Dreams vs. Reality

Missing Pages S01E07

Dreams vs. Reality

Bethanne Patrick (To Eric Smith): It's like in our dreams, every published author is a millionaire, every title goes to auction, every editor is brilliant and attentive, and all books hit the bestseller list.

Eric Smith: Yeah, no, that is the dream.

Bethanne Patrick (To Eric Smith): That is the dream, but that is not what meshes with reality.

Bethanne Patrick: Hi Missing Pagers. Okay, so, we’re doing something a little different in this episode. You know me, I’m Bethanne Patrick, your friendly host and publishing industry insider. But I want to introduce you to my colleague, Matt Keeley. Matt, say hi to the nice people

Matt Keeley: Hi, Bethanne. 

Bethanne Patrick: Matt is what we call in the industry, a highly technical term, a bubble burster.

Matt Keeley: That’s me. I’ve worked in book publishing for a while. I write literary reviews for a few publications. And there are a whole bunch of industry codes and cues that I’ve had to decipher, pick up, or just totally fail to understand over the years.

Bethanne Patrick: Yes, and today we’re going to crack the code between the dream of the book world versus the reality of this business.

Matt Keeley: Yep. And I’ll be here to give you a reality check, or three.

Bethanne Patrick: And our guest Eric Smith…

Eric Smith: I'm a literary agent at P.S. Literary, and a young adult author. I'm lucky enough to work on award-winning and New York Times bestselling books. However, I haven't written one yet.

Matt Keeley: Yeah, not quite as pessimistic, cynical, and bitter as I am, but not all rainbows, unicorns, and butterflies like you are, Bethanne.

Bethanne Patrick: Ready to get started? Welcome to Reality Check: The Dream vs….

Matt Keeley: The Reality.

Bethanne Patrick: Part 1: The Writer

TV Clip - Studio 10: So let's get this straight. You're a critically acclaimed author for your very first debut novel, you're a millionaire, you're incredibly handsome… Go on! 

Bethanne Patrick: Being a writer – it's the sexiest job in the world, right? The writer has devoted her life to the dream of being a writer. She was a star student, always called on to read her essays in front of the class. She even edited the college literary magazine. Now, after laboring over phrases and sweating out perfect sentences, at long last, her book is complete. Boom, the perfect book on the first try! This sounds great, doesn't it?

Matt Keeley: Hello, it’s me, Matt. I’m here to burst your bubble with a little reality check. The Writer. Consider Bethanne. She graduated from Smith, sans laude, and then immediately got married and didn't write a thing for several years, other than checks to her children's preschool. Then AOL called and said, “Bethanne! America is online,” and she was hired as the first corporate literary blogger. It was on.

This is not an unusual story. This is the story. A lot of writers have full-time day jobs. Kate Atkinson cleaned hotel rooms. Anne Patchet bar tended at TGIF’s. Heck, Bethanne is hosting a podcast. There's even a tradition that the back of a book jacket will have a bio that rattles off all the unlikely jobs the author worked, usually gravedigger, but not always.

I guess when you're an author trying and often failing to pay rent, inspiration can strike anywhere & everywhere for better or for worse. Even Chaucer was a bureaucrat. 

Bethanne Patrick: Okay, Matt. Thanks for bringing down the mood, my friend.

Matt Keeley: Sorry, I’m just trying to be honest.

Bethanne Patrick: Maybe Eric has a less doom and gloom story to share about the writer’s journey.

Eric Smith: I feel like it's so unglamorous, you know, to talk about that. You know, because like, when it comes to building up to submit that proposal, building up to submit that manuscript, it's all just about that very, sometimes lonely process of getting it as polished as you can get it. And then sending those emails into the void where you're actively pitching the agents that feel like they might be a good fit for you.

And it's just a lot of that solitary grinding at your desk sometimes, which is why sometimes I think social media is so good.

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith?): Are most writers full-time authors, full-time writers?

Eric Smith: No, no, no. A lot of my clients, they have writing adjacent jobs. You know, I'm lucky to work with a couple of authors who write video games for a living and write about video games for a living, a lot of video game people. Some are copy editors, some are copywriters. But writing is what they do at the end of the day, sometimes for themselves.

