Why did you eventually decide to leave ICM and
start Janklow & Nesbit? Was the decision affected at all by how the
publishers were doing that—combining forces and becoming conglomerates?
No.
My decision to leave ICM was more because I wanted to become an equity
partner. I didn't want to just work for a big organization as a
salaried employee. That's pretty much what drove it. And I'd probably
been there long enough, and it was getting very big. I like the way we
can focus more here. I have much more time to focus on the clients here
because we have such a strong back office. It frees me to do more
representation, not to worry about things.
Looking back, what would you say were some of the crucial turning points in your career?
Going to Marvin Josephson was a big turning point—getting to start a literary division. And then I got Charlie Portis and True Grit.
That was a big deal. I had him from the beginning too. Tom [Wolfe] was
a big thing. He was a big deal before I signed him. Michael [Crichton]
wasn't. Victor Navasky was my first client. He was very helpful in
introducing me to people in New York. We used to have this thing at the
Algonquin, the round table—Victor tried to resuscitate the Algonquin
round table. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt and I used to go, Kurt Vonnegut,
Bud Trillin, Marvin Kitman, Knox Burger. People would come and go. We'd
have it like once a week. This was in 1961, when Victor was starting Monocle and signing a lot of good people on.
Donald Barthelme was a big turning point. Donald was the one who introduced me to William Gass. That's another book that was turned down everywhere and David Segal signed it, Omensetter's Luck. That was a huge literary event. David was crucial.
I never thought, "Oh, here's an obstacle." I didn't think about building a career. It just sort of evolved. James Mills became a client. He wrote Panic in Needle Park. That was a big book. That was when I was at ICM. And Joan and John wrote the screenplay. That might be how I met John, by representing Jim Mills.
When did you meet Jimmy Carter?
I
met him when I was at ICM with Marvin Josephson. He was just leaving
the White House and Marvin and I went to the oval office to meet with
him. I said to him, "You know, I'm one of the few Protestants in New
York publishing." And I think he liked that. So he signed with us and
Marvin and I divided the selling of the presidential memoir. After
that, he began to write more and I completely took him over, and then
he came with me here.
How do you see your principal roles and responsibilities as an agent? Have they changed over time?
You
are part of a writer's support system—a very important part. The role
of the agent is more important today than it was when I was starting
out. Because the publishing world is so corporate, and editors move
around so much, you are increasingly the only fixed point for the
writer. That's one way it's changed. Another thing that I notice here,
with younger agents like Tina and Eric, is that they do a lot of
editing, and we didn't do that when we were young. I think it's partly
because of the editors. There is such pressure on editors to come in
with something that's almost ready to go that the agents are assuming
part of what the editors used to do.
When did you start to recognize that as a phenomenon?
Probably just in the last eighteen years, or ten years.
Did you ever edit?
Not to the extent that they do.
What is your editorial process like? Will you give notes?
Oh,
yes. For example, Andy Greer is a young new client of mine. I've read
the draft of his new novel, which is coming out next spring, five
times. That doesn't often happen, but with Andy it did. It was
fascinating because I kept seeing how he kept enhancing and changing
it.
What kind of specific thoughts would you give?
Just sort of general thoughts. Is this character really working here, or what about this scene.
But what you see with younger agents is more getting in there with a pencil and editing?
Especially on proposals.
What are the implications of that?
I
think the implications are that editors need to see something very
polished because everyone is so nervous. Books are an endangered
species, especially fiction. I do think that younger agents work more
on the nonfiction proposals, with extensive notes, before they go out.
But with fiction, everyone is so nervous about it.
What do you mean exactly by "nervous"?
Nervous
that fiction is very difficult to sell. An editor wants to see
something that's more near completion, that the idea or the thrust
behind a novel is more fully realized. Twenty-five years ago an editor
would say, "Oh, this has promise," and sign it up. Today, editors want
to say no rather than yes. Unless they see it as a big book.
And this is because of corporate pressures? Profit pressures?
Profit
pressures. You must know that fiction is very hard to sell. Today it's
almost that fiction needs to seem like it's going to be an event. It
almost has to open like a movie, on the commercial side, or else the
editor has to be convinced its going to get such praise, such positive
literary acclaim, that even if it doesn't sell a lot you're launching a
real voice.
Everybody talks
about how the model for a writer's career has changed. You just talked
about a book opening like a movie. There's this blockbuster mentality,
especially for debut novels, with astronomical advances and very high
sales expectations. How do you feel about that in relation to writers
and their careers over the long haul?
