Using works in the public domain

I am writing a novel that takes place in Galveston during the 1900 hurricane. I found an amazing book called The Great Galveston Disaster (hurricanes didn't have names yet) printed within months after the disaster and it has such gloriously fresh accounts that I can't really find anywhere else online. Admittedly, it's mostly just a compilation of government documents, correspondence, pictures, newspaper entries, testimonials, and other accounts, but I digress.

Could I land myself in hot water for using quotes from the testimonials in my work of fiction of real people or excerpts that are dated 115 years ago? I thought copyrights only lasted for 100 years, and I doubt this publishing company (which only printed this book for one run and then disbanded from my research), newspapers, or families of the deceased would mind, nor would I know how to track most of them for permission

You need to ask permission of copyright holders for as long as copyright is in effect.

That does NOT mean you can use the work without attribution after copyright has expired.

That's called plagiarism, and I'm very sure you do not want to do that (or that you even intended to, or that you thought it might sound like that.)

What you'll do: if you quote the material you CITE it. As in footnotes or endnotes.

Example:

"The Great Galveston Disaster was a gully washer of a storm, propelling man and beast like drunken sailors jitterbugging dance hall floozies down the streets." said former taxi dancer and historian Janet Reid."***

****Title, Author (Publisher: year)

When you sell the novel, your publisher will have a style guide for footnotes, and you'll follow that, but for now, this will do.

And just as a side note: keep track of your citations and PAGE NUMBERS from the quoted work in a separate document. Don't ask me why I know this. Just benefit from my dreadful mistakes.

Bonus content: Peter Ginna on NF

This article on writing non fiction by Peter Ginna is a very useful look at what works, and what doesn't.

Last Vacation Day: Every Agent's Fear

The story broke, as these kinds of stories do now, on the internet. The "author" of THE BOY WHO CAME BACK FROM HEAVEN wrote an open letter saying the book published as non-fiction was, essentially, not.  He had not gone to heaven and met Jesus. He'd made it all up.

One of my followers on Twitter asked me what I'd have done if that had been my book.

The easy, self-righteous answer is "this would never happen to me cause I don't do those kinds of books." Which is true, I don't handle books that are intended for the Christian book market.

But the question made me ask myself what would have happened if I did sell a book that turned out to be made up. And let's not all rush to say "that would never happen to me" because it could, if the book was was shelved in one of my blind spots.  I've got a couple of blind spots: I generally believe the victim of a crime; I always believe stories of rape and harassment; I always believe stories of sex abuse.  I recognize those are my blind spots.

The people involved with Alex Malarky had blind spots too. His family, the literary agent, and the publisher  all have strong Christian beliefs. What Alex described was entirely possible for them. It would have seemed like a message from God, something that should be shared. Something they had an obligation to share.

There's even scripture to bolster the idea "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Matthew 11:25]

Five years later Alex is eleven, not six, and it turns out he made it up to get attention.

Cue the scoffers and the gotcha crowd to say "of course it was all made up" and just to add insult to injury, make fun of the kid's surname.  This was a story made for the social media mob.

Before we all take up the burning pitch torches and light fires under vats of oil, let's remember there are many people out there who made stuff up and got away with it for a good long time.

And that's what my fear is: in wanting to believe something, I'll overlook what should be red flags.


I don't know how anyone involved in this story could have avoided this unfortunate turn of events other than to simply not believe it, but that's like saying "you can avoid drowning by not going in the water."

I don't know how to avoid falling in to the blind spot trap. 

Which means the answer to the question is "that could have been me, and boy am I glad it's not."

Query question: more on noms de plume

You've addressed the issue of using a pseudonym a few times both on your agent blog and on Query Shark; this is a very specific question about using a pseudonym for different genres.

I publish articles, personal essays, and longform creative nonfiction on a variety of subjects, many of them related to political or social issues and all of them under my real name. As I was preparing a query letter for a mystery novel I've written, I was thinking that publishing it under a pseudonym might be a good idea.

