in physical therapy when writing magazine articles: With all due respect to A Writer's Blog (which I enjoy, like and respect), I think it's time we add "ran a marathon" to the list of overused cliches and lazy constructions:
"Today I turned in a HUGE assignment. 3,000 words huge. I’m exhausted. I feel as though I’ve run a marathon. "
I ran a marathon and I've done my share of 3,000-word assignments. Hell, I did a 100,000-word assignment. And the two don't compare. For most people a marathon is at least a six-month training commitment and a rather grueling day. On deadline I'm pretty sure I could bang out a 3,000-word article in a shorter time than it took me to actually run Dublin. Most of the runners I know could write a magazine article if they had to, but it doesn;t work the other way around -- most of the writers I know really like to smoke.

But beyond that, it's one of those lazy pieces of writing that shows up all the time.

I'll be the first to admit there are accomplishments far more grueling than running a marathon. But saying "I feel like I just passed the bar exam" isn't as much fun as saying "I've run a marathon." Comparing some mundane task to giving birth would raise the ire of any woman who has actually gone through labor and raised a child.

So we resort to using the "marathon" construction all the time. It's particularly favored by community newspaper reporters who can't resist the tempting alliteration of "marathon meeting." While you're at it, you might as well throw in that there's a freeze on overtime pay at your paper, kid. What's wrong with the more precise and more telling "three hour meeting" or "meeting that ended after midnight"?

How about we try this for awhile? We'll use the words "I feel like I ran a marathon" only if we actually ran a marathon and are describing that experience as opposed to, say, helping a buddy move over the course of a long weekend or waiting in line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles?

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Posted at 7:30 AM

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January 9, 2007

Whoops: According to Big Bad Book Blog, shotgun publication is a bad thing:
"Rushing a book to market without understanding all the consequences of your decision is about as bright as marrying someone you meet in Las Vegas after a fifteen-hour drinking binge. Even if the reasons behind the rush seem legitimate, beware of the beer-goggle effect—your book won’t look nearly as attractive when it comes off the press as it does in your head when you’re deciding to skip vital steps in the publication process."
But the funny thing is, we didn't skip any vital steps. A big part of that is I had already been working on Blood & Volume as my master's thesis for a year and a half before I even had the contract, and I tend to write fast, so doing a complete rewrite over the summer wasn't as daunting to me as it may have been to other people.

So the linked post is an interesting and informative read, but it's sort of a cookie cutter dictate for something as diverse as the crop of 30,000 books that come out each year.

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Posted at 5:21 PM

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January 2, 2007

On literary agents: A friend of mine is about to start pitching agents in hopes of getting representation for her book proposal. She asked for some last minute advice and I figured -- since three or four other readers have asked me the same thing in the past few months -- it's worth sharing my response to her.
From: cope@davecopeland.com
To: XXXXXXXXX
January 2, 2007, 2:24 p.m.
Re: swift kick in the pants

No is the reality of the business. In my experience, it's been the baker's dozen rule -- you get told no 12 times before someone finally says yes. And they may just be saying yes to read your proposal after you query, and then they'll say no. Just remember that their job is to say no and they'll find any reason to do their job: they have dozens if not hundreds of great and not-so-great writers pitching them. Getting an agent is the hard part; once you have one, at least you'll have someone else soften the blow when the publishers say no.

If it helps, I queried 12 agents. Seven or eight agreed to read the proposal but only one agreed to represent me. And when 20 or so publishers had said no, he dropped me, leaving me to pitch four last publishers on my own. ONE said yes.

So the odds are long but have faith in your abilities and know that a certain amount of this is luck. And persistence generally increases your odds of finding good luck.

All that said, I pretty much broke the "no simultaneous submissions" rule. My feeling is that a query is not a submission and, 18 months after the fact I still haven't heard back from some of the agents I pitched. So if I played by the rules very literally, I'd be pitching agent two or three right about now instead of planning a book release party. The industry is so fickle that a good idea today may be an bad idea six months from now so you need to protect your interests and be proactive about getting feelers out there.

The biggest piece of advice I can give you is sign up for MediaBistro for a month or two and research all of the agents you're interested in pitching. They do a great job of featuring different agents and you'll get lots of info you won't get in places like Publisher's Weekly or Writer's Market.

Most importantly, you'll learn how each agent likes to be pitched: some want a one-page query only while others, at the other end of the spectrum, want the full proposal. Knowing how they like to be pitched will save lots of time and also show you've done your homework. So in response to your "Is this what you did?" question, it is, for the most part, but there were some cases where I needed to change it up a bit.