Well, if
it works, it's fine.… If they spend a lot and the book works, then
everyone's happy and your career is launched. If they spend a lot and
the book doesn't work, then it's a problem. Because as you know,
everyone can see the numbers today. There is no fudging. And that's
because of the chains. There are two or three big outlets. It used to
be that we couldn't sell as many copies per book. We could argue that
this is very good, this new chain system, because you can sell more
copies.
Tell me how you feel about these changes, the blockbuster mentality.
I
think it's kind of unhealthy. Because a movie is a movie, but when
you're building a writer's career…. As I said, if it works, it's great.
If it doesn't, I think it's a huge black spot on that writer's career.
Everybody knows what's gone on. In the old days, we could fudge it a
bit better. But today everybody knows if a book's been a success or a
failure. There's no fudging. The problem is not the first book. It's
the second. At least nobody asks me that question anymore, "How hard is it to sell a first novel?" The first novel is the easiest
to sell. But if it doesn't do well, you're up a creek. You have to
reposition the author, probably move them to a new house, because the
publisher doesn't want to take another bath. So you sell it to a new
house and say X overpaid and maybe they didn't do as good of a job as
they should have, and the author probably understands that he probably
has to take less money.
If you were a first-time writer and you were offered a big advance, would you be wary of it?
I
think I would probably take it. There are very few who could resist it.
Sometimes an author—and it's happened here at the agency—they'll take a
somewhat smaller advance because they prefer the editor or the house or
whatever. But it's never that much less. It's not a hundred thousand
dollars less. Maybe it's twenty thousand dollars less. But you never
know what will happen. The Elizabeth Kostova book worked. I mean, I
don't think that's literature. It's sort of what we call, you've heard
this term, faux literature. But it sold. Can we think of a book that was a real bomb?
It can be devastating to an author's career.
Well, not devastating, but not hopeful. Let's put it that way.
In terms of the book industry itself, what would you say are the most troubling or frustrating changes today?
What
worries me is that there aren't as many younger people who want to
become editors as there used to be. Because at a certain point they get
frustrated. There's not enough money to make the job palatable, and
they don't have enough freedom. So they feel that they have this
corporate bureaucracy imposed on them and yet they're not making a
decent enough salary. What I see is this flow of young editors becoming
agents. There are hundreds of agents. I can't believe how many there
are. When I was starting out, there were agents, but not at the number
there are now. Because today they can operate out of their apartments
with a telephone. Or they think they can. I can't imagine that because
in an agency you do need a big support staff of people who handle the
foreign rights, the first serial, the permissions. We have two lawyers
on staff who go over the contracts. So I can't imagine operating that
way.
What other changes are you seeing?
I
said this earlier as sort of a joke, but I'm beginning to think there
are more writers than readers. I get these e-mails pouring in from
people who want to write their life stories. It's because of the
memoir. Everybody thinks they have a story. I also feel there are fewer
and fewer civilians—I mean people outside of our business—who I meet
who have time to read. They all say, "I'd love to read, but I'm just
too busy." What worries me is that people are on blogs, Web sites—there
is a lot of that going on—but they aren't reading books. That
phenomenon, to me, is not a product of the industry, it's a product of
how our culture is changing. People's attention spans are getting
shorter and shorter. And everybody has their specialty. I don't ever
look at blogs or Web sites because I would never get anything done. I'm
tempted to because I hear about these great things.
What
does that mean for the future of books and reading? A lot of people
seem to think an iPod-like device will come along for books.…
Great.
That would be terrific. I have no problem with that. The more forms in
which people can read intellectual content, the better. I don't care if
they read it in a real book or on an iPod. If they're more likely to
read it on some device, great. I have no fear about that. I have no
idea why people do. It's the content that matters, the intellectual
content. As long as we can keep it copyrighted. I also look forward to
books on demand. Jason Epstein has been working on this machine for
years, and he tells me that other people have been trying to do it too.
The modes of distribution are so antiquated.
Epstein
also seems to think that publishers are getting too big and will
eventually collapse from their own bigness and fracture into smaller
shops.
Like what's happened in
Hollywood. I think it will happen. I think it's happening now, with all
these imprints. There are so many imprints. And once they get the
distribution figured out…. If these machines really do become
effective, and there are more efficient ways of distributing books,
then I think there will be more and more independent producers. And
independent producers use a distribution outlet. So the publishers will
be more like distributors. I think it could happen. I don't know
because this business is so primitive—the publishing business—so
unsophisticated. It takes so many years to make a change here that I
don't think it's ten years away.
