Never, Never, Never Give In ~ Pt. 8
Comparing your work to other writers and why it matters.
A behind the scenes post on meeting an editorial team turned chick book group, asking for money, and a break down on the term “comps” to help you start comparing your book to those already published
Welcome to the next of several posts traversing the maze of NY publishing with my first book. Amid these posts, I received an email from a reader who thought it was all happening now and wished me luck! 🍀 After I told her these posts were from the past, as in the late ’90s, we had a good laugh, but it brought to mind the reality of our shortening attention spans and the difficulty of devoting mind space to the past when the present is so…pressing…as in screaming at us from our phones 24-7. Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. I believe James Madison was the one who said it best: Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant. But let’s leave all that to the side…
If you just landed here, let me bring you up to speed:
This is the late 90s, and I am selling my first book, Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found. I could not secure a literary agent's interest, so I pitched directly to three editors in publishing houses and got on a plane to New York City. If you’d like to catch up, start here: Never, Never, Never Give Up ~ Pt. 1, and you’ll find context. As always, thank you for being here, subscribing, and sharing. 🤗
Though I had hardly slept the night prior, I was up with the sunrise, jogged through Central Park, and on the walk back to the hotel, stopped at a French bakery with croissants directly from heaven. Ordering one, I took a table at the back of the cafe and wrote up a few notes in preparation for the meeting at Simon & Schuster.
Which book compared best to mine?
How did that book sell?
Why was my book better?
(This is called “comping” or making comparisons and is required of writers who hope to sell a book. More on that at the end of the post).
Once done, I was back to worrying about Rita’s harsh words the night prior, and the defeats over at Crown and Penguin. I wasn’t hungry, but my anxiety had me back in line and ordering a second pastry.
“Maybe a chocolate one this time?” I ask the server.
“Oui,” the young woman said, smiling slightly and taking my money.
“There you are,” Kim said, arms open. She stood on the sidewalk in front of Simon & Schuster.
I worked my way through the sea of humanity and once next to the building, set my bags down.
Embracing as we had two nights prior, Kim wore a suit, and her curly hair was tamed into smooth waves. She wore pale pink lipstick and mascara. No longer the girl fresh out of college, Kim was positively gorgeous.
“So elegant,” I said. Turning her this way and that, admiring her style. “You look great.”
“You too,” she said. “Great suit.”
“You think?” I said, tugging at the lapels of my jacket, a gray pinstripe number with crisp lines that had earned me no graft over at Penguin or Crown. Wearing it again today, I hardly noticed what I looked like, but Kim seemed delighted. The bright light of happiness in her eyes buoyed my spirits.
They say it takes just one person to love us enough that we can brave this hard world. Perhaps that’s why a good mother can be so crucial. If she’s good-hearted and able to give it, a mother's unconditional love can provide perspective and a sense of worth. I didn’t have such a mother, which made Kim’s approval all the more precious. At that moment, it was everything to be seen by her. Her boundless enthusiasm for my book and all things Jennifer helped me forget Rita, my sad friend at Crown, and the tyrant over at Penguin.
“Come on,” Kim said, taking my wardrobe bag and flinging it over her shoulder. “We’re ready for you.”
Kim led the way into and through a vast lobby filled with sunlight and display cases of recently released Simon & Schuster titles. The clack, clack of her heels.
“She’s with me,” Kim said to a security guard and then flash an ID card.
The guard nodded, and we stepped onto an elevator that took us up to the main offices with people hurrying through the hallways—all carrying papers and books and looking as harried and rushed as those on the sidewalks below.
Soon we were in her office, which was…a closet? A store room?
“I know, it’s crazy, right?” Kim said. “It’s really more like a corner where we store boxes, but I’m usually at Nancy’s office or in the conference room, so, it doesn’t bug me much.”
Swinging my garment bag over the back of her chair, Kim bumped a few boxes out of the way and had me shove my other bag next to what she called her desk. Stepping back, she quickly tucked her hair behind her ears in that nervous way.
“Before we go in,” she said. “Let me tell you who will be in the room…”
Moments later, we stepped into a conference room with a square table that took up most of an equally square space. Out the windows were all the tall buildings of this Rome-of-the-modern-world and inside the room stood three women; Amy, Greer, and Nancy. Kim made the introductions, and I shook everyone’s hands.
Though quaking inside, I was formal and polite, but the two younger women, Amy and Greer, didn’t stop with handshakes. They hugged me as Kim had. They both had tears in their eyes.
It was the first time it struck me that this book was doing something to people…changing them…or maybe it was that the words from my child's heart were touching the child's heart in them. Not everyone, to be sure, but you can’t expect to touch everyone. That’s not realistic. Just the right people. The ones who are ready.
“God, I loved your book,” Amy said. “I can’t believe all that crazy shit happened to you. You look so normal.” She was a tall, gangly young woman with corkscrew curls around her face and glasses. A white linen shirt. Tailored, high-waisted slacks. She had bubbly energy, like Kim, but was serious, too. A hurt lingered somewhere behind her eyes.
“I know, right?” Kim said to Amy, laughing. “I said the same thing when we talked the first time. She is so…well, look at her.”
Greer, a shorter woman, soft and round with warm coloring and a nature that seemed as serious as Amy’s, had her hands on her hips and elbows splayed.
“I get it,” Greer said to Kim. “I get exactly what you were talking about. She’s so promotable.” Then she laughed and squeezed my arm. “It’s weird. For us to be talking about you like this. But like Amy and Kim, well, I loved your book. I was up all night reading, and when Kim said you were so articulate and real, we talked a lot about what might be possible here. I could see her on Oprah,” she said nodding at the others.
“Or at least Rosie O’Donnell,” Amy said.
“At least,” Kim said.