I'd like my fiction to entertain readers, including those who might avoid it if they disagree with real-name-me's public stance on various issues. I've also found that, as a reader, if I'm really engaged in the essays of an outspoken nonfiction writer, I am, for no reason I understand, disinclined to read their fiction. I think it's a feeling of being happily sated by their mind and words through their creative nonfiction. (I'd be very curious to know what your regular blog commenters think about this, if they experience it.)

Do you have an opinion on this? If so, how would you suggest addressing it in a query? Is any explanation needed or just my name followed by "(writing as Carkoon Carrie)"? Or is this a question an author and her agent would figure out together?

I think it's entirely reasonable to separate your fiction from your non-fiction.

I originally intended to say I didn't share your disinclination to read fiction by writers who also have a strong non-fiction presence.

Then I realized I did.

Some of it comes from wanting the people who write non-fiction to be expert in their field. Why else read them if not to find out about things from a reliable knowledgeable source? I don't feel that way about fiction writers at all. I just want to be entertained. 

Loretta Ross doesn't have to be an auctioneer for me to love her debut novel DEATH AND THE REDHEADED WOMAN (Midnight Ink: 2015)

On the other hand if Miss Ross is writing non-fiction about the auction world, I do want her to know what she's talking about, and not, as when she's writing fiction, making it all up.

But I also have a client who writes both fiction and non-fiction with the same name for both, and it seems to be working out just fine.

There's not a right way/wrong way here; you should do what you think is right for you. If writing your fiction with a different name feels right, do it.

As to how to do it:

If you're going to inform the agent that you will be using a pen name you can follow this format:

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Beatrice Buttonweezer (writing as Charlotte Mountbatten-Windsor)


If you're NOT going to inform the agent that you're using a pen name at the query stage, you follow this format:

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Charlotte Mountbatten-Windsor

Query question: my novel is based on someone's life

 I am trying to determine whether I need a contract with the woman whose coming-of-age story I'm turning into a middle-grade novel. I wish to compensate her for her time and cooperation. But am I also obligated to contract with her for her story?

The woman says she would like me to use her real name in the book, which takes place in a now-defunct culture. However, in crafting the story I've had to fictionalize dialogue and various details surrounding key events (all the while fact-checking). Since I'm not calling this non-fiction, should I also fictionalize her name?

You're missing the one thing you're really going to need from her: permission.

Here's what the National Writers Union says about the warranties and indemnities clause of a publication contract:

 
-->

VI. WARRANTIES & INDEMNIFICATION

1. General provisions

It is not unreasonable for the publisher to ask that you promise that the work you are submitting is original, that it has not been previously published (unless it is a reprint), that it does not infringe on someone else's copyright, and that you are free to grant the specified publishing rights.

Most standard contracts will also ask the author to promise that the work is not obscene or libelous, that it does not invade anyone's privacy, and that it does not contain recipes, formulas, or instructions that may be"injurious to the user."

All of this is known as the author's warranty, and it is usually presented together with what is known as an indemnification clause, which makes the author responsible for any legal expenses and damages resulting from lawsuits that involve violations of the above promises. 

If you are writing a book, using her name and story, you need her to sign a contract that says she gave you permission to do so, that she won't sue you for payment if the book hits the jackpot financially and that this permission applies to every other use or license deriving from the book (ie film)

In other words, you need an intellectual property lawyer here, and this is something you really do not want to mess around with.

It's not the outcome of a lawsuit that will kill your bank balance, it's the cost of defending one. And for something covered in the warranties and indemniities clause you are ON YOUR OWN for litigtaion insurance coverage. The publisher is not obliged to help you at all.

Get legal advice here. Do NOT rely on an agent or editor's advice.  This can come back to bite you in the asterisk many years later, particularly if your subject dies and her heirs take exception to you cashing checks and not cutting them in.

The lawyer will advise you on other things you'll need in the contract as well.

Please don't mess around with this or think "oh it won't matter" cause this is not a problem you want to find yourself dealing with. 

Rant: So, what exactly do you do, really?

Agent Lovely wants a marketing proposal and I'm confused.
I wrote the book--memoir--already, and that's what Agent Lovely is representing. She's asked me to create basically an entire book proposal minus the chapter summaries and sample chapters. (Thankya Jesus I've spent the last few years building "platform").