TV Clip - CBS Sunday Morning: Toni Morrion was a single mother trying to raise two sons, Ford and Slade, working fulltime as a book editor and struggling to write. It wasn’t until her third book, Song of Solomon, that she dared to call herself a writer on her income tax forms.

Bethanne Patrick: Part 2: The Agent

TV Clip: Entourage: Wait. 10 million… 12 million… fine 11 it is. You’ve got yourself a deal. 

Bethanne Patrick: What happens after the writer submits a perfect manuscript? Well, it falls into the capable hands of a wheeling and dealing literary agent. The agent knows everyone who is anyone in the book world. And he sends an email saying, “Boy, do I want to meet you?” When the agent isn't getting his teeth whitened, he's hunched over his desk, shaking his head in wonder at your brilliant prose.

Matt Keeley: Unsolicited submissions go into the slush pile, once a literal pile of paper. Today it's digital and it may fall to an intern to make the first decision. Ah, your future, in the hands of a fifth year college senior, albeit one whose mom owns the company. But some submissions don't even make it that far.

Bethanne Patrick: The agent is likely taking an UberX back from a three-martini lunch at Molyvos on 43rd and ninth, or what is known as the unofficial random house cafeteria. This is where he meets all of the publishers of Knopf or Riverhead or sometimes Scribner, you know, the ones who are going to fight over your manuscript at next week's big acquisition meeting. 

Is there anything better than a good acquisition meeting? This is exactly why I got into writing books.

Matt Keeley: Even if you send your query, which is publishing for an email, possibly with an attachment – it’s really crazy, wild, complicated stuff – if it fails to meet your agent's submission guidelines, then you’re shit out of luck. God forbid you attach a PDF when they explicitly asked for a word file, your submission will invariably be deleted without so much as a “thank you.”

The three-martini lunch? That’s out of fashion ever since Café Loup closed. And although there are agents with sports cars and UberX expense accounts, most of them take the subway or the bus and a few of them might have to walk.

Bethanne Patrick: When the agent submits a manuscript, bidding wars inevitably ensue – unless a desperate editor makes a seven figure preempt to immediately take the book off of the market. (God, my manuscript is that good!)

Once the book deal closes, the agent picks up his phone and dials his Hollywood literary scout, who’s also in his wife's Pilates group, because come on, when you're playing in the big leagues, it's a small world. And swiftly, the mini series adaptation is underway. 

Matt Keeley: Most book deals aren't large. Many agents work solely on their 15% commissions, and some of that is going towards keeping the office lights on and keeping the office rents paid. If you've submitted your manuscript or proposal without a preexisting connection to the agent, there's no guarantee the agent will ever lay eyes on your writing.

And if they do, once a book is submitted to editors, there's no guarantee it will sell soon or sell at all. And then of course, there's the fact that many books are sold unfinished. If you're writing nonfiction, odds are you'll sell books on proposal. You might not begin writing in earnest until the book is sold to an editor, and until that editor has suggested a new title, a shifted focus, a wordy subtitle, and months worth of additional research that sounds really, really complicated. 

So, it's all relative. Or I guess relatives, given, you know, the nepotism of the industry.

Bethanne Patrick: Okay, okay, alright. Thanks a lot, Matt. Way to kill my dreams of the all powerful and connected super agent. 

Can we live in my reality where my agent builds into the contract that only Meryl Streep can play me in the HBO mini-series adaptation?

Matt Keeley: Sure. Only if a young Clive Owen can play me. 

Bethanne Patrick: You’ve got a deal, buddy. I wonder what Eric, an actual literary agent, knows about the agent life?

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): Is being a literary agent glamorous? Is it all parties all the time?

Eric Smith: Oh, no. Like, I love the TV show Younger. Like, I love it so much.

TV Clip - Younger: This is nice. Nice? This is a power booth, Liza. From here, we can see and be seen by everyone who comes in.