The one person who did not hug me or say more than “Nice to meet you” was Kim’s boss. In her late forties, perhaps fifties, I remember Nancy having light-colored hair cut short and styled for function, a heart-shaped face, and a demeanor of sharp focus. I got the feeling she was interested in me and curious about the book, but did not allow emotion to overrule good sense.
We sat down around the table and Amy and Greer pummeled me with questions that had nothing to do with marketing or sales. They wanted to know about my mother; what exactly was wrong with her? And what had happened to my brother, who had been such a dark and troubled soul?
It was a book club conversation.
An hour passed this way, and Kim repeatedly kicked my foot under the table as if to say, “See? See?”
I kept looking over at Nancy though. She remained quiet and watchful, sitting back in her chair with her hands interlaced on her lap. I felt sure she would soon ask the hard questions, express cynicism, or even lecture me on pitching to Kim rather than having an agent do it, but she never did. Nancy just listened, smiled, nodded, and added a few comments.
Now and then they would also stop talking to me and speak collectively about generating universal approval, in house.
Rita’s comment of the night before came back to me: I doubt they’ll get a whole house behind this book.
Realizing I was lost, Kim explained that a book would have a better chance of big success if everyone, from management to marketing to promotions, loved the book.
Finally, Kim looked at her watch, saying she was going to take me down to meet the publisher—a move everyone agreed was vital for this house-wide support. She also mentioned I was now working with Rita, which seemed to please everyone in the room.
“So,” Nancy said. Or maybe it was Greer, or Amy. “What do you think? Would you like to work with us?”
I blinked at the directness of the question and knew it was time to make my move.
“Yes. Of course. You’re all terrific. I’m amazed by your enthusiasm,” I said.
This brought smiles and nods from everyone. Even Nancy. But I wasn’t done.
“I’m sure Kim has told you that Penguin and Crown have looked at the book, too.”
I named the editors at both houses and Nancy widened her eyes and passed a worried glance over to Amy and Greer who looked equally concerned.
Kim, sitting back now and holding her own hands in her lap, only smiled. She had already told me it was a good thing to circulate the book to others, that it made for healthy competition.
“But,” I said. “If you guys make me an offer by…let’s say the end of the week, I’ll give you an exclusive.” Then I paused. “That’s what we called it in TV news when someone give you, and only you the story.”
“Oh, we have that in publishing, too,” Greer said. Then she and the others looked at each other. Something passed between the four of them, a silent conversation.
For the first time, Nancy sat forward in her chair and rested her elbows on the table.
“What do you think is fair?” Nancy said to me.
“Price-wise? You mean for the advance?”
Nancy nodded.
I worried my sweaty hands in my lap, and knew I stood at the far edge of my skill set. At Tom’s table, the other writers lamented that it was impossible to sell a book, and if you did, a $15,000 advance was the most you could expect. I wanted to bring home at least three times that. Bragging rights, I suppose.
Nancy smiled slightly when I named the price: $45,000.
“You’re not greedy. I’ll give you that,” she said.
This made the others laugh, and later, Rita would say that I had started too low. “They probably would have given you a hundred thousand,” she said. She, who told me my book was no good. But I didn’t care. An advance was just that. Before I earned a dime, I would have to pay it back from my royalties. Why not start low, pay the advance back quickly, and then earn from the sales?
“You’ll hear from us by Friday,” Nancy said.
“Absolutely,” Greer said, and Amy nodded.
And that was it.
Meeting over.
Kim wanted to talk to the others alone for a moment, and so guided me to the outer area of Nancy’s office to wait. As we walked, she held to my elbow and whispered, “That was better than I hoped.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, shaking inside. “Nancy’s a tough customer.”
“Nah, she’s a softie, and she wants this book. We all do. Adding in that others are reading it only increases that desire. Well done.”
Kim pointed me to a chair and I sat, feeling shaken but also proud.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, then turned and lifted her chin at the phone on a side table.
“Call your husband. Tell him you did it.”
“Did what?” I said.
“You sold a book!”
“Are you sure?”
Kim only grinned and walked away.
(Go directly to the next post on the Blackbird journey now).
Comps?
At the top of the post, I wrote about “comps” or comparables. This is something an agent and a publishing house will want, a sense of where your book fits in the marketplace. Comparing your book to another seems strange initially, but it’s a good thing to do and start doing now.
Think of all the books written and published like bricks on a path that all humanity walks. The path is continuously created with each book that goes out into the world and your book is part of that path. Your job is to read books that might be something like yours and see how you offer something slightly better, different, or unique.
My comps were Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shouting, and Mary Karr’s Lair’s Club. All memoirs. All successful. All well written. I pointed out how my book was the same as these; well written, immediate, intimate, but also different. Those books were about alcoholism, people on the fringe, and extremes. My parents weren’t alcoholics, from the deep south or Ireland, and they were not horribly poor. Rather, my book was about the middle class—that thick slice of American Pie where success is a given. In making this comparison, I demonstrated how my book filled a gap.
And that’s your job, too.
When I hear a writer say they don’t read books in their category because they don’t want to be influenced, I respect that argument but sometimes wonder if it is more about fear—fear they aren’t as good yet. Fear they will never be good. Fear they are going the wrong direction. Fear that they and their book have no value.
Fine. Be fearful AND still try to pay attention to what’s being published. Try to read a few of those books being recommended and you will see that a lot of them have flaws and don’t go the full distance. Once you start seeing those flaws, you’ll see how you can fill the gap and that’s part of your job as a writer. Tell us something new, fresh, unique. Share your point of view. Be brave and tell a story that goes the distance.
After you’ve given this some thought and checked out a some books, post in the comments a few of your “comps.”
~ Jennifer, 💗