But it feels weird. Isn't any of this Agent Lovely's job, or her intern's job? (1)  I'm currently in a residency with Famous Best-Selling Memoirist, and when I asked her(2), FBSM said that sounded weird, that marketing proposals are for when you haven't written the book yet and want to sell based on a sample and platform. FBSM's position is that agents make phone calls and pitch the book based on the writing. (3)

I made the proposal, subtitling it "Let's Market, Bitches," which may be slightly passive-aggressive on my part but also reflects the voice of the manuscript. While making it, I realized it's probably better I did, because I have enough experience writing PR to do a very good job.
Now I'm wondering: I have radio appearances and social media and TV appearances and I write a mean press release, and I'm compiling all of this myself…so am I paying 15% so that someone with connections will make phone calls? (4)

How much of my own work should I be doing here? I was already planning to market as much as I can after (hopefully) selling, do I have to do a big chunk of the selling part, too? Am I just being ungrateful here? Is this all part of the strange new world of No-One-Actually-Knows-What-Sells-Books-Anymore? (5)

Let's start at the beginning.


(1) Is writing a marketing statement your agent's (or sweet mother of god, what the hell are you thinking?) her intern's job?  No, it isn't. It's your job.  You spent a year building platform (good!) and you know which people know about you and how to reach them.. You as much as said so in the next sentence.


Your publisher will know how to reach general book buyers, but if you've got niche interest readers for your book, you'll be the one to know about this.


Your agent's job is to sell the book. Your job is to write it.  Marketing plans are an essential part of the non-fiction pitch even though memoir is sold like a novel (ie finished when pitched)





(2) There are few things that drive me crazier than people asking for advice from folks who are not suited to offer it by virtue of their experience being limited or out of date. Famous Best Selling Memoirist doesn't need a marketing plan  because she is 1. Famous 2. Bestselling. And if her first book was sold more than five years ago, her experience doesn't apply to you.


Nothing has changed more in the last ten years than how books are sold to the general public. Thank you Amazon, thank you meta data, thank you social media.  FINDING your reader is an enormous challenge. Famous Best Selling has already found her readers.


And the fact that she didn't tell you to talk to your agent chaps my fin. But then we all love to be asked for advice it's true.




(3) Famous is an idiot if she thinks that's what agents do. Maybe that's what her agent does. If that's true, she has a bad agent.   A competent agent is going to do a lot more than make phone calls to sell your work. And that's just the start of things.  Negotiate the contract, make sure the editor gets an editorial letter to you on time, monitor the production schedule so you're not looking at the cover six days AFTER it went to the printer. Audit the royalty statements. Explain the royalty statements to you. And that's just the stuff I did Friday.


The fact that often times we DO write the proposal, or pieces of it, does not mean it's our job. It means we're willing to help you do yours. 




(4) You're not paying anything yet. Let's all remember that your agent doesn't see a dime until you do. If you honestly feel like your agent isn't going to be worth the money, do yourself a favor and split now. There is nothing worse than a client who does not value the service provided.  It's like dating someone who thinks going out with you is marginally better than staying home alone and watching Friends on NetFlix.


(5) Yes you are. And you should knock it off. 


Let's review:

1. Your agent will be working with you for your entire career, or the very least the sale and publication of your book. Generally you are NOT going to pay her for the value of her time. You're going to get a bargain by giving her a percentage of what you earn, and only AFTER you see money too.

2. Don't ask for advice or take advice from people who have outdated experience, or a wildly different experience on how things "should be going."

3. Talk to your agent.  If you seriously think she should be writing your book proposal tell her so. If you think you can save money by pitching directly, go right ahead.


If one of my clients had written this question, I'd fire them on the spot. I can't stand working with people who don't value the service I provide, and life is too short to do that any longer than it takes to write a termination letter. There are a LOT of people out there with terrific projects.  If you don't think I'm worth it, they sure as hell do.

Think you're the first and only?

A recent query in my inbox laid claim to being "the first" of a certain kind of memoir. As it happened, I knew that was not the case.  I wrote back drawing her attention to the earlier book.  As you might imagine, the querier did not fall on this information with effusive thanks, return emails of kitten pictures or even silence.  Oh no, unasked for advice, particularly of the unwelcome sort generally get replies steeped in sulfur and singed at the edges.

