Barney Rosset, one of the most controversial figures of the publishing world, died this week. And news of his death immediately brought back the year I spent as Barney’s assistant at Grove Press and all that I learned about publishing from one of its masters.
It all began in July of 1974 when I went to interview Barney for a freelance series of articles I was writing for the now defunct “Paumonok News” on “Who’s Who in East Hampton.” At the end of the interview, Barney turned to me, and he asked “Would you like to work here?” I had spent the last two years in the school division at Macmillan Publishing Company and I was eager to get into trade books, but it was hard to make that leap. I told Barney I was under consideration at the Girls Scouts of America for an editing job.
He asked what they were offering me. I said it was $13,500, which was nearly double what I was making at Macmillan at the time, which was $7,200 a year as an assistant editor. Barney said he would top their offer and he also said that if I made his coffee and answered the phone, I could learn any part of the business I wanted. Apparently, his ex-wife was answering the phones at that point, but it wasn’t working out and he was desperate to replace her.
By the time I arrived at Grove, the legal battles of the 1960s over censorship, prompted when Barney published D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer,” and many of its glory days were in the past, although we continued to publish the backlist of playwrights and novelists Samuel Beckett (“Waiting for Godot”), William S. Burroughs (“Naked Lunch”), Eugene Ionesco (“Rhinoceros”), and Hubert Selby, Jr. (“Last Exit to Brooklyn”), and political figures, like Malcolm X (“The Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Alex Haley) as well as new titles, such as the screenplay of ‘The Story of Adele H.” by screenwriter and filmmaker Francois Truffaut, and other interesting authors including the ones that I was allowed to discover and develop.
It was a miniscule staff by then: Barney, Fred Jordan, Fred’s secretary, Claudia Menza (who went on to found and run her own literary agency), Kent Carroll (who ran the film division), Herman Graf (who went on to found and run, with Kent, their own publishing company, Carroll & Graf), Dorothy, an accountant, and Winnie, a secretary to the sales department.
I was 25 when I was hired and eager to learn as much about the trade book business as I could. During the year I was there, I was allowed to acquire books, attend a sales conference in Florida—Random House was distributing Grove Press’ titles at that time—learn about permissions—I was able to track down and get payments that were due for thousands of dollars by asking those who had agreed to pay even a couple of hundred dollars for permissions to finally pay the money! No one had ever followed up on those permission requests before –run the foreign rights department—I taught myself how to “do” foreign rights at Grove Press corresponding with and eventually meeting several of the half-dozen international co-agents Grove worked with—, instituting and participating in publicity campaigns, sell film and subsidiary rights to one of the nonfiction books I acquired, paperback rights to Avon Books to that same book, getting the book version of the screenplay of the movie “American Graffiti” into the Scholastic book club, the first time they had offered a screenplay to their high school book participants, handle the publicity campaign for a top Irish poet, and more. It was an incredible experience and I thought I was on my way up the ladder in trade books. (I had to be the go-between for a married couple who had written a book on S&M and how it improved their intimate life since the book was written under a pseudonym and neither of their employers would have appreciated knowing that they were into S&M. I still carry their true identities with me in confidence.)
Barney sent me to California to meet with the author of a book called Contract Cohabitation that Barney had agreed to let me acquire. Barney agreed with me that it was important to meet the author and make sure his book, part memoir, part self-help, was genuine. (It seemed to be.)
I corresponded with Ionesco, Truffaut, and Beckett communicated with me. I went to the screening for a movie that I vaguely remember had to do with truckers or the truck business, a movie that Barney had helped to fund, and Barney got his whole staff tickets to attend a new play on Broadway by British playwright Tom Stoppard, another Grove author.
If the heyday of Grove Press was in the past, you wouldn’t have known it from the energy and electricity that permeated those rooms in the small but upscale brownstone in the West Village, up the street from the Village Voice, offices that housed the publishing company’s office at that time.
I visited Barney and his third wife, Cristina, at their amazing home in East Hampton. I also went to their brownstone on Hudson Street which had the top floor converted into a playroom since they had two young children at that time.
Barney was a very complex man. He played tennis a lot during the workday much of that year that I answered his phone, made his coffee, but also did so many unbelievable things in trade book publishing, going to parties and lunches that I was constantly getting invited to because I was head of subsidiary and foreign rights, and even doing acquisitions, for the esteemed Grove Press.
What was so amazing to me about Barney was how he made acquisitions decision based on his gut. For example, I had written a proposal for a celebrity cookbook with a couple of samples, but a deal that was pending at a major commercial house fell through because of some very ugly and unprofessional behavior by a literary agent who will remain nameless. So, on a whim, on a Friday, I asked Barney if he would read the book proposal.
The very next Monday, when the work week began, told me his wife Cristina really liked the proposal and the idea for the book, and he made me an offer for the book. I accepted and it would become the one and only cookbook that Grove Press published. (When Ronald Reagan was elected President, I was the first one to have his favorite recipe, macaroni and cheese, which the New York Post ran in an article, crediting my book.)
By the time my interview cookbook, “Meatless Cooking, Celebrity Style” was published, however, I had been downsized by Barney. It happened on a Friday. It was sudden, unexpected, and devastating.
Alas, although I was told it had nothing to do with my abilities, and I had simply outgrown my original position and there just wasn’t room in the company for the increased salary and job functions that my skills required, Barney, in his usual flare for the dramatic, said that he was going to Europe for the weekend and he wanted me to have my desk cleared out and me to be gone by the following Monday.
