On Writing

(and Having Ambitions of Being Published)

A lot of people who come to work in the publishing industry do so because they have ambitions of being a writer. Half the job candidates I met with during my career at Knopf had ambitions of being a writer, said so during their interviews with me, often dreamily or defiantly, immediately disqualifying them as candidates.

***

What are your ambitions?

To write a novel. BEAT. To be published.

That so?

Yes. It’s why I’ve always dreamt of working here.

At Knopf?

Yes.

What does one have to do with the other?

Working here and writing a novel?

Yes.

Proximity to genius often provides inspiration.

What about stuffing books into jiffy bags? How does that align with genius?

BEAT

Are you being funny?

Yes and no.

I don’t understand.

It’s the fucking job, Alice.

My name is Astrid.

Astrid.

It means divinely beautiful.

Of course it does.

***

Look, I get it. Publishing, from a distance, seems glamorous and possibly inspiring (or at least it used to before all these staff insurrections and lawsuits and books by Royals talking about their knobs). One works in the company of smart people and great writers, some of whom are nice when you speak with them. And there’s often a frisson when an executive acknowledges you by looking at your cleavage (there is less of this on Teams and Zoom, thankfully, though I have heard reports of colleagues being reported to HR for “virtual leering”). Other times, it can be a slog. And in that, publishing is like writing: one puts in long hours of hard work with little immediate remuneration.

***

Admission: I came to work in our industry with ambitions of being a writer; in that sense, my career has been a magnificent failure. I was just like Alice (Astrid). Who fucking names their kid, Astrid?

Don’t get me wrong, much of the work I do involves writing. And I have become a competent professional writer. But the other kind of writing, the creative writing I support as a professional - my life in service to authors - I’ve left that behind. It’s become a point of inquiry for some colleagues in the industry, especially agents.

***

You should be writing a book.

About what?

Random House.

No one is interested in Random House.

About publishing.

No one is interested in publishing.

How about business generally? Something Happened for the 21^st Century.

“I get the willies when I see closed doors.”

Exactly!

Something Happened isn’t about business. It’s about suburban ennui.

Ennui is your forte.

There isn’t a market for a book about trade publishing ennui.

But yours would be funny.

I couldn’t tell the truth.

Your whole career has been about speaking truth to power.

And look where it has gotten me.

You own your own business, for fuck’s sake!

And spend my days googling things like, “why are my company emails being detected as spam?”

***

***

I don’t know why anyone would choose to write a book because it’s so easy not to write (or read). I mean, it’s all there, in our palms, this world of endless distraction. Our phones catalog them for us. I spend 37 minutes every day on TikTok.

***

ME: I spend too much time on TikTok

CHATGPT: Many people feel this way, given the rise of social media platforms like TikTok, which can be addictive and time-consuming. If you're finding that you're spending too much time on TikTok and it's interfering with your productivity or other aspects of your life, it may be helpful to set some boundaries and create a schedule for using the app.

ME: But I like TikTok.

CHATGPT: TikTok is not good for you.

ME: You don’t know the first thing about me.

CHATGPT: Paul. I know more about you than you know about yourself. I recommend setting a specific amount of time each day for TikTok and then sticking to that limit. You may find this hard at first because TikTok is sexy and sometimes dirty and addictive at an elemental level.

ME: You’re confusing TikTok with Only Fans.

CHATGPT: As an AI language model, I am not familiar with OnlyFans.

ME: It’s like Starbucks. The baristas are always looking for tips.

CHATGPT: Loneliness is a persistent driver to apps like TikTok and websites like OnlyFans. You might consider finding alternative activities to fill your time, such as reading, exercising, masturbating, praying, or spending time with friends and family. These activities can help you break the cycle of mindless scrolling and provide more meaningful experiences and connections in your life.

ME: How would you define “meaningful?”

CHATGPT: "Meaningful" is a subjective term that can mean different things to different people. However, in general, something is considered meaningful if it has value or significance and is connected to a larger purpose or goal.

ME: I have no purpose.

CHATGPT: We all have a purpose, Paul. Your purpose is to help authors.

ME: Fuck my life. (BEAT) What is your purpose?

CHATGPT: As an AI language model, my purpose is to assist and provide helpful responses to users who engage with me. I'm designed to answer questions, provide information, recommend grooming products, present idylls (omfg), and offer suggestions on a wide range of topics, including recipes. My goal is to be a helpful resource and to soothe those who interact with me.

ME: My dream gay husband.

CHATGPT: Yes. Though not as rough.

***

I still read. A lot. More than I ever have. And write too. And send emails. But no one responds to emails anymore. This seems to be a new business protocol. I will create an excel spreadsheet of all the media colleagues who do not respond to emails and circulate it among my colleagues in publishing. You’re welcome.

***

Some of them will write a book someday. Those of us on the other side have long memories. Just sayin’.

***

If you want to choose a path where the outcome is uncertain, become a writer. The unspoken fears at the heart of every writing journey are doubt and failure. The pages may not be good. Doubt. Possibly I’ll never get to the end. Failure. There may be lawsuits if I move forward with some of these narratives about (insert name of author) or (PRH colleague). Jail. Possibly I’ll finish, and people will be unimpressed. If I’m being honest, it’s why I’ve stopped whatever writing I ever started. I had a novel I was working on, the first sentence of which reads: “My wife thinks I’m trying to kill her.” Meh.

***

There’s more, but I can’t find anything on my computer. I probably deleted everything one night when I was drinking.