Oh well.

The problem here of course is that if I know about the earlier book,  it's a good chance that most other agents will too.  And a quick search of the Amazon data base turns it up as well.

When you claim to be first or only, and I'm interested in your book, I dig around before I reply "yes, please send me your manuscript."

It's not so much it's a problem that you're NOT first, as that you are clearly sloppy in your thinking and research. Frankly, that's death for me in non-fiction. Non-fiction requires meticulous research and documentation.

I remember hearing the utterly amazing Robert Caro speak several years back and he just casually mentioned he'd checked with the Historian of the Senate six different times on a single fact, as he got more information about an event.  I would have stood up and screamed "that's how it's done" as if he'd hit a home run at Yankee Stadium, but we were in a library and librarians always have me on my best behavior.

So, what does this mean for you in your queries and writing?

Obviously it means do your research.  If you can't find books in your category, are you using the right category? And are you skimming rather than digging deep? And have you gone to your local library and found the reference librarian and asked for help?

If you're not sure you're the first or only, don't say you are.  Find another aspect of your story that distinguishes you from the pack. 

It was worth the bus trip/s

If I'd known the trip would involve that many buses before I left home, I would have groaned mightily, taken the $500 loss on the pre-paid hotel room and stayed home.

I'm writing this to say Thank All Deities Foreign and Domestic that I did not.

This past weekend I was slated to attend the Biographers International Conference in Boston.  The organizers clearly hadn't realized that May in Boston (graduation season) means most hotel rooms are either booked solid, charging top dollar, or so far away that you might as well commute from New York.  After a lot of searching I finally found a hotel near Logan airport. It has a shuttle service so I knew I could get to the airport, then pick up the T-line which is Boston's cute little version of a subway. (They really don't like it when you call it cute and little either, lemme tell ya.)

What I forgot to do was book train tickets, and by the time I remembered, the price to Boston was $140. Each way. Normally I pay about $49.  I was so annoyed I just figured I'd punish myself by taking the bus.

So, here's how Friday began:
Subway to Port Authority.
(1) Port Authority bus to Boston (6.5 hours due to traffic and rain..normally 4.5 hours) South Station Boston Silver line to Logan.
Which is when I realized the Silver Line isn't a train. It's a bus(2). And it runs on city streets when
it comes above ground. At one point I found myself on the same street I'd been on two hours earlier. The Exact Same Spot.

(3) At Logan I called the shuttle bus to the hotel.
Start to finish: three buses. About 12 hours.

Well, ok, that was crazy but ok. This bus trip after all was designed to make me never EVER forget to buy my train tickets on time.

Saturday:
(4) Shuttle Bus to Logan.
(5) Silver Line to South Station Boston
Red line to UMass/JFK, whoops, no.  To the Broadway station ONE stop from South Station due to construction.
(6) Shuttle BUS from Broadway to UMass/JFK stop.
(7) Shuttle BUS from subway station to college.

Four buses.
One way.

Then that evening, retrace steps.
Total bus tally by Saturday night:  11

Sunday morning: Repeat outgoing trip. Arrive at campus an hour before class starts because the commute time was pretty good (of course when you're late, the commute time sux!)
Bus tally: 15

Return trip:
(16) College shuttle to T-shuttle
(17) T-shuttle to train
Train to bus station
(18) Bus to NY. And it took 45 minutes to go 15 blocks on 12th Ave when we got in at 7pm. And no
they won't let you off even if you tell them you're going to throw up.
Subway home.
Let me tell you I kissed my metro card and vowed to Never Ever Leave Home Again.

Bus rides: 18
In three days.


But in between those 18 bus trips to and fro I got the experience of a lifetime. I sat in on Susan Rabiner's master class on writing the non-fiction book proposal.

In case you're misled by a small electronic footprint, let me just say this: Susan Rabiner is all that and a bag of chips when it comes to serious non-fiction.  She's absolutely the best there is.  And when I got the chance to hear her talk, you can bet I leaped at it.

I'm still synthesizing my notes, and I'm obviously sharing them with clients first, but I'm sure what I learned will be turning up here in the coming days and months.

