THE WORK
(on companies, friendships, managing, and starting a new gig)
Hello again everyone,
Many thanks for subscribing, for reading, and for your comments (keep ‘em coming!)
***
A few of you wrote to me asking about my relationship with work and with publishers in general. To be clear: my relationships on both fronts are fine. I love what I do. Always have. I never take that for granted.
I do have some concerns about publishing, however. My concerns about publishing (and, more generally, about business) are philosophical in nature. And they are based on decades of observations from across the industry.
***
Companies position themselves as your family and work colleagues present themselves to you as your friends. This is inherently problematic. The schematic of corporations is one of competition: colleague vs. colleague in internecine battle. The team-building exercises are a rubric to disguise all the cage-fighting matches that are taking place behind the scenes. I remember explaining this to a publishing colleague some years ago:
“They are not your friends.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s true.”
“I have friends here.”
“You’re mistaking colleagues for friends.”
“That’s a pretty dark view of the world.”
“Colleagues are interchangeable. Friends are not.”
“I have friends at the office.”
“You gotta trust me on this one.”
Shortly after our conversation, the colleague in question was fired. This seemed an extreme example of the point I was trying to make.
***
One would think after 30-plus years of camaraderie and togetherness that some friendships would bloom. It seems inevitable. It is not.
***
I know of prisoners who became friends.
***
Friends keep in touch. They reach out. They ask how things are going. Mostly they check in to make sure you are still alive. Colleagues do not. Colleagues move on. Colleagues are surprised when they hear you are still alive.
***
“I thought he was dead, man.”
“Me too.”
“He's got this new gig.”
“They all have a new gig.”
“Dude’s gotta have something, man.”
“It won't last.”
“Shit no.”
“Success is inside the tent.”
“Outside the tent is cold, motherfucker!”
***
This is not a complaint but instead an observation, (insert name of colleague).
***
I haven't checked in to see if any of my colleagues are alive either.
***
It sometimes feels like you are in touch. This is the danger of social media. A like is not a touch. A comment is not a call. Both are poor substitutes for human connection. Social media apps present a false intimacy. Touch is touch. Electric. You feel something. I haven't felt anything.
***
Office romance is not the same as office friendship, btw. I would imagine those relationships endure mostly because bonds created during trapeze sex seem like hard ones to break. Not that I’ve ever had trapeze sex.
***
Back to the first newsletter: someone asked about the company with the book (s) benefit. That company is Klaviyo.
Someone also asked about the company with the sabbatical benefit. That company is Epic.
In terms of success, and what it looks like (beyond the bestseller list), these comments from readers:
“Our books can still have a big impact if they are read by the right people. We are proud of the first-time writers and journalists we’ve published and have helped launch their writing careers. Being proud of the book itself, as you write, is big.” +1 (word of mouth, baby)
“A book is a success if it changes the trajectory of a life.” +1 (oprahesque!)
“I haven't had many books hit the bestseller list in my 15 years working in book publishing. But I've had great connections with authors and helped them meet their goals. They're all different. A watercolor book that was a big hit in the creative community. A cookbook with an epic media tour in New York before the pandemic hit. Sometimes it was just a preorder campaign that got a handful of indies on board or some quotes from librarians who were excited about the book. It's different in every case.” +1 (value the work)
“The conversation is always about frontlist when there are many more successful backlist publications. But they aren’t as sexy to talk about.” +1 (backlist is sexy)
***
Listen: there are more generous assessments of work-life than my own. But I have a bias toward the dark. Possibly this has something to do with listening to my father’s stories about work-life through the years. Or having worked with Sonny for as long as I did.
***
“You seem angry.” Thrpst
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“What do you think?”
“Why do you always answer my questions with a question?”
“Because you know the answer.”
***
I hate my therapist. She thinks I’m angry and that I suffer from imposter syndrome. When I mentioned this to a friend (a real friend not a work friend) she later sent me an email saying “Honestly I did not have Paul Bogaards struggles with imposter syndrome on my Bingo card.” Bingo.