If you are lucky enough to get multiple agents interested in your project, figure out which one is going to work hardest for you. While he didn't ultimately sell my book, I loved my agent and hope he'll represent my next project: he was well liked by the publishers I spoke with but more importantly, he and his wife spent three months helping me fine-tune the proposal before he even sent it out to anyone. There is a reason why publishers say he represents the best written proposals. He also put me up for consideration for another project when it looked like B&V was dead; the publisher was looking for someone to co-author a book with a noteworthy figure and I ended up being one of three finalists for the project because of him recommending me and selling me.

In other words, look for an agent who is interested in seeing you develop a career as an author; some agents will take what you give them, blindly mail it to a few editors, follow up with phone calls and figure if they get a deal, it's an easy 15%; otherwise, there are plenty of other writers sending them proposals. The best agents are helping you think about your next project before you even sell your first one.

But most importantly, get it the hell out there. You're going to be told no over and over again so at the very least, it's good practice. But more importantly, the sooner you can get all those no's under your belt you'll be that much closer to someone saying yes.

If you'd like me to take a quick read of your proposal before you send it out for style suggestions, I'd be more than happy to do so. Otherwise, good luck and don't hesitate to hit me if/when you need someone to commiserate with.

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Posted at 2:25 PM

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January 1, 2007

Banned words: Eliminate the following from your vocabulary, according to Lake Superior State University:
  • GITMO
  • COMBINED CELEBRITY NAMES (c.f. Brangelina, TomKat)
  • AWESOME
  • GONE/WENT MISSING
  • PWN or PWNED
  • NOW PLAYING IN THEATERS
  • WE'RE PREGNANT
  • UNDOCUMENTED ALIEN
  • ARMED ROBBERY/DRUG DEAL GONE BAD
  • TRUTHINESS
  • ASK YOUR DOCTOR
  • CHIPOTLE
  • i-ANYTHING
  • SEARCH
  • HEALTHY FOOD
  • BOASTS
The complete list is here.

Regular readers know how I feel about certain words and cliches. My big pet peeve is "literally," as in "I literally died when..."

Um, no you didn't. You literally butchered the English language and you literally have no clue about the difference between "literally" and "figuratively" but you are, fortunately or unfortunately, still among us.

I'm also always a little weary of people who say "I literally shat my pants" for obvious reasons.

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Posted at 8:49 PM

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December 19, 2006

My year in books: It's been a bad reading year for me. At times it seems like the only things I've read were the various drafts of Blood & Volume, and with proofs expected this week, it looks like I'll have to read it at least one more time before the calendar flips. I found it hard to find time to really get into too many books this year, settling for 5-10 pages before bed and a couple of pages in between subway stops.

But if I really stop and think about it, I did get a ton of reading in this year. What follows is a partial list of the 40 or so books that were on my nightstand in 2006 that really jumped out.

Crazy, by Pete Earley: I'm not saying it solely because he was my best mentor at Goucher, but I did have a behind-the scenes look at how this book was put together. It was the one piece of journalism I read this year that moved me enough to be angry with the system, but the memoir aspects made it very readable and accessible.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta: This book, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, is looking like it may slip into 2007 for me. I'm supposed to have coffee with the author when I get to New York on Saturday afternoon and was hoping to have finished this by then. It is very long with unfamiliar Indian names which have made it a slow read for me, but it is beautifully written and captivating. He's now working on a book about New York which I suspect will be equally good.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan: It was my trendy book of the year, but, like Crazy, it got me thinking. I rarely re-read books but have considered taking another stab at it to figure out his rather brilliant structure.

On Writing, by Stephen King: I'm an admirer but not a fan of Stephen King. On Writing had lots of good tips for everyone from beginner's to pros, and was written with King's typical sense of detail. He also explains why he pulls out a book to read between innings at Fenway or while standing in line at the bank. The writing of the book straddled the car crash where he was hit and nearly killed while walking near his home in Maine, so the added bonus is the two distinctly different voice in a book that is about more than simply writing.

Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, by Gary Kinder: It's detailed, historical nonfiction combined with contemporary reporting and research. If I recall correctly, it took him 10 agonizing years to write and the effort shows in the final product. Mentioned partially because last night at Shay's in Harvard Square I ironically saw -- but did not speak to -- the ex-girlfriend who gave it to me last Christmas. Sorry for being rude. Thanks for the book.

For the record, this post is going to be my entry in ProBlogger's Reviews & Previews Group Writing Project.