And in the meantime. make sure you have her book THINKING LIKE YOUR EDITOR. It's required reading for ALL authors, not just those writing non-fiction.

I'm really glad I didn't punish myself by not making the trip, but I will never forget train tickets again as long as I live.

The relationship between Mallomars and NF book proposals

In a recent conversation with a writer, I tried to explain why a non-fiction book proposal needed more than just new information: he had to explain the significance of the new information.

We floundered around for a while trying to pinpoint what I meant.

Here's what I came up with:

Imagine that two thousand years in the future, archaeologists are reconstructing my life. I am a very very famous historical figure because I am both a human being and a shark. Everyone "knows" this because my shark image survived, as did some of my apartment and some of my writing.  (Why I am famous is left to your imagination.)

As with all reconstructed lives there are some questions. One thing though that people KNOW is I am a Zoroastrian.  They are certain of this because my writing frequently references "platform."   Historians have surmised I am a Zoroastrian because Zoroastrians place their dead on platforms (no, really!) to be eaten by vultures and thus returned to the cycle of life. What else could platform mean?



One day the archaeologists discover a cache of odd objects. Paper, bound in leather, indexed***.  It looks like a series of lists, arranged by date. Lists of things believed to be food items: pasta, coffee, creamer, Mallomars, cheddar cheese.

There are hundreds of these lists, a real find.

Historians set to work analyzing the new information.  They organize the list to see which items appear most often, and the least often. They puzzle over "lettuce" (A cache of the writings of Travis Erwin comes to light years later and that mystery is solved)

One clever undergraduate notices that periodically the lists do NOT include coffee or Mallomars. She creates an excel spread sheet to match items with dates.

It soon becomes clear that coffee and Mallomars disappear from the list for about six weeks every spring.  The dates are not consistent but the six week time period is.

The undergraduate, keen on finishing her thesis, graduating and running off to Antarctica for a beach holiday (hello, global warming) digs around diligently. She consults tide tables, weather patterns, election results, bail bonds records, astrology charts, and casting calls from Pixar Studios.

Soon she realizes the six week period is always linked to the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.

Wait a second. Isn't that the period a small sect of Christians known only as "cat-licks" called Lent, and observed by giving up things. Things like coffee and chocolate?

But we know she's  Zoroastrian, everyone knows that.

Except maybe not.

This casts a whole new light on things. It's a very SIGNIFICANT discovery because it challenges a long held belief.

And if platform doesn't mean Zoroastrian platforms, then what does it mean?  Well, that's a topic for a graduate thesis, hello Antarctica here I come.



And that in a nutshell (or a grocery bag) is what a non-fiction book proposal must explain: why this book is significant. Why it matters.

You can have the cache of grocery lists, but you have to tell me why it's significant.  You can have a great story but you have to be able to explain why it's important.  "It's my life" is not the correct answer.

This is where most personal memoir fails the "is this publishable" test: most lives are not significant. They may be interesting (or at least I hope they are to the people who lived them) but it's rare to find a memoir that includes something that is significant to a large group of people.




***no, I do not really print, index and bind my grocery lists, all reports to the contrary.

Here's a piece of a recent post by Kari Dell, one of the Fabulosity:

Since joining the board of directors at our local historical museum, my views on memoirs, family histories and even diaries have changed tremendously. I'd always thought of these things in one of two ways: either you had to live a big, important life to be worth writing about (aka, selling) or it only mattered to your family. Now I've seen how these personal accounts of a normal life can be a treasure trove for historians.

Rather than blathering on, I'm going to refer you to one of the masters, William Zinsser, whose book On Writing Well is considered a touchstone for non-fiction writers. This article from The American Scholar is a wonderful read:  How to Write a Memoir

From that article I condensed this nugget, a bit of advice any writer in any genre should heed:

"When you write...don't try to be a writer....Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and your readers will jump overboard to get away."

So write your story, large or small. You never know what value they will hold for those to come.

could not have said it better myself (which is of course why Kari is the writer, and I am the ...not)

Building platform for non-fiction

Platform is essential for non-fiction. Platform means "how do people know who you are NOW" which means  it's not "I will build a website" or "I will go on TV" cause those are things you'll do in the future. Platform is about NOW, before the book proposal.

