For a variety of reasons (which, by the way, my voice recognition software often interprets as “for a Friday of reasons”) many of these items never make the final cut.

And so let us take a moment to recognize and to celebrate what was almost good enough in 2009.

1. Authonomy

HarperCollins is experimenting with an online slush pile/social network/American Idol contest called Authonomy. While trying to write about this site I could never figure out if it was the Future or merely a curiosity born out of fear and desperation. (I suppose it could be both!)

2. Will Work For Praise

This BusinessWeek article caught my eye because it talks about — at least in a tangential way — part of the dark side of being a writer. As the article notes, we’ll happily do creative work for free as long as it gets us a little attention. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to take this concept and talk about larger economic and cultural forces or merely riff on how sad our profession has become, so I just let it go.

3. Self-Publishing Review

For a while I was working on a trend piece about the coming legitimacy of self-publishing. The point I was going to make was something about how if mainstream publishers continue to offer their authors less and less — and if self-publishing can acquire the rigors of traditional publishing — then our whole conception of what “real” publishing is will change. But I only got as far as finding this cool link for a website that seeks to elevate the standards of self-publishing.

4. The Book is dead, the Book will live on, blah, blah, blah

Somewhere in the middle of 2009 I decided to swear off the whole FUTURE OF THE BOOK conversation. (Too many cooks!) That said, the Institute for the Future of the Book’s if:book blog is a nice clearinghouse. And the unsinkable Jonathan Karp’s article This Is Your Wake-Up Call: 12 Steps to Better Book Publishing is a nice, um, wake-up call.

5. Good and Bad Procrastination

Sometimes you set out to write a post and in doing research for said post you discover that someone else has done a good enough job of writing it already. My post on good versus bad procrastination falls into this category. Hit it, Paul Graham!

6. Will My Video Get 1 Million Views on YouTube?

Still other times you set out to write a post (like, say, what the number of hits on your YouTube video means) and quickly find out that in order to write said post you’d have to do so much legwork that it wouldn’t be worth it. Then two days later Slate up and publishes a thoughtful, well-researched piece about the very same subject. Problem solved.

7. 10 Hallmarks of Amateur Recording

The final entry for my 2009 anti-roundup roundup comes courtesy of Des McKinney’s Hometracked blog. His post on the ten hallmarks of amateur recording had me inspired to do a similar post about the 10 hallmarks of amateur writing. Except I wasn’t going to merely copy his idea but instead create some kind of cross-disciplinary bridge between his world and mine. Then I remembered how smart you are and realized that given the opportunity you could figure it out for yourself.

Thanks again to all the readers of this blog for a memorable 2009. Here’s to the increased furtherance of awesomeness in 2010.

My manuscript is over the limit on word count, but I think I can get it down close enough to acceptable levels that I am not really concerned.

I have two friends, however, who have written tomes. Yes, I hang out with overachievers. I’ve read one completely and bits of the historical. Both have had very positive comments from agents who are aware of the word count, but I wonder if the current climate is going to kill these books.

The delightful Moonrat recently covered this very topic. Her “is there a word cap count cap for a debut novel?” offers a peek into an editor’s point of view.

Agent Colleen Lindsay (who writes The Swivet blog) has walked similar ground, but she serves up a better word-count breakdown in her post “On word counts and novel length.“

I can’t offer much more on industry standards, but I can speak to what it might be like to go out into the world with a long, long, long, long, long, long book. Here’s what you’ll need:

1. Publication strategy that takes into account longness

You can’t pretend your book isn’t too long. People are going to notice. Which means publication strategy should take into account the size of your book.

If there are agents who are more likely to fight a long book’s battles, then that is an agent you will want to employ.

Getting a referral/endorsement from an established author will also help. See if you can get Toni Morrison to say, “I know this f*cker is 250,000 words long, but trust me on this one: it’s brilliant.” That just might do it.

Along those lines, it’s never too early to find ways of selling the book as a long book. (As the old computer science joke goes, “It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.”)

Is your book the final word on the subject? Is it the product of 25 years of research? Is it long because it’s experimental? Is it some kind of super epic? You’ll need something better than “just cuz.”

Finally, even if you land the deal at the desired size, the publisher may change their mind. Your editor might ask for big cuts, or ask you to split the book into two or three volumes. Be prepared for a fight.

2. Audience-building strategy that takes into account longness

All the struggles you encountered during the publication process will only be magnified once the book is out. There are people who simply won’t read long books. Period. There are even people who will resent you for writing long. (Who do you think you are, anyway? What century do you think it is?)