Eric Smith: And anytime there's, like, a publishing plot line, like on a TV show or a movie, I always get such a kick out of it.

TV Clip - Younger: Hey, what’s up? I slipped the manuscript to a producer friend of mine at Paramount and he thinks it’s perfect for Scott Rudin.

Eric Smith: Because it's always some agent who's like, impeccably dressed and they're drinking, like, a martini at lunch with the editor, and the editor's running late, and they're sitting there with their martini looking kind of villainous.

TV Clip - Younger: Now, if you want to play dirty, the stakes are going to have to go way up. What do you want?

Eric Smith: It's not like that at all. At all. Yeah, it's a lot of reading emails and having phone calls to get to know people and, you know, sending long winded chats to folks who I might know in the industry to get to know what they're looking for. I'm sure the two o'clock martini still exists somewhere maybe, but not here in Philadelphia.

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): How long does it take between an author submitting a proposal or a manuscript and hearing back from an agent?

Eric Smith: Ooh, that varies. It definitely varies [from] person to person, and like, moment in history to moment in history. Because like, right now, I know a lot of my agent friends and, like, my editor friends are having a hard time getting things read as quickly as they would like. I have a slight backlog of manuscripts that I'm trying to work my way through right now.

Because for agents and editors, the priority usually tends to be, like, their current clients and the people they're working with right now, and then they get to go look at newer stuff. Ideally the amount of time it'll take is whatever it says on the agency's website, right? It's usually six to eight weeks, so like, you know, a month and a half, two months. But these days it's just a little bit longer. But that is the normal. It's like two months. 

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): When you say you have backlog, what does a backlog mean for you?  

Eric Smith: It's not too bad. It’s maybe manuscripts dating back to, like, January. So, it's like five months. Like, I try to stay on top of it as much as I can, but it's a backlog because I like to sit down and read the stuff, you know? I'm never the kind of person who's going to read, like one page and be like, “Oh no, this isn't for me.”

Matt Keeley: God bless you, Eric Smith, for actually reading your slush pile! I salute your service.

Eric Smith: I want to sit down and I want to give all the books my time because I write too. So, I get how hard it is. 

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): So people, you know, are looking for an agent. Why are literary agents necessary?

Eric Smith: A lot of publishers don't take unagented work, right? So like, it depends on what your goal for your book is, right? So like, if you want a smaller press, if you want an indie press, like that's totally fine. There are some outstanding ones out there that you don't need an agent to pitch, like Quirk Books where I worked for a while.

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): That's right.

 
Eric Smith: And there's a lot of other presses that, you know, don't require agents. Like, I love Lantern Fish Press. But if your goal is, like, a bigger publisher, that's also fine. But you're going to need an agent to get you in the door there because most editors can't consider unagented work. Their inboxes would be overflowing. I can't even fathom.

So that's one of the bigger reasons. The other little reasons that sort of flutter off of that is that agents help sell your sub rights. You know, we are the people that go and help you find an audio book deal. We help you get your film and TV rights optioned out in Hollywood. We help you sell your foreign rights. There are just, like, piles upon piles of things that we do outside of just fixing your book and then selling it.

Movie Clip - Jerry Maguire: I am out here for you. You don’t know what it’s like to be me out here for you. It is an up at dawn, pride swallowing siege. 

Eric Smith: And then, we help maintain that relationship. You know, like, it's not my job for the publisher to like me, right? It's my job to make sure they like you, right?

Movie Clip - Jerry Maguire: God, help me. Help me, Rod. Help me help you. Help me help you.

Eric Smith: If there's a big disagreement, if you hate your cover, if the marketing isn't up to snuff, then it's your agent's job to dive in there and kind of be the bad guy, and try to smooth things over and get you what you deserve.

Movie Clip - Jerry Maguire: 

Jerry: Rod, Rod, Jerry Maguire, how [are] you doing? 

Rod: Jerry Maguire? How I’m doing? I’ll tell you how I’m doing. I’m sweating, dude. I’m sweating my contract. I’m sweating Bob Sugar calling me, telling me I’m missing the big endorsements by being with you. That’s how I’m doing, I’m sweating.