One good way to build platform is to have articles or opinion pieces published in major media. If you don't know how to do that, there's a way to learn. It's called The OpEd Project and they offer seminars on how to pitch yourself and your topic to editors, as well as other things that help you build platform.

I attended the Core Seminar  here in NYC yesterday.  I think it's well worth the investment to attend.  Seminars are held across the country.  Their website gives details on the project itself, and the upcoming seminar schedule.

How I missed hearing about this I do not know, but let me just make sure that none of YOU miss this now that I know about it: Tracy Kidder has a new book coming.

You don't even need to know what it's about to know you should read it. Tracy Kidder is one of those writers that you read cause whatever he writes is amazing. 

In case you're wondering which title to order though it's this one: Good Prose: The Art of NonFiction.

Conference focused on narrative non-fiction

There aren't a lot of conferences that focus on non-fiction so I was pleased to see this one:

The 2nd Annual River Teeth Nonfiction Conference 

May 17-19, 2013 

Join us in Ashland, Ohio for two full days of manuscript consultations, seminars, readings and community, all focused on the craft of nonfiction. The conference will focus on essay, memoir, and literary journalism.

There's not an agent or editor among the panelists (which is GOOD!)==this is a conference to focus on craft first.

 More details at the website.

Comp titles

A key element of a non-fiction book proposal is Comp Titles. These are books that demonstrate there's a market for your book and it's a market with enough buyers to make a book profitable.

You can easily find books but how the HELL do you measure the number of buyers? Unless you have access to Bookscan you're pretty much in the dark.

There is however a tiny candle in the darkness so you only have to curse half as much. There's a way to get a sense of the market (not the actual number) and it's from Amazon rankings.

I suggested this to an author in one recent Chum Bucket and she replied

What Amazon rank would be considered "good" in an agent's mind? I know that's an idiotic question, but I really have no idea. Would a book need to be top 100, top 1,000, top 100,000 to be considered a decent seller?

Well, it's NOT an idiotic question for starters. An idiotic question is "are you excepting queries?" but that's a topic for another day.

And let's refine the question to not what is considered good, but rather what the numbers can do for you.

1. The broader the category, the lower the ranking number you want if you're looking for books that sold well.

I recently needed a comp title that sent me to kids picture books. Here's the rundown for GOOD NIGHT IPAD by Ann Droyd. (you find this in PRODUCT DETAILS on the Amazon page for the book in question)


Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,894 in Books
#7 in Books > Children's Books > Social Situations > Sleep
#22 in Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering
#61 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor


The book was published in October of 2011 and it's still pretty high up in the overall Amazon rankings (#1,894 in Books)

Amazon rankings measure how well the book is selling compared to other books sold on Amazon, not actual numbers, so you're getting an sense of velocity, not actual speed and distance.

This feels high and fast for a year old flight. That's good.

It's also doing well in some good subcategories but you want to watch out for those. Those categories can be so narrowly defined there are only ten books total in the category.

2. If the books you're using as comp titles are OLD and not selling well, use this to highlight the point  that a new book in this category is desperately needed and then use the old slow comp titles to show there is still demand even for old books.


3. If you can't find any comp titles at all, you've got a problem.

A. You're delusional because you think there aren't any books like yours.
B. You're writing a book for which there appears to be no market
C. You're describing your book so narrowly you don't think anything fits.

None of these are good things.


Finding the right comp titles can take a while. Don't just pick the first three books you find. Know what you're trying to say with these comps: my proposed book fills a niche that exists; provides new insight or new information; demonstrates there's a market for this topic.

Questions?

Querying memoir

A unforeseen but lovely benefit of the New Wrinkle Experiment is that I can hear back from writers about things that were confusing in the directions, on my website, or other places where I've yammered about queries.

One such confusion is about how to query memoir.

Memoir is sold like novels (they have to be finished before you query) even though it is non-fiction.  Several people read that sentence and interpreted it to mean they should write the query letter in the third person.  This makes sense when you think of how many times you've heard not to write your query in the first person of your character (and since your memoir's main character is you) so, ok third person it is.