Are you planning on wooing those who would otherwise read your book if they weren’t turned off by the length? Or are you going to focus on a smaller core audience and hope to build the buzz that way? What’s the “elevator pitch” that makes its longness an enticement?

Your book’s longness will also come up again and again while you’re doing media. What’s your plan for handling interviews? Are you going to be coyly apologetic? Raffishly defensive? Unabashedly sassy?

Finally, if it’s not easy keeping any book afloat over its natural life, then a big book will be even more challenging. Once the energy of the hardcover release dissipates, then you have the long slog of getting your book into paperback, and then continuing to support it.

What is your plan for (sometimes literally) carrying this beast around with you for six, seven, eight, nine, ten years? What happens if the publisher decides not to go into paperback, the rights revert to you and you have to try re-selling the book to another house?

Are you prepared to fight your long book’s long-book battles twice?

3. Failure strategy that takes into account longness

Books fail for all kinds of reasons. Long books often fail because they’re TOO DAMN LONG and everyone (including the author) knows it.

If it’s absolutely unavoidable that your book is that long, then it might be easier to stomach the failure.

If your book is too long out of blindness or stubbornness, then you’re going to have a lifetime of “if only” conversations with yourself. Start practicing today.

For background: I’m an author with some decent short story credits, I edit a fiction magazine, I speak regularly at local conferences, I have several more short stories in constant circulation, and I’m shopping an urban fantasy novel to agents. I generally write speculative fiction.

I’ve been thinking recently about offering one of my unpublished novels on my website for free. The novel is a fantasy which has been to several agents, gotten requests, but eventually rejected with kind words, not right for today’s market, etc. This would be for promotional purposes only–another way to build my web presence.

Several authors have done this with great success: Doctorow, Scalzi, Konrath, to name a few.

My question: is this is the right thing to do at this stage in my career to continue building my name or is my time better spent elsewhere? I have built up (and subsequently lost due to my own lack of interest) a sizable audience on my personal blog, as well as edit a free online fiction magazine, so I have some idea on how to promote fiction online, though more tips are always appreciated!

I had another reader approach me recently with a similar question, so I’m going to try to answer both of you in one mighty post.

Favorite agent-with-a-blog Nathan Bransford wrote a great post back in February about “freevaneglists,” writers like Chris Anderson and Cory Doctorow who champion free content as a business model. (Kudos and credit to Nathan, by the way, on the coinage.)

My take on the free people is that what makes it work isn’t the free book. It’s them. It’s the attention getting. It’s the personal empire building. It’s the hustle.

(I also have to wonder if there is confluence of territory and approach. Would they be as successful if they campaigned against Digital Rights Management (DRM) and wrote about South American religious art?)

This is not a knock on the freevangelists. I admire them and their work. But if you’re going to lace up your future boots and follow in their silvery, Utopian footsteps, then I hope you keep the following in mind:

Free doesn’t mean cheap

Do you want your baby to appear to the world as just another file? Of course you don’t! If you want to get something out of your free-ness, then you’ll need cover art, a proper website, widgets, badges, etc. And it all has to look amazing.

Even the “Long Tail” starts with an occasion

The most poorly published traditional book still has a collective energy behind it. That’s why you’ll want a proper launch date, a release party, a social media campaign, reader contests, dance marathons, etc. (If you’ve already launched, take your book down, give it a rest, and relaunch it in three to six months.)

Get organized

Consider gathering five other authors in your genre and having all of you release your free e-books on the same day. Give yourselves a name. Write a manifesto. Something so your book isn’t so all on its lonesome.

Be prepared to fight for your book every day

This is true for a traditionally published book, but goes triple for a self-published giveaway. All the energy behind your freebie is going to come from you. You, you, you. Go, go, go. Bzz, bzz, bzz.

If you’re reading this and feeling like you’re going to barf, then this model probably isn’t for you.

If you’re reading this and are licking your chops in anticipation of the royal beatdown you’re going to put on the world, then I encourage you to proceed.

Final thought:

Traditional publishing frustrates me for many reasons, but I still buy all my books new and in book form. These new, for-sale, paper books are what I’m always going to want to read and write, and I will do so even if Amazon surgically attaches a free Kindle to my skull.

But like the survivalist who stocks up on bullets and spring water, I’m preparing myself for a future where the model is free and/or digital and/or self-publishing. I will go where reality goes, even if it breaks my heart.

Nice guy. Terrible manager.