Eric Smith: Yeah, agents do a lot of that stuff. There are a lot of funny little things in those contracts. Like, the theme park thing. I always laugh when I get to the – there's, in like audiobook clauses, there's usually something about, like, phonographic rights. And like, my book is never going to be a vinyl record, but that would be cool if it got very popular and they wanted to do that, you know? So, you need to hold onto those things just in case. 

Bethanne Patrick: It sounds like being in cahoots with big time agents isn’t all Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire or Hillary Duff in TVLand’s Younger, but come on Matt – agenting isn’t all the slush pile.

Matt Keeley: Maybe. Maybe this is a little glimmer of hope, Bethanne. So, what’s next?

Bethanne Patrick: After the break, it’s time to meet your new BFF, Matt.

Matt Keeley: Who’s that, Bethanne? 

Bethanne Patrick: Your editor, Matt! 

Matt Keeley: Sure. Yeah. Right. Okay.

Bethanne Patrick: Don’t rain on my parade just yet.

Music Clip - Barbara Streisand: Don’t bring around a cloud, don’t rain on my parade.

Bethanne Patrick: Welcome back to the Dream versus the Reality of book publishing. Where were we, Matt?

Matt Keeley: You were about to introduce us all to our, and I quote, “best friend forever,” end-quote.

Bethanne Patrick: Yes. It’s time to meet your editor. Your editor is Robert Gottlieb, who made “Catch 19” into Catch 22, and persuaded the public intellectuals of the world they needed all 1400 pages of The Power Broker on their shelves.

Your editor is Toni Morrison, the only person you know who is a better writer than you are. 

Your editor is Maxwell Perkins, who mentored Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

Your editor is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who needs no introduction.

Your editor is your most loyal friend and your best critic. She points out that there are no flaws in your book and tells you not to worry about writing a second draft first. First time's a charm. She offers moral support and cash loans, the loans you don't necessarily have to repay, but why wouldn't you when your editor ensures that your book will bring fame, fortune and awards? In years to come, there will be museum exhibits and films about the unique meeting of minds between you and your editor.

Many years later on the Nobel stage in Stockholm, you thank your editor before you thank your spouse, your children, or even your agent. Sounds about right, huh, Matt?

Matt Keeley: Bethanne, with all due respect, not even close. Your editor makes $55,000 a year, after her raise, and she just voted in favor of a strike authorization. Her emailed edits arrive at late hours or on weekends… or they arrive at late hours on weekends, because the actual editorial part of her job mainly happens outside of the office.

She has several more titles on her list than she'd prefer, including half a dozen that she inherited from a colleague who left publishing for the sunny and lucrative field of public relations. The lucky bastard. 

Your editor spends more time than she'd like to admit providing basic IT support. Think turning on the printer, or attaching things to emails for her elderly boss who has not once invited her to come visit his house in the Hamptons.

Your editor genuinely admires your book. I mean, why else would she only make minor tweaks, and only in the first three chapters? But if it flops in the market, she'll just pass on your next manuscript and, regretfully, potentially end your career. No big deal. 

How’s that for editor, Bethanne?

Bethanne Patrick: Matt, are you okay? It sounds like you desperately need a vacation. 

Matt Keeley: You know there are no vacations in publishing, aside from summe Fridays. So, did Eric Smith have anything optimistic to say?

Eric Smith: What are the ups and downs of the editor-author relationship? That's a really interesting question.

I guess the ups are that they are there to help you tell the best version of your story, right? They're a big fan, they are on board to make that story as great as it can be. They are your, like, I guess, first line of defense at the publishing house. They are your advocate, you know, as the editor, they're the ones talking to the sales people, letting them know everything they know about the book, talking to the art people so they understand what the cover should look like, talking to publicity and marketing... 

Of course, the agent will sometimes be involved in those conversations, particularly with publicity and marketing, but as the editor, they're the ones who know the most about the book other than the author, right? So, they're the ones who are going to be pushing for you over there, you know? Your editor is your champion at the publishing house. 