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Posted at 10:41 AM

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December 18, 2006

More on bad lingo: Gawker has a list of Blog-Media clichés:
When you make words for a living, you will inevitably find yourself drawn into certain ruts of repetition. That's why you'll see the same tired clichés popping up in the same media outlets, or often in the writing produced by the same people. Blogs are no different, and are in fact worse -- the increased breadth and depth of volume encourages mass overuse of an even longer list of lazy jokes, references, and turns of phrase.
The annotated list includes some of my pet peeves (and personal weaknesses): "[x] is the new [y]", "[purposefully non-ghetto statement], yo", and "I'm looking at you, [example of complaint]."

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Posted at 11:36 AM

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December 14, 2006

It is what it is: I generally like to be an early adopter of catch phrases. I was "throwing people under the bus" before most of you and adding "...right?" to the end of declarative sentences right along with MIT geeks and New York moguls.

And yet I fall victim to cliches and tired phrases like everyone else. It's generally in conversation and rough drafts, but occasionally a really bad phrase will make it into a final draft (and since almost everything on this blog is a rough draft, I'll apologize now for all past and future lazy uses of the English language).

Barry Freed at tellhimfred.com is asking people to submit catch phrases we hear that "constantly...either annoy you or just don’t make sense." He offers three examples -- "At the end of the day.." (which was hugely popular in Pittsburgh and something I didn't hear all that often until I moved there and had to quote Steve Leeper on a regular basis), "There you go" and "If I were you."

For instance: “If I were you, I’d punch him in the face.”

Well, if you were me, you wouldn’t do that, because I realize I would get punched back. But I suppose after you took on my existence and punched someone, you could switch back to being you before the person you/I punched retaliates. Convenient.

My two submissions are things I will admit to having used far too often in the past. "Dude," although I did pretty much grow out of that after my junior year of high school and figured it I'm not a pimp and it isn't nice to go around calling people horse's penises; and "It is what it is." Well, yeah, but what exactly is it?

If you catch me using either of them, well, if I were you, I'd punch me in the face. Dude.

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Posted at 5:09 PM

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December 8, 2006

Thanks: I got tons of great, helpful and constructive feedback on the excerpt from the new book proposal that I posted yesterday -- enough that I'm going to move ahead with the project. And keep the feedback coming...I'm still trying to figure it all out so your continued comments are appreciated.

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Posted at 6:29 AM

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December 7, 2006

New stuff: If I were really brave, this would be posted with no set up. What follows is an excerpt from the overview section of a book proposal I have been plugging at off and on for the past week or so. It's rough and I'm still at least a month away from having it in any condition to approach potential agents.

But posting it makes it seem more real and holds me under the gun to at least see the proposal portion of the project through to the end. I may also get some feedback -- it's a complex book with a rather finicky structure, but feedback on the meter and voice of this section would be appreciated. Even simply answering the question "If you read this section, would you want to read more?" with a simple yes or no in the comments would be helpful.

The book is, on the surface, about being a fat guy who decides to run a marathon. But it's broader than that. If you know me you know that 2004 and 2005 were the worst two years of my life, and that 2006 has been one of the best. It's about dating, Pittsburgh, Boston and trying to be happy. I have given it the working title "The Slut," not because it's about sluts (although there are a couple in there), but because it's the book where I whore myself out and try to get on Oprah.

(I'm just kidding about that last part, although it is part of a broader effort to not be typecast as a true crime writer).

It's also supposed to be a funny book, although this excerpt does not convey that. That's part of the problem with excerpts -- it's just a snippet that doesn't have a broader context so it rarely conveys the true nature of the overall work. Think Bill Bryson walking the Appalachian Trail and you'll have a bit of an idea of what I'm shooting for. To prove the funny point, I should note that a more narrative, more detailed and better crafted version of the "Well Done," post-marathon post will probably be the sample chapter I use for the proposal.

I'm also violating a personal rule to never write anything memoir-esque and a general writing rule to never write about your friends (which seems somewhat contradictory to the "write what you know" rule; writing is full of awful, contradictory rules so it's usually best to just obey the ones that work for you).

A couple of other things to keep in mind if you plan to slog through the next 2,471 words: this is the exception to my rule to not write about anything too personal on this blog. It will not become a habit, so most of you can continue stopping by here without fear of seeing the details of your relationship with me laid bare like the details of the relationship detailed in this excerpt.

I also know there are more than a couple of people who stop by here on occasion who will see that I'm doing a book on the past few years and (rightfully) assume they may turn up as a character in the book (which will be nonfiction). This may be unsettling, exciting or a bit of both to you.