Except no. No no and really no.  Even Her Maj The Q refers to herself with the Royal We, not the Royal Third Person.

Query your memoir in first person. This is YOUR story.  You can use "I" and be ok. 


And when you query for a memoir, remember you're going to need a plot, just like all those novelists out there.  You need to convey concisely and elegantly what choice you faced, what the stakes were, and how the world is different because of that.

If your memoir is something other than that, you're probably writing what I'm starting to call non-commercial memoir.  There's real value in that too, and I'll be talking about that more in the coming days.  Watch for the blog posts, ok?

Do NOT miss this if you're in NYC

Robert Caro is my hero.  He's a masterful biographer, skilled storyteller, and while he's earned and won every prize under the sun, some of them twice, you never get the sense he's all that full of himself.

I had the great pleasure of hearing him give the keynote address at the Biographers Int'l Organization conference in 2011. On May 2, 2012 I shelled out actual cash money to hear him at the 92YTribeca. Tonight you can hear him at Barnes and Noble Union Square at 7pm, for free.


When he spoke last week he said a couple things that I didn't even have to write down to remember.

He said the Lord Acton quote we all learned in college ("Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely") wasn't right.  He thinks power reveals character.  You see what a man (or woman, I presume, although both Mr. Caro's great subjects were men) is all about when he has power.  When LBJ became President, Mr Caro pointed out, his goal was to eradicate poverty.  That's the thing we all forget now, was that LBJ wanted to use the power of the presidency to end poverty.

And when asked about his writing habits, Mr. Caro said he outlined everything at the start of the actual writing.  He'd also get "what this book is about" down to about two paragraphs.  Those two paragraphs helped him focus; helped him remember what to put in, leave out, and what to make a footnote.  (There was an odd watery sound as the QueryShark literally leaped for joy hearing THAT let me tell you.)  Then he told us how long it took him to get the book down to those two paragraphs. Would you like to guess what he said?

Here are the choices:

1. Two hours
2. Two days
3. Two weeks
4. Two months
5. Two years

Let me know in the comments column what you think the correct answer is. No fair if you attended the event and heard the answer, ok?

I think Robert Caro is one of those writers you should hear and read no matter what you read or write.  He's very simply a master of the craft and there just aren't that many of them.

When I talk about voice, this is what I mean

I subscribe to several book club email lists through the Brooklyn Public Library.  (Your library probably has these too-click on "join book clubs" to find out.)

The emails from Suzanne at DearReader.com are a treasure trove of books I don't hear about in other places: not front-list books that are getting a big push from publishers near pub date.

Today's email was not only about an interesting book, it provides an excellent example of voice in non-fiction.  It's by Amy Stewart.

Fighting over Food Scraps: Worms vs. Chickens


Before we got chickens, the worms had a very easy life. They lived in a nice comfortable bin on the porch outside my kitchen door, and tasty food rained down upon them a couple times a day.


In the morning, they'd get spent coffee grounds and maybe an eggshell or the crusts of a piece of toast. Later in the afternoon, they might get a banana peel or an apple core. And at night, there were usually some vegetable trimmings or a little leftover pasta or rice.


It's no wonder worms follow humans wherever we go: we are their personal chefs.


I know a woman who started eating more mangoes and melons just because I told her that worms were partial to the rinds. I made her promise that she was actually eating the fruit and only giving them the scraps. "They eat trash," I said. "You understand that,right? You don't have to actually buy food for them!"


But this is the kind of affection that earthworms inspire. They are clean, quiet, hardworking pets, eager to please and happy to produce something of value--rich earthworm castings, the ultimate plant food--in exchange for a good meal. And I was happy to provide for them--until I got chickens. Suddenly, the worms had competition.

Backyard hens do take a little more care than worms--I can't leave them unattended when I go away on vacation, and their shelter is a little more complicated than the worms'--but I must admit that they are infinitely more rewarding.


My Buff Orpington, Ladybird, is as pleasant and affectionate as a cat, happy to settle down in my lap when I sit outside. And, like the worms, they produce something useful: eggs. The manure is a welcome addition to the compost pile, too.