Bethanne Patrick: See, Matt? The editor is your best friend.

Eric Smith: The downsides, I guess, of the author editor relationship –

Matt Keeley: There they are, the downsides. Even superstar editor Eric Smith has got something to say about them.

Eric Smith: While they are your advocate and they are the person that's fighting for you, that doesn't mean they're going to be able to get everything, right? They can't. You know, that doesn't mean you're going to have the same, like, triple-a marketing campaign that every other book is getting. Yours might be a little bit less.

And sometimes, you feel like, as the author, like maybe my editor's not fighting for me enough. Maybe they're not doing enough. And usually that's not the case. You know, usually it's a decision that's made elsewhere, but since your editor's the first one you talk to, they're the ones that are in that line of fire right away. So, that relationship can get kind of tense when you're dealing with that. And that's when you talk to your agent to have them have those conversations and sort of keep those emotions in check there.

I guess other downsides could be that maybe you and your editor don't agree on the direction that you're, they're taking the story. I feel like, at least in my experience, it happens very, very seldom. I haven't really run into those kinds of issues there. But if that's happening, again, that's where your agent steps in to try to smooth things over and remind them that this is the book that they bought and this is where the story happens to be going.

And then I feel like that might be it. That might be it.  

Matt Keeley: See, Bethanne, I told you there’s a dark side of the author-editor relationship.

Bethanne Patrick: Okay, okay, Mr. Glass Half Empty.

Matt Keeley: It was emptied long ago.

Eric Smith: One of the downsides no one really warns you about is the possibility that your editor might leave. That is a thing that happens. Maybe they leave the industry because work is really hard, or maybe they move to another publishing house where they're going to be paid a little bit more or appreciated a bit better.

There's nothing you can do to prepare for that. When it comes to publishing, focus on the stuff that's in your control. That thing is not in your control. Your agent can send angry emails, but they're not going to stay at a publishing house because your agent is upset. Like that's just not a thing that's going to happen. So yeah, you might get inherited and picked up by another editor there who you might not necessarily gel with. And that's a whole thing you'll have to work through with your agent, with your team. But usually when you get inherited by an editor, it's because they're a big fan of yours.

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): Is there an editor shortage in the publishing industry? 

Eric Smith: I don't know. I would hope not. I feel like I see new editors getting promoted and moving into publishing every week. But that said, I feel like I see people leaving every week. You know, it's a really hard business right now. People are expected to do a lot of work in addition to what their regular job is. So, I don't know if there's a shortage. I, oh God, I hope not. And I hope publishers are starting to see they need to treat people better if they want to retain all of this talent.

Matt Keeley: I hate to say I told you so (again), but Bethanne, I told you so.

Bethanne Patrick: Hold on a minute, let’s hear why these departures are tough, especially in editorial.

Eric Smith: You know, editing and working and publishing at any level, whether you're an agent or an editor or a marketing person, publicity person, so much of it is almost like an apprenticeship, right? Like, when you get hired, you learn so much about the job from the people who have already done it. And when those people are leaving, and when those people who are learning are leaving, who's going to be there to boost more people up and keep things going?

Video Clip - Sci Show: So, you never know when the next mass extinction is going to happen. I mean, there have been 5 of them in the last 450 million years alone.

Eric Smith: What do books look like after those kinds of people leave, who had such an influence? And that's a scary thing to think about. Oh boy. I feel like I went doom and gloom really fast there.

Matt Keeley: It’s okay, Eric. Doom and gloom is my speed and the proper and correct response. And, frankly, the book publishing industry is no stranger to it.

Bethanne Patrick: Alright Matt, can it. Let’s move into the production and the marketing of our dear author’s book. This has got to be more uplifting than talking about editors going through a mass extinction event. Off to the presses!

PART 4: Production & Marketing

Music Clip - Stevie Wonder: Yeah, ‘cause you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.

You know that saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover?” Well, don’t mention that to your publisher’s art department. A book’s cover art and font and illustrations and, well, I’m getting ahead of myself… Let’s just say, there’s nothing quite as awesome as seeing your book in the flesh.