My world collapsed. I was single at the time and the small group of us at Grove Press had become a second family to me, or so I thought. (In fact, I loved that job so much that I was actually told not to come into work so early and leave so late because I was making everyone else look bad. So I had adjusted my work hours accordingly!)
After the shock wore off, when I went on job interviews, instead of looking at my accomplishments, they looked at the amount of time I had been at Grove and offered me more subservient jobs that what I was used to doing on my own for a year. It seemed all the things I did at Grove—editor, director of foreign and subsidiary rights, and publicist—didn’t make a difference. In their eyes, I was a junior level candidate with just three years experience at two publishers.
So I became a freelance writer, continuing to get my books published by major houses, like Scribner’s, as well as that cookbook by Grove Press. (Since my Scribner’s book, “The Vegetable Passion,” a scholarly study of vegetarianism, was being published at the same time as my celebrity cookbook, Barney once again showed his unconventional and creative approach to publishing by agreeing to co-sponsor with Scribner’s an 11-city cross-country author tour for me, that began with a publication day party written up in “The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” and an appearance on “The Today Show” even though my employment at Grove had ended six months before.)
After promoting those books, I went back to graduate school to get a masters in criminal justice —the subject of my next book was crime victims, a far cry from vegetarianism, and I wanted more formal training related to that issue— followed by obtaining a Ph.D. in sociology, and I then became a fulltime academic. Then I took an extended leave from teaching in the mid 1980s to raise my two sons although I continued writing books.
In 1996, my career in publishing was about to take a dramatic turn when I received a letter from a printer through one of my writing associations and it asked if I was ready to take control of my book career by printing and publishing my own books. At that point, it was quite a revolutionary concept. No more rejection letters. No more deadlines imposed by others rather than allotting the true time and creativity that a project needed. I jumped on board and started my own publishing company resisting then, as I do now, the term “self-publishing.” It was the beginning of an adventure that continues today although I have also continued to publish numerous books through major houses, like Simon & Schuster, the publisher of my book “When Friendship Hurts” and Facts on File, publisher of the career book I co-authored with husband Fred Yager, “Career Opportunities in the Publishing Industry,” a reminder of why having my own company has its pluses and minuses but also a way of demonstrating that I could still get published by traditional houses.
Another motivation to starting my own company, Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc., was that when I thought about what was the best experience I had ever had in publishing, there were two: when Scribner’s bought my first book and, that same year, when I worked for Barney Rosset.
So I decided to start my own publishing company with Barney Rosset and Grove Press and all he accomplished for literature in the U.S. and internationally as a model for me.
I am well aware that my company has not achieved the stature that Grove Press had in its heyday under Barney Rosset’s leadership. But we’ve had some notable successes, like “Friendshifts”, which landed me on “Oprah” and the “Today Show”, and just last year, Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc. published its first international author, Rei Kimura, an author born and educated in Japan who now lives in Singapore, whose charming novel is written from the point of view of the dog “author,” a precocious Pomeranian. My Name is Eric appeared for the first time in the U.S. in English although it had been published previously in Korean as well as in an English language edition in Singapore. (I have been able to sell it for Italian translation through my Italian co-agent and to sell it directly to a publisher in China whom I met at the last Frankfurt Book Fair.) And I am in negotiations for a couple of children’s books from other countries so there may be more international authors on the horizon for my company.
This venture of mine into publishing is a reflection of the long term influence of my former boss and mentor, Barney Rosset. We, like Grove, have our share of domestic authors we are proud to publish including poet Priscilla Orr, first time memoir author Larry Cohen, who is 88 years old, novelist Fred Yager, and speaker/author Janet Luongo, among others.
At the most recent Frankfurt Book Fair I spent a delightful hour meeting and talking with Herman Graf, one of my colleagues from Grove Press who is now a contributing editor to Skyhorse Publishing with his own imprint. It was as if no time had passed since we worked together at Grove. No time at all.
I learned so many lessons about the publishing business from observing Barney Rosset and being allowed to work at Grove Press. I’ve tried over the years to see that year at Grove Press in that light and to leave behind the disappointment and shock that accompanied my abrupt termination. I’m still working on it but I know that what I learned during that intense year is still helping me today.
If I had gotten to see Barney once more before he passed away this week at the age of 89, I was going to thank Barney for toughening me up, because the business world, and the trade book publishing world, is tough. I was also going to thank him for being a role model that I should think big as a publisher, continue publishing noteworthy domestic and international authors, and trust my gut.
Jan Yager, Ph.D. (the former Janet Lee Barkas), is the award-winning author of 31 books in 30 languages including When Friendship Hurts (Simon & Schuster, Inc./Touchstone), 365 Daily Affirmations for Friendship, Friendshifts, The Pretty One, a novel, (published by Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc.), Work Less, Do More (Sterling); Career Opportunities in the Publishing Industry (Facts on File, Inc.), Victims, The Help Book, and The Vegetable Passion (published by Scribner’s); and other titles. Meatless Cooking: Celebrity Style was published by Grove Press with illustrations by the noted illustrator Simms Taback, who recently passed away at the age of 79. For more on Jan, go to: http://www.drjanyager.com or http://www.whenfriendshiphurts.com . For more on her publishing company, go to: http://www.hannacroixcreekbooks.com