***
Are you good at your job? This is a question that nags at all of us. We often think we are. And we present ourselves to the world as being good at our jobs. But behind the scenes, we have our doubts. In that way, we are the embodiment of all the writers that we represent. Nagged by doubt. Consumed by need. On a constant hunt for affirmation. Stumbling in the dark bellowing “look at me” through the empty canyons of New York City.
***
I know it’s not a good thing to keep referencing the dead. The dead can’t influence outcomes (generally). But I think about Harry and Sonny all the time. Johnny too. I made a promise to Johnny after he died that I would play more golf and drink more Yuengling and when I did I would belly up to the bar and order it the way he used to: “I’ll have one of them Chinese beers. In an ice-cold glass.”
***
“Everything I am I owe to those two men.”
“You see that as a good thing?” Thrpst
“I do.”
“Is it possible it could be a bad thing?”
BEAT
“Can we talk about my friend Johnny for a moment?”
“Of course.”
“He loved to tussle.”
“You’ve mentioned that before.”
“What do you think that means?”
“What do you think it means?”
***
I have been fired and I have been asked to fire others. I have also experienced moments when I felt like firing all of my colleagues would be cleansing for the world. Conversations about fires (future), firings (present), and the fired (past) are never pleasant for any manager.
***
“Where did you land on the cuts?” Prexy
“You gave me a number,” Mgr, “I got to the number.”
“How many bodies is that?” Prexy
(manager winces, doesn’t respond)
“Seventeen.” Comms exec
“That’s not too bad,” Prexy, “That’s actually pretty good.” (smiles)
“Less than twenty is always good, sir.” Comms exec
“How is that good?” Mgr
“It doesn’t seem like a lot in the schematic of the world.” Comms exec
“It seems like a lot if you’re one of the seventeen.” Mgr
“We’ll give everyone a package.” Prexy (smiles again)
“Wonderful, sir,” Comms exec, “And we’ll make note of their generous contributions to our company in the restructuring announcement.”
“Beautiful.” Prexy (smiles again), “It’s like putting a giant bouquet on their coffin!” (laughs, catches mgr looking at him, stops)
BEAT
“Seems to me like we’re firing a bunch of people and not restructuring anything.” Mgr
“If we couch it as a restructuring,” Comms exec (sternly), “they’ll report it as a restructuring.”
“Write it up.” Prexy
“Will do, sir.” Comms exec, “I’ll have it ready in the morning.”
(prexy to mgr) “It could always be worse. (BEAT) It could be eighteen getting the ax.”
***
And so it goes. Another publishing ax falls and our restructured friends are set free. This is why the parks in Brooklyn are always so crowded.
***
If you’re going to face a firing squad, trade publishing is the place to do it. The executions here are far more benevolent than in other industries. Still, when they happen, when you see a colleague (s) get the ax, it’s a painful thing to observe, because, you know, most people try. It also leads you down a “what if” wormhole.
***
What if we don’t hit the list?
What if we hit the list and fall off after two weeks?
Two weeks? What about one week?
One week and we’re fucked.
What if our imprint is next?
What if our department is next?
What if our expense account takes a hit?
OMFG. Anything but that.
What if they merge us with…
There’s no one left to merge us with ffs.
Thank god.
***
My overall wish here is for more transparency. Shorten the restructuring memos. No one understands what the hell they mean anymore anyhow. You need to be an engineer to understand the flow and who does what and is that even a job and all the reports and reporting and data funnels. Here’s what every memo should say: “We cut staff so we could be more profitable.” That’s it. Onward.
***
I used to have a recurring dream about one of the big bosses I worked with. It started with a phone call.
Phone chimes.
“Hello.” Me.
“Hey,” Big boss, “You have a minute?”
“Sure.”
“Can you come visit?”
“Be right down.”
There was nothing to be nervous about. The big boss and I would talk every once in a while. Friendly as these things go. I went down the hall and tapped on her door.