A reader writes:

I’m been putting final polishes on my manuscript, and I think I’m there, so now, I’m looking at agents. Actually, I’ve been building a list for a while, but when looking at some larger agencies, I wonder as a first-time novelist, what would be the ‘good idea’ when deciding which agent to send a query letter – a newer agent, ‘actively building’ his or her list, or a more established agent? This is assuming both are looking for the genre I write in, of course. I tend to think sending to the newer agent at a large agency would be the best choice. What do you think?

1. Scanning the acknowledgments of books you admire for agent-related intel;
2. Reading Galleycat, Publishers Marketplace, etc. for same;
3. Going to conferences and meeting people in a non-crazy way;
4. Avoiding generic directories such as Writer’s Market.

Help! I have ten paper children and a series of WIP’s that seem to be multiplying behind my back. I can’t stop writing, it’s like crack. I only know writing. I would like to know a literary agent, a publisher, a marketing genius, and perhaps even an author who could steer me in the right direction….oh wait…might that…be you?

If so… Should I have an authors website? It seems a bit presumptuous. I have a blog, I’m not sure anyone reads this blog but it does exist. I write literary fiction and women’s fiction (let’s call a spade a spade, it’s chick lit). I have three partials out and one outstanding query. This past summer I sent (no joke) near 100 query’s. I attended last years BEA and met amazing literary agents all of who requested and rejected partials.

Oddly enough, I’m still not convinced I’m a bad writer. Perhaps I can send you the first page of say, three or four of my novels and maybe you can tell me whether or not I should be watching more TV?

Any help is invaluable as you are the only person (sans a Deity) I am looking to for advice.

First, some light scolding.

If I were still a literary agent, I probably would’ve stopped reading after the first sentence. I have no idea what “ten paper children and a series of WIP’s” means. In the cold, cruel world of publishing, if you can’t be clear in your first sentence, you’re done.

Fortunately, I’m here to help and not to keep gates.

I had an e-mail exchange with the author in which I learned that she has written ten books. Four aren’t marketable. Four are stand-alone novels. The remaining two are part of a “chick lit” series.

Much better. But there is still way too much going on here.

Think of your first book as a small business. You want to start up this little company called Someday I’ll Be Great, Inc. or Everything I’ ve Ever Hoped For, LLC.

Now imagine going to the bank for a loan. You’re not going to tell them you want money for a car wash . . . or maybe a hair salon . . . on second thought, make that a children’s photography studio . . . no, that’s not it . . . how about an organic apple orchard?

Agents are the same way. You may end up getting a multi-book deal, but generally it’s the one book that gets you in the door.

Furthermore, that one book (or any book for that matter) has a very long life cycle. It takes time to sell, time to edit, time to promote in hardcover, time to promote in paperback, time to continue to promote in paperback. (They are, indeed, paper children.)

What is that one book for you? I do not know, my friend. But it is one book. Make your choice, hunker down and get ready to work it to death. (At least, until you write the next one.)

Do ghostwriting credits carry any extra weight with agents? Does this help you with an industry “in” as well as the learning curve of book writing?

When I worked for a literary agency, we often got query letters from aspiring writers who had what you might call “related experience.” In other words, they had written copy or marketing materials or press releases. In some cases, they had ghostwritten speeches or articles for the opinion page or even books.

At first, I paid extra attention to people with related experience. I believed (and still do) that all writing counts. Even if you spend your entire day naming subdivisions, it all contributes (if obliquely) to your art’s grand design.

The problem is that people (related experience or not) invariably query too soon. The typical agent probably gets more query letters from people who want to be published than they do from people who are ready to be published. As a result, all kinds of things that should count toward credibility end up in the category of “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

For example, let’s say you get a query letter about a murder mystery set in Antarctica, and it’s written by someone who lived in Antarctica for five seasons. Great, right? It’s set in a very specific place and the guy has lived in the very specific place.

But then the partial comes and you immediately see that the writer has no ability to evoke Antarctica. He’s thinks he can, but he can’t. Five years from now he’ll have that skill. Ten years from now he’ll not only be able to evoke Antarctica, but he’ll have the savvy to use that experience metaphorically in a book about a community of germaphobes who live an extremely isolated existence in the middle of Manhattan.

All that said, you will want to mention your ghostwriting credentials if said project

a. was published by a major house

b. was published by a smaller house but sold well

c. involved a high-profile collaborator

d. is supremely kick-ass.

Just know that anything and everything you put in front of an agent is going to be met with a certain amount of self-protecting skepticism. You never want your query to hinge on one thing. Spread the awesome around and you’ll do fine.

Hooray for Tina Brown!

With newspapers cutting back, she is cutting up? with Book Beast, the new Daily Beast book site. If you haven’t checked it out, I encourage you to give it a look.