None of those people are mentioned in this excerpt, as I still need to figure out who and what is going to be included. But if you are a potential character, you should know I will be talking about what role, if any, you will have in the book once the proposal is done but before I send it out to an agent or a publisher. You may be interviewed extensively once I start working on the book. You will have an opportunity to read the full proposal before I send it out to the world -- the idea is not to give you a heads up of what to expect but to let you help me make it stronger and more accurate.

For most (but not all) people, I can write around you if you are completely uncomfortable with the idea. And if worse comes to worst, I will scrap the project completely if I fear its going to jeopardize a friendship.

Enough set up. Here it goes...

By way of back story

On the last Friday in October 2006 an Aer Lingus airplane is sitting on the tarmac at Logan International Airport in Boston. The flight attendants seem somewhat shabby but friendly in their green uniforms as they hand out magazines, pillows and blankets before takeoff.

There is a Gaelic football team on board. The players are wearing navy blue, nylon warm up suits with gold trim and are spread throughout the cabin and settling into their seats for the six-hour flight. They have been in Boston for 10 days playing games and drinking, and they look like hell. A guy across the aisle is missing both canine teeth. Another player is seated a few rows back and has his jaw wired shut. He is sipping a beer through a straw. The player-coach of the team is crammed into the seat next to me and is flirting with a flight attendant checking the overhead compartments. All things being relative, he looks okay, even with his bruised face and a nose that looks like it was broken not all that long ago.

When I get to Ireland I will watch a Gaelic football game on television in a pub. It’s a brutal and violent game I don’t fully understand. It combines elements of soccer and rugby that is fun to watch but looks like hell to play. Watching the game, coupled with all the physical ailments around me, confirms that these guys are insane.

The time to take off draws closer. A flight attendant comes over the P.A. system and announces that there is a group of runners on board who have collectively raised $XXX,XXX for the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society and that they’re flying to Ireland to run in the Dublin Marathon the following Monday.

“Twenty-six miles?” the beaten player-coach seated next to me blurts out at the end of the announcement. “Fucking hell. Those people are crazy.”

This is how I got crazy enough to be on that plane.

Download the full proposal excerpt (MS Word Document)

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Posted at 7:10 AM

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November 22, 2006

Books on the Brain: I had coffee yesterday with another writer who had attended the Nieman Conference and I was relieved/discouraged to hear she walked away with some of the same impressions as me.

"The one things I came away with is that everyone is writing a book," Katharine said. "It seems to be the new cliche."

That's somewhat intimidating. An agent who spoke at the conference flatly noted that as the market gets flooded with new ideas, book publishing won't be the way for most people to pay the rent. That's kind of awful, because writing books is fun. You kind of hope you'll be that one-in-a-thousand writer who can actually make a living doing it full time, but reality dictates you keep the day job. Writing books, particularly narrative nonfiction books that require lots of reporting time and expense, becomes an expensive hobby for most.

I'm supposed to be excited and proud because I'm one of the few and lucky people who actually found a publisher willing to invest tens of thousands of dollars into his idea. But it's a bit overwhelming at the moment. I also learned this weekend that 25,000 is the magic number. As in, sell 25,000 books you can be reasonably assured of a follow up deal. Fail to sell 25,000 books and you're no longer an author, but just some guy who once wrote a book that didn't sell very well.

I was told I will get graded on a bit of a curve because I'm coming out from a smaller publisher that doesn't have the resources to market the book as aggressively as, say, a Random House. But still -- 25,000?!?!? I've hired a publicist which sounds vain on the surface, but it's sort of the reality -- I know Barricade will do everything they can to make their investment pay off, but I have never met an author who was absolutely thrilled with the marketing efforts of their publishing house. And that includes authors who get published by the bigger houses. At the very least, the publicist gives me peace of mind that I'm doing everything I can to make this successful and it also makes the next few months fun -- if he's good, which he seems to be, I get to give lots of interviews and become an expert on the Israeli-American underworld.

And now that I have some time away from it, I'm confident that the book is good. Everyone who has read the excerpt (.pdf file) has told me they were left wanting to read more. One woman even said I was "brilliant."

"The way you structured it, with all those staccato sentences, it was like you were making me feel like I was on cocaine," she said.

For the record, as much as I'd like to take credit for being "brilliant," that was completely unintentional. A big, fat, happy accident. And, not for nothing, if being on cocaine makes you feel like you're reading a book, you probably need a new drug dealer.