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I was much more relaxed during the meetings because I wasn’t always watching my watch worrying about running back and forth between meetings since I was already right where I needed to be.

The only negative about having a stand is that it obviously increasing the cost of being at the Frankfurt Book Fair. This is a debate for many publishers: is Frankfurt a “meet and greet” opportunity or do you have to see real ROI (return on investment) direct offers and deals based on the scheduled meetings or drop in visitors?

Here’s the good news: yesterday I got my first firm offer on translation rights to one of the books that I had at the Fair with one of those appointments. It was especially meaningful because this was a rights manager for a publishing  company in China whose appointment with me at the London Book Fair last April (2010) had to be canceled because we were both unable to get to London because the airports were closed due to the volcanic ash situation. Could she have made the offer without meeting me based on our e-mail communications? Of course since that’s how the majority of my rights deals happen. But it was so much nicer to be able to meet in person. This year, I used my iphone to take a picture of each person I met with to help me to remember faces.

A couple of weeks later, I’m still doing follow-up from the Frankfurt Book Fair. I’m optimistic that all of that follow-up will lead to lots of additional firm offers and deals. I learned a lot about what’s going on in publishing in various countries around the world since I find most people who are not writers exchange information in a much more flowing way when you are meeting in person compared to their more focused and succinct business-like e-mails.

I am still assessing the practical benefits of exhibiting at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time. It was definitely a positive educational experience and it will make communicating with those I met with by skype or phone or e-mail easier because we either met in person for the first time or reconnected after previous meetings. With almost 300,000 attendees from more than a 100 countries, the Frankfurt Book Fair held each October in Frankfurt, Germany is still the book publishing industry leader for book fairs.