Here’s what I took away:

“Long tail” mentality

The “Rediscovery” tag says it all. Thanks to the persistence of the web, there is hope even for obscure, dead Norwegian novelists. That thing you wrote only dies the day you give up on it.

Video saved the literary star

The conventional wisdom says that books and TV are an awkward match. But books and Web video work surprisingly well. Maybe it’s the size of the image. Maybe it’s the fact that you can showcase Chuck Klosterman, John Grisham, David Denby and James Baldwin all in one clickable party strip. Either way, if you’re an author you need to get on board.

Art + Commerce + Whatever = fine by most

There is no reason why serious criticism, service-oriented reviews, profiles, features, gossip, scandal and publishing news all can’t inhabit the same page. While you always want to stay focused, you’re also freer than you ever have been. So go mix that sh*t up, yeah?

The New York Times Book Review is now the largest remaining Sunday tabloid section, publishing at least 24 and as many as 30 or more pages a week with a staff of 15 and contributions from dozens of freelance reviewers. In addition to being included in the Sunday paper, the Book Review is sold as a separate section to 23,500 subscribers. An additional 4,200 copies of the section are sold in bookstores across the country.

And so, in the spirit of the popular The First Ten Books in Little, Brown’s Spring ’09 Catalog, I present to you, without comment or judgment, a rundown of the ads in the February 8, 2009 edition of The New York Times Book Review. (With the exception of the full-page ads, page sizes are approximate.)

• Full-page ad for T.C Boyle’s THE WOMEN (Viking – Penguin Group)
• Half-page ad shared by Marcianne Blévis’ JEALOUSY and Phillip Lopate’s TWO MARRIAGES (Other Press)
• Half-page ad for THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett (Amy Einhorn/Putnam – Penguin Group)
• Full-page ad for One Day University
• Half-page ad for IN LINCOLN’S HAND edited by Harold Holzer and Joshua Wolf Shenk (Bantam – Random House)
• Quarter-page ad for DAKOTA by Martha Grimes (NAL – Penguin Group)
• Quarter-page ad for Ariana Franklin’s THE SERPENT’S TALE (Berkley – Penguin Group)
• Third-page ad for MARSHMALLOW’S FOR BREAKFAST by Dorothy Koomson (Delta – Random House)
• Quarter-page ad for ANNE PACKARD: INTROSPECTIVE by various contributors (Skylark Press)
• Two small ads for THE JAZZ EAR by Ben Ratliff (Times Books – Henry Holt)
• Full-page ad for OBAMA: The Historic Journey with introduction by Bill Keller (The New York Times/Callway; distributed by Riverhead Books – Penguin Group)

Note:

THE JAZZ EAR and the Obama book also carry the imprimatur of the Times‘ online store.

Finally, there are four classified ads (editor for hire, rare books wanted, etc.) and a very small ad for NationsCourts.com, which promises “court documents in interesting new cases . . . [f]or attorneys, journalists, writers and bloggers.”

And so I present to you, without comment or judgment, the first ten hardcover titles of the Spring ’09 Little, Brown and Company catalog (with marketing taglines):

1. THE HORSE BOY by Rupert Isaacson

“The remarkable, inspiring story of a father willing to go to the ends of the earth to heal his son.”

2. A LUCKY CHILD by Thomas Buergenthal

“The profoundly moving memoir of a young boy’s odyssey through the Holocaust.”

3. THE 8TH CONFESSION by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

“The only episode of the Women’s Murder Club this year!”

4. FOLLOW ME by Joanna Scott

“From one of today’s most captivating literary voices, an epic and unforgettable novel of a young woman’s search for herself in America.”

5. THE SCARECROW by Michael Connelly

“#1 bestselling author Michael Connelly—the best mystery writer in the world”*—brings back the hero of The Poet in a terrifying new thriller.” *GQ

6. INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH by Luis Alberto Urrea

“Beloved bestselling author Luis Alberto Urrea returns with a brilliant, ebullient, and timely road novel about a young woman’s journey north, to America.”

7. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? by Rocce Mediate & John Feinstein

“The legendary Rocco Mediate teams up with America’s favorite golf writer to chronicle the golfer’s epic head-to-head battle with Tiger Woods in the 2008 US Open.”

8. DO-OVER! by Robin Hemley

“A middle-aged father conquers the embarrassments of childhood—by calling ‘do-over!’”

9. MIX SHAKE STIR by Danny Meyer

“Start any evening off on a glamorous note with stylish, unexpected cocktails from Danny Meyer’s world-renowned New York restaurants.”