If you really want to help me out -- and I know you do -- send an email to 20 of your closest friends. Tell them you've been checking out this writer and you're looking forward to the release of his book in February. Tell them they may want to check out the excerpt for themselves.

Just a hint, is all. A rather bold and shameless hint, but it can;t hurt.

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Posted at 6:44 AM

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November 18, 2006

Nieman Notes: This is the third year I've attended the Nieman Conference on Narrative Nonfiction and in that short time there has been a subtle but distinct shift. The conference is still overwhelmingly attended by newspaper reporters and editors, but the attitudes of those reporters and editors have changed, and it's telling about the state on American papers.

The war for narrative in newspapers seems to be over. And it seems as if boredom has won the war.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule and there are a handful of newspapers that do incredible narrative journalism. But for the most part, newspapers have scaled back staffs to the point where any reporter working there has too many things to cover to delve into a single subject. And the ones who do aspire to do narrative have seemed to conceded that they will have to do it on their own time and in a median other than the one published by their primary reporter.

In 2004 the questions from newspaper people were about how to work narrative into their daily beat reporting. There were sessions, or at least long tangents about how to convince your newspaper editor that narrative was important. In 2004 there was a distinct vibe that narrative had a place in newspapers and, the most optimistic proponents argued that narrative would save newspapers.

But the tone is different this year. The newspaper reporters who are interested in narrative are asking questions about writing book proposals and pitching magazines. They want to know how to change their mode of thinking after a long day on nut graf journalism to moonlight on their narrative projects. No one seems concerned about getting narrative in the papers; the big worry at this year's conference is how to make the shift from newspaper journalism to narrative journalism. It's an outright concession that for many people, the two forms are separate and distinct.

During one of the sessions a literary agent confirmed this saying that with newspaper people losing their jobs to cutbacks, or because they just want to do something different, she has received an unprecedented amount of proposals from newspaper journalists.

For people like me -- aspiring authors and wannabe full-time authors -- that means more competition and a market flooded with lots of good and not-so-good proposals. In a publishing landscape dominated by the $8 million advances handed to Bill Clinton and with "writers" like novelist Pamela Anderson, there is a very small slice of the publishing pie for first time authors. But competition is great for readers -- it means more and better books coming out and perhaps a resurgence of book-length journalism that breaks news and drives the national debate.

The only real loser is the newspaper industry itself. Which will continue to lose its best and its brightest, or at least its best narrative writers to the world of books, magazines and the Internet. And some of its best beat reporters -- the people who thrive on a scoop -- are already jumping to the more fast-paced world of Internet journalism or the higher paying trade journal market.

As for the conference itself, it is the best I've attended in three years, and a hundred times better than last year's problem-plagued edition. You know a conference is good when you spend half the day jotting down new ideas and even when you get home bone tired all you really want to do is write.

At some point I'll get around to typing up the notes on the sessions I attended and will post them here for anyone who is interested. Highlights with one day left to go include panels featuring Calvin Trillan and Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan.

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Posted at 5:27 PM

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November 16, 2006

I...am...a writer: For some reason that line from the Wonder Boys doesn't translate well when it's written out. Remind me to do my Q impersonation the next time you see me in person.

But yeah, I'm playing writer this week, which means I'm doing the one thing writers do the most of. And it's not writing. It's talking about writing.

On Tuesday I interviewed a potential publicist for Blood & Volume. That's kind of exciting because I never get to hire anyone. It's also kind of exciting to hear all his ideas on getting the book out there and to envision myself as a legitimate media whore in just a few short months. I've also spent some time planning the book release party. Right now it looks like it's going to be the week of January 29, but I still haven't found a decent venue. If anyone has some Boston-based suggestions, please let me know.

Last night it was off to one of those MediaBistro parties where I got scolded for networking. The invites to these things -- which attract writers, t.v. and broadcast types, p.r. people and editors -- always make it clear that you're not supposed to network "It's for fun only," or some such gibberish. I say it's gibberish because all anyone does at these things is network.

And I'll admit my vanity: as painful as the book has been at times, it is very, very cool to casually mention that your book is coming out in January.

Next up, the Nieman Conference this weekend. This is sort of the must-see event for narrative nonfiction writers, but this year's conference is kind of a rubber match for me. I went two years ago, had a great time and was inspired enough to bang out the B&V proposal in the two months that followed. Last year I went and it was miserable -- at the convention center and just poorly organized.

So I'm warning you, Nieman, it better be good this weekend.

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Posted at 11:12 AM

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