But now I have this dilemma. Who gets the kitchen scraps? The chickens go crazy for crusts of bread, bits of strawberry, and apple cores. Their delight is so much more obvious than that of the worms, too. They rush up to me, hopping around and squawking in hopes of getting the first bite. The worms might be happy to have a treat, but they certainly don't know how to show it.


So the compromise--if it could be called that--is to give the chickens whatever they want and to let the worms have the rest. The birds don't care about coffee grounds and they are strangely uninterested in lettuce. They don't know what to do with a banana peel. So the worms continue to enjoy those treats, while the chickens get the rest. And they each continue to return the favor by turning those scraps into food for the soil, and food for me. If only my cat would do the same!

This is a stellar example of voice: it's distinctive, and fun. It makes you want to read more. It makes you think of the author as a friend. It's got energy and zest.


This is fun without being flippant, informative without being pedantic, humorous without being silly.  It makes me want to read all Amy Stewart's books (and it's no surprise they're published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; their catalog will have you clicking "order order order" till your finger -- or your bank -- breaks.)

Compelling voice is tricky in a novel; it's VERY tricky in non-fiction where you must color within the lines of creativity.


What non-fiction books would you use as examples of voice?

If you're writing non-fiction, here are four questions you need to answer

Eric Nelson, executive editor at Wiley is a really smart guy. Of course I follow him on Twitter.  Tonight, apropos of nothing, he dropped these helpful hints into the scrum (my guess is he's reading proposals and feeling frustrated.)

If you're writing a nonfiction book, here's a few questions to answer. Like, actually write them down.

#1. What is your best story, and how does it explain the larger argument of your book?

#2. What's a key distinction you draw in the book, and why has no one else drawn it?

#3. What's the key moment in the recent past that made the world the way it is today? (At least the part of the world you're describing.)

#4. Why now? What we do we know now, but didn't 6 months or 6 years ago?

What's the structure of your book?

Here's an incredibly valuable interview with Rebecca Skloot about how she decided to structure her book THE INCREDIBLE LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS.

Her book is narrative non-fiction but what she says will resonate with novelists as well.

I learned a lot from this; I think you will too.

Hit me with your best pitch if you want to get to first base

A  blog post about platform  here elicited some questions.  Here's one from Loretta Ross (remember her name; you're going to know her as an amazing writer one of these days.)

How about this one, Janet? I have a friend who, as a teenager in the mid fifties and early sixties, worked as a batboy (and scoreboard operator and all-around-gopher) for the New York Yankees. He still has tons of memorabilia and all kinds of great stories about things that happened on and off field. Assuming that I can get him to stop *talking* about writing a book about it and get him to actually sit down and *write* the damn thing, how much of a platform would he need before pitching something like that?

(Seriously, sometimes I just want to duct tape him to a chair and say, "look, just tell ME your stories and I'LL write it for you!")



He doesn't need much platform--the Yankees have platform enough for everyone.

But, what he needs is a book. "Great stories" are what grandpa tells at the dinner table. When everyone tells him he should write a book, sometimes he does, queries me, and can't understand why I don't fall all over myself to sign him right up.

My guess is hanging out with Yankees was amazing, and meeting Marilyn Monroe when she was married to Joe DiMaggio was amazing, and yoda yoda yoda all amazing that was. It's not new. It's fun to hear about Gramps being there, but if he's not MY Gramps, I'm less inclined to care.

What does make me care is if:

1. It reveals something previously unknown and hopefully horrifying: like the pitching lineup sacrificed goats in the locker room, or traded wives during the playoffs or something that will get people hot under the collar and reaching for their rolodex to call their lawyers.


2.  The stories are attached to a motivational how-to book of some sort: Everything I know about agenting, I learned as a bat boy for the Yankees, etc.



This applies to most memoirs these days. I get a lot of queries from folks who have had some very interesting things happen to them, and understandably want to tell their story to an audience. That's all well and good but the question I have to ask is "who wants to listen to this and why." The answer they give is largely why they want to tell the story, not why anyone would want to hear it. That's the trick with memoir.

I want to read something that will tell me something I didn't know, or teach me something I want to learn.  Tell me that and you've got a book.  Tell me they're great stories and I like to read great stories and you're missing the pitch.