Movie Clip - Frankenstein: It’s Alive! It’s Alive! It’s Alive! It’s Alive! Oh, in the name of god, now I know what it’s like to be god.

Bethanne Patrick: Here’s the dream Book Production & Marketing scenario: Chip Kidd, the guy who made the Jurassic park logo, and the guy who does all of Haruki Murakami’s book designs… Well, of course, he designs your book jacket. Obviously the first printing includes full color inserts across beautiful, acid-free paper, with hand-sewn binding. 

The book’s spine will make unassuming shoppers stop to catch their breath at Barnes & Noble. Now, after much back and forth with your publisher, you two made the difficult decision against deckled edges. Your memoir just isn’t a deckled edges girl. 

And that stunning Chip Kidd cover? Well, two months from publication, it’s almost completely obscured by a surfeit of stickers. Your book is already a national book award winner and it’s naturally long-listed for the Booker Prize shortlist. 

Video Clip - The Booker Prize: We think that with this shortlist we’ve given the book groups, and you, six books that are really worth getting your teeth into.

Bethanne Patrick: Don’t even get me started with all the mid-length lists! Oprah and Reese are gushing over your title to their millions of book club members.

TV Clip - Oprah: Good morning, I’m so excited to be here with you all to share my next book club selection.

Bethanne Patrick: The advanced reader copy receives a larger print run than most final published books. Your events are so popular that the book sellers are forced to move them to larger venues. You're recognized on public transportation, but you won't have to take public transit for very much longer. Not since BookTok started obsessing over your page turner.

Video Clip - Sara Carrolli: All of these books, as you saw from the title, are books that you’ve most definitely seen on BookTook.

Bethanne Patrick: Your publisher is already talking about the second and third print runs. So sexy! 

Oh, and don't get me started on the promos. Influencers are freaking out over the most amazing swag that $25 can buy. They're live streaming unboxing videos on Instagram at all hours of the day. 

Video Clip - Peruse Project: And today, I’m going to be doing an epic unboxing book haul.

Bethanne Patrick: Move over, Colleen Hoover and Madeline Miller. Thanks to the magic of photoshop and marketing, there's a hot new author in town.

Matt Keeley: With all due respect Bethanne, did you drop acid or sniff printer ink before today’s recording? Because at this point, your delusions of grandeur in book publishing could only be drug-induced.

Bethanne Patrick: Excuse me, Matt! I’m just telling it like it is in this glamorous biz.

Matt Keeley: Here’s how book production and marketing really look. Your book’s cover artwork, which you don’t have any say in, features several stock photo composites muddled together. 

We're pretty sure you've seen that looming gothic building and that brooding trenchcoated guy on a few other book covers. But your agent and your editor alike, swear that “this vibe” will move all the copies. It's not like people judge a book by its cover or anything! 

That said: you have to keep your author copies hidden. The paper is so cheap it might burst into flames. And if that paper is exposed to direct sunlight, at the very least, it's going to turn an unpleasant, slightly moldy smelling yellow. 

Your publicist has read the jacket copy, or rather, skimmed it. They might, if they’re very good, even know what happens in the first 30 pages of your book. But don’t worry, they fully intend to read the remainder sometime in the next two or three months, which may turn into two or three years.

Substantial portions of the advanced copies the publicity team sends out will turn up unread at used bookstores across the nation. Aside from a respectful notice from Publishers Weekly and hesitant recommendations from the hard asses of Kirkus, you receive no noteworthy print reviews. 

Well, you might wish that Publishers Weekly and Kirkus were more enthusiastic, but then again, you know the anonymous reviewers there made less than $100 per review. On the other hand, readers of your 500 page doorstop tome, come by to share their thoughts on your book tour, which is, naturally, confined to your home state. You greet many old friends, say hi to your parents, and you meet almost no strangers. 

Bethanne Patrick: Matt, I say this with love, but I’m worried about you.

Matt Keeley: I’m just worried about this hypothetical author’s hypothetical book tour.