“Come in.” I came in. “Sit down.” I sat down. And then this: “We need to kill you.”
BEAT
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no – it’s all right.”
“You are the example.”
“Of course.”
“No hard feelings, OK?”
“No.” (BEAT) “I’ll be fine.” Thinking to himself, “I’ll be dead.”
BEAT
“How’s the family?”
“Well. And yours?”
“They’re fine.” (BEAT) “HR will be in touch.”
***
This, of course, says a lot more about my relationship to management through the years than it does about your own. In fact, I’ve heard from quite a few people in publishing since my first post, many of whom expressed happiness with their lot and station in the industry. They told me I was wrong about everything I had written.
***
I am often wrong.
***
“I want them all back.” Prexy
“Sir?” Comms exec
“All of them. I don’t care where they live.”
“This would be a hard thing to execute.”
“Who the fuck moves to Montana?” BEAT “Why was letting employees move to Montana ever a good idea? Whose idea was that?”
“It was a board idea, sir. You welcomed it.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“Moving to Montana?”
“Not Montana specifically. The idea of letting people choose where they work.”
“Well… (prexy twirls pencil) It was a mistake. I have a company to run here. And how can I run a company when everyone is living in Montana?”
“Sir?”
“What?”
“People are happy working remotely. Productivity is up.”
BEAT
“Have they ever watched Yellowstone? I mean Montana seems a lot worse than New York. Take that Beth character. She makes Binky look like a fucking princess.”
“Yellowstone is a television show, sir. A fiction.”
“I know what it is. I’m talking about what it represents. It’s the best argument we have for bringing people back. It’s not safe out there. People can’t work in isolation. I’ve seen the outcomes of those experiments. People die in a hail of gunfire. BEAT We need the counterbalance of joy and support that comes from working alongside colleagues.”
“Employees don’t feel that way, sir.”
BEAT
“Listen: I’m paying them. I want to see them. At their desks. Not on some zoom screen. Bring ‘em all back. The pandemic is over.”
***
But not about this.
***
You want employees to come back to the office so they can gain perspective? That happened when they left. They saw what their lives could be like.
***
The best thing to happen in trade publishing over the past two years isn't companies realizing higher sell-through and lower overhead but instead employees recognizing they could enjoy a better quality of life.
***
Give your employees options. Honor the choices they make. Some want to come back. Some don't. That’s not a “crisis.” That’s an opportunity.
***
The social net of trade publishing can be intoxicating (it was for me). But there’s still a whiff of arrogance and entitlement in our industry that I find a little troubling. Executives and editors don’t walk around the corridors as much as waft, buoyed by art (not theirs), ego (very much theirs), and Ivy League diplomas (not theirs but instead inherited). Many come from money and have a monied patina when they speak.
“How are things?” Prexy
“Excuse me?” Prdctn staffer
“How is the work?”
“Oh. (BEAT) Fine, I guess.”
BEAT
“You know this is a gift?”
“What’s a gift?”
“This work we do.”
“How do you mean?”
BEAT
“A book is a sacred object. And you, young man, help us make them. (BEAT) How does that make you feel?”
OK, I guess.
“Only OK, son? Do you know how I got started?”
BEAT
“Is this a long story?”
“I understand how busy you are, (Prexy puts hand on staffer’s shoulder), But this story is for your benefit. And advancement, I might add. It will help you understand this world and station we occupy.”
Staffer nods uncomfortably.
“I was editing The Crimson. My father was an editor there, and so was his father, and my great grandfather too. It was generational, our relationship with the paper. The work was glorious. My god I miss those walks across Folly Bridge watching the scullers on The Thames.”
“I think you mean The Charles.”
“Oh yes, quite right. The Charles. (BEAT) Still jetlagged from the fair, I guess. (prexy laughs to himself) Where was I?”
Watching the scullers.