10. THE MAN’S BOOK by Thomas Fink

“This manual of manliness is the essential gift for any self-respecting father, friend, graduate or groomsman.”

Agent A goes into the office first thing and checks his e-mail. There are usually anywhere between 30 and 40 electronic queries from people the agent has never met. Nevertheless, he goes over them with great care, weighing the pros and cons of each one, and thinking deeply about their literary and commercial potential. This takes all morning.

Then, his assistant brings him the fruits of the regular mail. Agent A spends his lunch hour and most of the afternoon processing another 30 or 40 query letters with great care and much deliberation. At the end of day, there is just enough time to tweak the Submission Guidelines page on the agency’s website and to start drafting that all-important entry for next year’s Writer’s Market.

Agent B

Agent B starts her day having coffee with a police detective she recently saw on the local news. The detective is handling a high-profile case and comes off as articulate and charismatic on TV. There might be something there.

Then Agent B swings by a bookstore to see who’s on the front table displays and to chat up a bookseller she knows. The bookseller happens to mention a friend who has a great idea for a YA techno-thriller set in the pineapple industry. Intrigued, Agent B instructs the bookseller to have her friend query her and to make sure that he mentions the bookseller’s name in the letter.

Lunch is with the editor of a small, up-and-coming online journal that the agent discovered while surfing the Internet. It’s unclear what the editor and his stable of writers have to offer the world right now, but Agent B sees potential and extracts a promise that they keep her in mind as they continue to develop and grow.

Then Agent B stops by the office. She picks up the day’s query letters, which have already been sorted by her assistant. On top are the letters that are either requests or referrals. Then come the unsolicited queries that the assistant has deemed worthy of Agent B’s attention. Then come the unsolicited queries that the assistant has tagged as rejects. The agent takes the top layer to read at home later, then gives the second layer a single read and pulls a couple of queries that show promise. (She’ll read them along with the top layer.) Agent B then skims the last layer just to make sure her assistant is doing her job. On some days, she ignores that last layer altogether.

Finally, a quick staff meeting where Agent B and her assistant and their intern talk about the manuscripts and partials that are currently on submission. Meeting quickly devolves into a more general discussion about what is going on in the culture, what bores them, what excites them, etc. Toward the end of the meeting, Agent B’s assistant reminds her that the deadline for the Writer’s Market entry is at the end of the week. Agent B tells the intern to write something up and have the assistant review it before passing it along to her for final approval. “Just make sure you say we don’t handle romance novels,” says Agent B. “It won’t stop people, but what can you do?”

Questions:

Which agent is more successful?

Which agent would you rather represent you?

Which agent is more likely to exist outside of yet another ham-fisted parable written by Dennis Cass?

After a lot of thought I’ve decided that the answer is not much. This site has always been dedicated to you doing exceptional work, finding a large audience, and doing it in a way that preserves your dignity and celebrates your humanity. The economy may make this mandate more of a challenge, but then again, it may not. What are a few layoffs to an already impossible dream?

The bottom line is that no one knows how this will all turn out. The only thing that’s certain is that in hindsight the guesses that were right will look like the obvious choice. Epic romances written in light verse with a dash of time travel thrown in? [Slaps forehead.] Why didn’t I see that? Order will emerge out of the chaos, but you can’t tame the chaos. That’s why they call it chaos.

Let’s continue to focus on the basics:

1. Taking risks
2. Maximizing the strengths of a genre or form
3. Executing the fundamentals
4. Serving your audience
5. Building and supporting a community of like-minded artists

I feel like these core concepts are essential enough to be relevant no matter what the state of the book business is. I also feel like they’re flexible enough to be useful should we be forced to stop writing books and start programming literary holograms.

So keep reading and commenting and sending me links and questions. Barring something catastrophic, I will continue to be here for you.

Yes, some of the sites (and their subsequent books) cited in the article are shallow, infantile, unessential and perhaps even contributing to the decline of our culture. (I’m looking at you, Stuff on My Cat.)

But there are also examples of writers and artists who used the Web to find an audience for otherwise unmarketable projects. If you’re not an established writer (and increasingly if you are) it’s getting harder and harder to sell projects that are perceived as too small, too quirky or even too voice-driven. It’s encouraging to see that the Web can provide a back door.

Still, there is a larger question behind the A.V. Club’s feature. What do we want out of books?

Is a book just a shape an idea can come in? Or are books a form whose unique qualities need to be articulated, respected and perhaps even fought for?

Do we reject books that aren’t sufficiently book-like (whatever we decide that is)? Or do we embrace anyone and everyone in the hopes that a healthy book industry will ultimately take care of the good even as it tolerates the bad?