Bethanne Patrick: Okay, but you’re red in the face. Why don’t you grab a glass of water while we hear from Eric Smith again?

Eric Smith: So, why is good communication important in the publishing process? For so many reasons, right? So, like you and your publisher, you're on the same team, right? Your editor and agent? All on the same team. They want your book to succeed. They want your book to do well. And that communication is important to make sure it does well, to make sure someone isn't accidentally dropping the ball, to make sure that if your marketing campaign isn't that great, there's room to improve it and room to work together on it. 

There’s another, like, oft-said thing on social media and articles where they talk about the fact that all the marketing and publicity and sales is on the author, right? And that's not the case. You know, you're a team, your publisher is going to be doing stuff that you're not aware of, they're going to be, again, promoting your book to school markets, promoting your book to library markets, promoting your book to the book sellers.

If you're not having those conversations and understanding where your book is in that process and getting to know what's going on behind those scenes, sure, you're going to feel like nothing's happening when a lot of stuff is happening. So, have those conversations so the journey to publication is joyful, right?

Bethanne Patrick: So, it sounds like there’s a lot going on behind the scenes at this point in the book’s production process. But I wonder what Eric has to say about the book’s cover. Do authors get a choice? What actually happens?

Eric Smith: Do authors get a say in what their cover will look like? The answer is yes. I feel like there's a lot of, I don't know why, I see it on Twitter and on social media all the time where it's like, “Oh, once your book sells, you let go of everything. You don't get to choose your cover. You don't get doing the cover.” That's not true. 

You know, there's always something in your contract that says, like, “meaningful consultation” or “author approval” or something in there. Like at the end of the day, yeah, your publisher will prevail. That is the contract language when it comes to your cover, if you're being very, very difficult. But they want you to love it. They want you to love your cover so you're talking about it on the internet and you're showing it off to friends and you're making posters of it in your house. You do get a say and you do get a conversation.

Yeah, I'm looking at my bookshelves again, and like, all of my authors have been very happy with their book covers because we had that meaningful conversation. And yeah, you'll get to have a conversation. Don't feel like you let go of everything. You do let go of a lot. The book's not yours anymore. But you get to work on the cover. You get to have a cover you're happy with.

Bethanne Patrick: Matt, are you feeling just a little bit better after hearing from Eric?

Matt Keeley: Maybe a little bit less pessimistic. I guess if you have a good PR and production team, things can and do go better than I thought they might.

Bethanne Patrick: Be still my beating heart. Is that optimism I’m sensing in your voice? This is a first.

Matt Keeley: I wouldn’t go so far as to say “optimism.” That’s a stretch. But I’m now imagining at least one stranger at this imaginary book signing now, and that’s a step up.

Bethanne Patrick: I’ll take what I can get, old buddy old pal. Ready for the most exciting part of the book’s journey?

Matt Keeley: What’s that, Bethanne?

Bethanne Patrick: Hello! Reaching the readers at bookstores and beyond! This is what it’s all about.

Matt Keeley: I’ll tell you Bethanne, this might be the first time I’m agreeing with you.

Bethanne Patrick: Well, if you can get excited about reaching readers, then I guess it’s pretty riveting stuff. Here’s what Eric has to say about what goes into the book display at your local bookstore.

Eric Smith: How do books end up on the right shelves in the bookstores? I mean, I think that comes down to where the publisher believes it exists. Like, do they think this is literary fiction? Is this a young adult fantasy? Is this, you know, whatever the category is? When you decide what the category is, that's usually where it ends up in the bookshop.

I feel like there is always a little bit of confusion when you have a genre blending book. I work on quite a few of them. Those are kind of my favorite sort of stories where like – Like, “Is Station Eleven a sci-fi novel? Or is it literary fiction? Like where does it go?” 

Bethanne Patrick (to Eric Smith): What's the most likely way a reader will become aware of a new title? 

Eric Smith: Ooh. The most likely way a reader becomes aware of a new title. Oh goodness. I feel like the two big ones are going into your bookstore, whether it's like big Barnes & Noble or an indie bookstore, and just wandering around and then seeing what's new. And probably word of mouth. You know, I think word of mouth is that big one where someone's read a book, they absolutely love it, and they're just telling all their friends about it. 