The story continues for several hours…
***
Feelings are now a thing in publishing. Everyone has them, shares them, discusses them with management and HR, and posts about them on the internet. Many publishing elders remain confused and resentful about all these freed feelings having grown up in an era of suppression and still being a little suppressed themselves. Freed feelings surface in ways that are both positive and negative. In the old days, you could tell someone how you felt with impunity. Much trickier to do that now.
***
“We should wrap the ARCs in barbed wire!” Mktr (NOTE: Everything mktrs and pblcsts say should be followed by an exclamation point, even when they are asking a question.)
“Barbed wire?” Edsy
“Yes!”
“Why would we wrap the ARCs in barbed wire?”
“To generate buzz! (BEAT) Plus it’s a fun way to draw attention to the refugee narrative! (mktr senses concern on part of edsy) How about lipstick! You know, make it more aspirational! Something in blood red! That would be arresting!”
BEAT
“You’re a fucking moron.” (editor leaves zoom room)
***
Later, the editor receives a call from HR.
***
Umbrellas. Lipstick. Hats. Beach towels. Wine. Tote bags. Hand cream. Pens. Tea. Condoms. Maps. Masks. Duct tape. Shell casings. It is a poetic undertaking, all of this work that we do.
***
To create, to execute, to do the job you are hired to do in the absence of affirmation makes the workday a long, painful slog. Blind affirmation, however, is worse than no affirmation at all. The acknowledgment from a colleague about something you’ve done when they don’t understand the do or the path to done and indeed the wider, complicated circumstances of your life – that’s a cheap trick.
***
The hardest part of being a manager is coming to understand who your employees are and what is meaningful to them.
***
A lot of them are struggling. I’m struggling. The path to discovery is through conversation. I have no one to talk with. The conversation should be about anything other than work. I will talk with anyone about anything anytime. Find time. I have time! Ask questions. I will answer all your questions, even the deeply personal and disturbing ones, including the time I jumped out of a tree at sales conference. I tried to be a good manager but my failure was always one of time and inquiry. I still feel bad about this. Possibly some managers are fearful about asking questions because of the wireframes that come from HR (“ask questions but don’t get too personal”) and, you know, if you ask questions you have to be prepared for responses.
***
“How are things?”
“Work things?”
“No. Life things.”
“Life things are not good.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Me too.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really. BEAT. Peter has an only fans account.”
“Ah. BEAT. Is he a performer?”
“You know only fans?”
“Yes.”
“Are you on only fans too? I mean what the fuck. Are all men on only fans and why am I just finding out about this now?”
“I’m not on it but I am familiar with it.”
“Men disgust me.”
“Me too.”
***
You can also follow your colleagues on social media where they post about their struggles with some frequency. Companies should be policing those kinds of posts instead of posts where someone is mouthing off about the business. One is a call for help, the other is a call for change. Both need a response beyond suppression.
***
Some will say the only way you can come to understand employees is by working near them. I know managers who worked in close proximity to employees for decades and couldn’t tell you the first thing about them.
***
The other charge for managers: elevating the work of their peers.
***
The best book I read about managing and publishing had nothing to do with managing or publishing. I came to it early on in my career. It’s Ogilvy on Advertising. I kept a copy on my desk for thirty-two years and referenced it often (I would reference it now but I left my copy in the office).
Ogilvy was the guy who came up with this copy: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." Genius.
He also said (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Hire people who are smarter than you are.” This was easy for me. All the people I hired were smarter than I was. Many have gone on to enjoy successful careers inside and outside the industry.
He also said this: “Where people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work.”
There was, of course, a lot about copy in the book too. Advice on making it sing. In this line of work, making it sing is everything.
***
Aside: I never cared about internships or publishing courses. I was interested in people who had real-world experience. If you had taken a publishing course, you were out of the running as far as I was concerned. I wanted to hire people with grit.
***
“Any previous work experience?”
“I worked at Mad Martha’s.”
“What’s that.”
“An ice cream parlor.”
“Interesting. Where is it?”
“Martha’s Vineyard.”
“What did you do there?”
“Scooped ice cream.”
