Echoing Suri's links....

[alfreda89]

There is a lot of truth to this.... The thing that stuns me is, whatever gave her the idea that her editor would cut down 600 pages of manuscript? Didn't that go out with SHOGUN?

***

From Arts Journal:

"Supermaud linked this morning to "The Education of Stacy Sullivan," Gal Beckerman’s story in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review about a journalist who wrote a book about Kosovo, then was astonished that it didn’t become an overnight best seller.

Actually, that’s just my jaundiced take. Here’s Maud’s, which is a lot more fair:"

'Beckerman chronicles the many obstacles faced by journalist and debut author Stacy Sullivan in publishing and promoting "Be Not Afraid, for You Have Sons in America," her nonfiction book. Sullivan’s story is familiar to me, mirroring those I’ve heard even from seasoned and extremely well-regarded novelists. The upshot: unless your book is seen as bestseller material, you’re on your own.'

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/5/ideas-books-beckerman.asp

*

"I close with the Prime Directive of Writing a Book. Print it out, frame it, and place it in a prominent spot on your desk:

Anyone who writes a serious book with the expectation of making a lot of money and/or becoming famous is a fool. If you can’t afford to write a book in your spare time for its own sake, you’re in the wrong business."

terry teachout
http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/archives20040905.shtml#86575

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

I, too, wondered what sort of an author lets a book that she already knows is 300 pages too long out the door. If she didn't realize this, and it took her editor's pointing it out, that would be one thing; but she already knew the book was twice as long as it needed to be.

But then, she (and the writer in a similar Salon article earlier this year) seem to live in a parallel universe where a 35K advance is "disappointing."

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I must confess that I would be delighted with a $35K advance.

Glad to know that others also consider it a parallel universe.... %^)

[janni.livejournal.com]

That's actually a leave-the-day-job-for-a-while level of advance, as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe not for good. But it does at least buy one some day-job-free writing time, for a while.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Definitely.

I'd grab for it in a NY Minute--