You know, I sign up for, you know, I'm on a Goodreads mailing list. I get the new release thing from Amazon. I get the new releases from Bookshop. One of my favorite ways to find out about new books is Book of the Month Club. Every month, they give me five recommendations and I buy too many of them and it's a problem because I'm moving right now. And there are a lot of books in my house. 

But I feel like readers who are the kind of readers who read, like, a book a week, a book every other week, you know, two books a month, whatever it happens to be, they're the ones who are signing up for all these things and getting to know all of that stuff.

The reader who maybe reads, like, one book a year, you know, like my mom, you know, that's usually walking in the bookstore, or that very valuable word of mouth. 

Bethanne Patrick: My romantic version of the story? Once the book is out in the world, this is what I like to imagine happens:

Everyone reads your book. Everyone loves it. Your book tops the bestseller charts and the local library has two hundred holds on twenty circulating copies. Your author’s story gets a happily ever after. Or HEA for those in the know.

Matt Keeley: What happens once your book is in the readers' capable hands? It depends. Think about your own reading experiences, the experiences that made you a writer to begin with. Think about the books on your shelves. Have you read all of them? Of course not.

Despite the praise you lavished on it, you haven’t read your friend’s debut cover to cover. And chances are, they haven’t read your book either. You still receive a few emails from random readers. One email notes a typo on page 156, a second correspondent announces that the “unnecessary insertion of your liberal politics” into the book led them to toss their copy out the window. 

Hey! It’s still a sale. But maybe, just maybe, that third email, from someone who really appreciates your work and understands your intentions, will come through. And that can make it all worthwhile.

Bethanne Patrick: Thanks to Matt Keeley, our resident curmudgeon, and to Eric Smith, the book publishing biz’s Swiss Army Knife, if you will. Before we go, here are a few book recommendations from our expert guest, Eric Smith.

Eric Smith: So, two quick book recommendations: This month, you can pick up The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers. It is a young adult rom-com about a boy who runs a very popular Instagram feed where he draws his dream boys. And he's stressing over finding number 100, and what happens when he does. 

And then next month, Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by award-winning author Nita Tyndall comes out. It’s a World War II young adult historical novel about the Swingjugend movement during Nazi Germany, where teenagers protested by dancing to swing music. It's a true thing that happened. As someone who grew up watching Swing Kids as a kid, I'm very excited to be working on a YA novel that explores that space.

Bethanne Patrick: Looking for more titles about the zany world of book publishing? Then look no further than this selection of must-reads.

Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin is a literary thriller about an unsolved murder, that also features the most convincing account of life as a publishing assistant that our producer Matt knows. 

Misery by Stephen King is the great novel of the author in extremis. However far a writer’s reality may diverge from their dreams, at least they don’t have Annie Wilkes and her axe to deal with.

Erasure by Percival Everett is a brutal satire on authenticity: A Black novelist writes a scathing parody of “urban” novels, then discovers that the white literary establishment treats it as an honest account of Black America.

Missing Pages is a Podglomerate Original, and is written and produced by a small army. 

Showrunner: Caila Litman

Producer, Researcher, and Writer: Jordan Aaron

Producer: Matt Keeley 

Production, Mixing and Mastering by Chris Boniello

Legal Review by Alexia Bedat and Louise Carron at Klaris Law

Marketing by Joni Deutsch, Morgan Swift, and Madison Richards

Social Media by Sylvia Bueltel

Art by Tom Grillo

Production and Hosting by me, Bethanne Patrick 

Executive Produced by Jeff Umbro and the Podglomerate. 

You can learn more about Missing Pages at thepodglomerate dot com, on twitter @misspagespod and on Instagram @missingpagespod, or you can email us at missing pages at the podglomerate dot com. 

If you liked what you heard today, please let your friends and family know and suggest an episode for them to listen to. I’m Bethanne Patrick, and we’ll be back next week with another episode.