“You must have strong arms.” (NOTE: This was during an era when you could say something like that and not be fired).
candidate rolls up sleeve, flexes bicep. “All summer. High season.”
“Well, if you can scoop ice cream in the high season on Martha’s Vineyard, you can do this job.”
***
This is an actual conversation from one of the first hires I made in publishing.
***
Ogilvy also had something in his book about Russian dolls. It seemed important when I read it.
***
I think of David Ogilvy in the same way I think of Ben Dreyer: as a competent, reliable reference and source. I urge both of their books – Ogilvy on Advertising and Dreyer’s English - upon you. Ogilvy would be a good follow on Twitter, were he still around. Ben, of course, is a great follow too. He talks about old movies a lot. And the theatre. TCM should hire him. Aside: he’d probably red-mark the fuck out of this newsletter.
***
The decision to strike out on your own feels good. I mean, you’ll be on your own. No more meetings. No more bosses. No more jockeying for position in a virtual room. But the execution? Less so. You begin to realize that you’re really going to be on your own. The support network that used to be there? Gone. The interactions with colleagues? Gone. What you instead experience is a long period of unending quiet in the cold dark wild of the Adirondacks. It’s a little like dying or being left for dead. Until Bob Caro calls. Then you snap back to life and find yourself on the phone for several days.
***
This, decidedly, is not how everyone would choose to work. Alone. It’s why many stay at companies for so long. In the quiet. Companies are comfortable. With the dog staring at you. There are people. I have no people. There are desks. I have no desk. There is carpeting. I have no carpeting. There are meetings. Thank god I have no fucking meetings.
***
What I do have are clients. Clients who have placed their trust in me. This is the most remarkable thing in the world.
***
Love may conquer all but trust vanquishes doubt. And doubt is a thing when you are starting a business (in that it is like writing – more on that in my next newsletter). When clients place their trust in you, something amazing happens: you wake up with ready energy. You move through the world with belief in your step. You’re eager to act as their advocate and ambassador. You feel a sense of loyalty, a sense of duty, a sense of commitment, and sometimes wish your clients were nearby so you could hug them and tell them how lucky you feel and how much it means to be working with them, and that you would, should anything untoward ever happen, be their Tonya Harding, ready to kneecap the world on their behalf.
***
I was in New York City a few weeks ago and hugged Bob Caro.
***
People will say I acted a little like Gillooly in my former job. I never saw it that way. I never had a bat.
***
Another heartening thing in all this has been the generosity of others. Encouragement means so much in this life. What is surprising to me is where the encouragement has come from: agents and authors. I know I’m running a business that is somewhat dependent on agents and authors. Still. Surprising. All of it. I don’t know why.
***
I was fortunate to lean on a few PR folks as I readied for launch. Absent their encouragement, I wouldn’t be here (I might, in fact, have ridden that tractor into the sunset). One colleague I turned to was Bumble Ward. Bumble is the best. She gave me this advice:
· Only take on projects you love.
· Your time is worth more than you think.
· Get clients to pay you on time.
I love my clients and projects. My attorney thinks I’m not charging enough (I have work to do here). And clients are paying me on time and without prompting.
***
Another colleague who specializes in black ops PR reminded me that things in the corporate sector could sometimes “go south in a hurry” and if and when they do, to reach out. I explained that most of my work would be with authors and media and when I did he rolled his eyes and said “Media. Those fuckin’ guys never fall in line. You ever have a problem, call me. I’ll take ‘em out.” His problem-solving skills seem like a good thing to have in the bank. It is worth noting that he has done dossier work in the past (you do not want him doing dossier work on you).
***
The most surprising thing in all this is how my relationship with time has changed. For years, time had been my enemy. There was never enough of it. I was always starved for it on projects. And the day would end without my having spent any of it doing the things I wanted.
Now time is a friend. I spend more of it doing the things I love. I also have time to think. This, my friends, is a luxury. As is having the opportunity to correspond with you.
Until next time.
p.