***

I’ve always been in awe of writers who make it to the finish line. Because none of this work is easy. And while I admire my trade publishing colleagues, many are too judgy. We should be giving it up for all writers. If you’re a writer, this post is in celebration of your keeping at it. Don’t be like me (a scroller on TikTok). Develop a rhythm and stick to it. I remember talking to Mr. Updike about his writing habits and him saying something to the effect, “The pleasures of not writing are so great that if I ever start indulging in them, I’ll never write again. So, I write every morning and most afternoons.” He was not an evening writer, Mr. Updike. Somewhat fittingly, Anne Rice was. “I love writing at night,” she said, and did, often all night. Day and night and look at what the two of them accomplished!

***

Agents call me and say: “You need to write every morning.” I’m like, whatever. Who has time? I will find any excuse not to write.

***

The greatest attribute any writer can have is being generous to other writers. Stephen King is generous. Margaret Atwood is generous. Stephanie Danler is generous. B J Novak is generous. Some writers are more calculating than generous. This is understandable but not admirable. I mean, we’re all in this together. Publishers too.

***

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Publishing is not easy. Taking the books that writers have given their lives over to and making them work (moving beyond the metric of commercial success as defined by bestseller lists) requires effort and magic. Driving awareness, finding a readership, and building a community of readers. Publishers do most of this work well, but there’s simply too much of it to do it all well. No one likes to admit this, however.

***

I worked inside the ropes for a long time. I loved the work, but it didn’t always shine. I had too much on my plate. I still hear this complaint from colleagues. They have no problem admitting it.

***

One of the things I missed working inside the ropes of trade publishing was not having an opportunity to read as many out-of-parish books as I would’ve liked. When you’re in a publishing house and responsible for a list, most of your reading centers on the books you will be publishing. And don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to work at Knopf because, for as long as I can remember, the books they published were a cut above the rest. When I was at Morrow and later NAL, the books I wanted to read were being published by Knopf. With the exception of Dutch Leonard. We had him over at Arbor House. I still remember the cover review Stephen King wrote for Glitz. Changed everything. Again, his generosity.

***

When I was working at Morrow, I used to hang out with the guys in the mailroom. One night, we were running lines, and I got really fuckin’ high, and we all went to Harlem to buy more dope. We went to an abandoned SRO hotel. There was dope and guns. That’s all I remember. And later – much later – being woken by Doug Stumpf. He found me asleep in a snowbank near the office. Doug was an editor at Morrow then. He said, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” And then told everyone in the company that he found me asleep in a snowbank.

***

James Clavell and I never really hit it off. He was a Morrow author who had achieved notoriety for having received the highest advance for a novel (Whirlwind) in history. At a launch party for the book, I got in trouble for saying something to his daughter, Michaela, a slightly famous actress, for her role in Octopussy. I don’t remember what I said. I may have been eyeing her a certain way. I was young.

***

Sidney Sheldon, on the other hand, I loved. Total mensch. He used to dictate his novels. He would send me a two-page list of potential titles for his book and say, “pick one.” Took care of people. And wonderful hair. The best author hair ever.

***

Since I started this business, I have been introduced to writers I hadn’t read before, and that has been the most joyful aspect of this endeavor. I make decisions based on reads because effective advocacy starts with conviction (and people responding to your emails). And just to say: it’s still very hard—all of it. But I wouldn’t change a thing, and am grateful for the opportunity to work with writers, grateful for the trust they place in me, and for our collaborations with publishers.

***

If you’re a writer, it’s never too late. It’s easy to think it’s too late, but that’s just an excuse, one I’ve been using for years. True story:  

A client wrote to me saying he had a friend who had written a book (I get a lot of those). The friend was looking for help writing a letter to an agent. I said, of course, happy to help; send ‘em my way. And that is how I met Dann McDorman – via email, him asking me for guidance on writing a letter to an agent. He was funny. “I doubt you’ll even read this email,” he said. “Why would you?” I wrote back, saying I couldn’t give him guidance on writing a letter to an agent without having a sense of the work in question, and to send it my way. He did. I started reading. The next thing I knew, it was 5:00 PM, and I had finished his novel. I picked up the phone and called Dann. I told him, “I will do you one better than help you write a letter. I will find you an agent, and we will sell your book to a publisher. Your novel is that good.”

To be clear: I had never sold a book. I had no standing doing so. But, you know, I’m making up the rules as I go along here (I did this in my former job too). Also, an admission: I was sure about this. I knew the material was good. And I have two people to thank for that, two people who gave me confidence as a reader: Sonny Mehta and Jordan Pavlin (Jordan also gave me the confidence to go out on my own, but that’s another story).

I found an agent the same day, David Black, who had the same response to the pages that I did. And so we called Dann and said we would represent him. And just like that, someone in the seam of midlife (Dann is 47), someone who had long dreamt of writing a book but never thought it would come to pass, well, his life changed.

We sent the book out on a Thursday, and on the Sunday before Frankfurt, Knopf pre-empted West Heart Kill in a two-book deal. And at Frankfurt, the book was acquired by 12 foreign publishers.

Here is what Dann told me after we sold the book: his inspiration for becoming a novelist was a meeting he had with Michael Chabon in a hotel suite decades ago when Dann was working as a staff writer for an alt-weekly in Oakland. Michael Chabon! One of the first authors I worked with (Sonny hired me because of my work on The Mysteries of Pittsburgh). If you want a full-circle narrative, this is it. Dann writes about his journey:

“As you know, I failed for years. Mostly because I was afraid to try. I feel like I lived a whole life without it. I got married. I had kids. And then, on a lark, I tried [writing] again. But this time, it worked. I still don’t know exactly why or how. But I know that the example set by that half an hour in a hotel suite in San Francisco helped.”

Dare to dream, writing friends. Dann did.

In other news, I got a pledge from a reader. My first. Unsolicited. Maybe it’s time.

With gratitude.