Those who are unable to personally get there, however, have the option of displaying their title through co-op stands and/or through their agents, distributor, or publisher, depending upon whether they are published by a commercial house or self-published. More about those options in my forthcoming book on foreign rights. Stay tuned for details when my book is finally available, after 6 years of research and writing and decades of first-hand foreign rights professional experience dating back to when I was 24 and the head of foreign rights for Grove Press, Inc.

 I recently spoke with someone at Northshire Bookstore (http://www.northshire.com) in Vermont where the EBM is proving a very valuable tool to local self-publishers. They are also using it to print and sell bound copies of books that are in the public domain.

                The person at Northshire Bookstore explained to me that there is a one time set up charge of $95 as well as a per-page charge of 6 to 7 cents, depending on the length of the book. But there is no minimum quantity that they have to print. (Although most self-publishers print just a few books, one local author, who is doing a lot of publicity for his book, has already printed more than 250 copies of his title. The bookstore requires a final pdf file of both the cover and the contents of the book before it can be put it into their system.) It takes just seven to fifteen minutes to print one book, depending on length.

                This system requires that self-publishers or publishers do all the design and typesetting of a book either by the self-publisher or on an outsourced-basis so they can provide the final pdf file  for printing.But itstill offers a  portable and localized printing and distribution system.

                But it is still as important as ever that authors, publishers, bookstores, or libraries make sure that each book, whether published POD locally or not, meets a standard of excellence. That means the book should be professionally proofread and that standards for consistency in design should be met. Covers should look professional and not amateurish, facts should be checked, and contents should be reviewed by peers, experts, as well as sent out for review by trade or popular publications, as deemed appropriate and necessary.

                Each author who elects to become a self-publisher should also become as versed in the ways of the publishing industry and the expectations of the media as someone who is published by the biggest book publisher in a major city. The reader needs to know that whether a book is part of a 100,000 copy print run authorized by a high profile international publisher or only the second copy of a POD (print on demand) self-published book through a local bookstore or library, it is produced according to universal standards of quality and, depending upon personal tastes or interests, it should be  worth everyreader’s time and attention.

                What have been your experiences with POD as a publisher, self-publisher, bookseller, librarian, reviewer, member of the media, or reader? I welcome hearing about your positive or negative POD encounters or, if you have never even noticed whether a book is printed through traditional or POD means, that would be useful to learn as well.

Have you ever sent, or received, a holiday mass greeting? What was the experience like? Do you recommend doing it? I welcome hearing from you about your experiences with this unique approach to trying to get a lot of the same information out to lots of different people in as efficient a way as possible.

If you love books, make sure you show that love of books in your own purchasing behaviors. If you’re going to give someone a gift, whether it’s for a holiday or for a birthday or another special occasion, try to include a book with that gift or even consider giving a book as the only gift. But you can add a book to any gift and still support the book industry and the publishers, authors, and even the printers, illustrators, indexers, and wholesalers who are part of this vital industry. If you want to give a romantic partner a piece of jewelry, consider including a book of poetry as well. Cooking utensils or dishes for the newlyweds? How about adding a classic or new and innovative cookbook or two? A shirt for a teen who is graduating from high school? How about a novel or two that he might enjoy? A blouse or sweater for a new college student? She might find a collection of essays, short stories, or a novel might be a welcome gift as well.

I have books dating back to my earliest years and I save those books especially the ones inscribed it to me, particularly if it was a gift. I have a hardcover collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets that I bought for myself when I was in high school. The cover has multicolored design work that makes the physical book a pleasure to behold, not just the words. When I met my husband, his first gift to me twenty-four years ago was Stick, a novel by Elmore Leonard, one of his favorite contempoary novelists.

Just as boxed sets of DVDs of movies and TV series are “hot” gift items, books need to be included in those “wish lists” if we are to see the book industry thrive, not just survive. Have you bought a book today?

I recently received an e-mail from Pat Schroeder, CEO and President of The Association of American Publishers (AAP), letting me know that our association has just launched a new website:  www.booksaregreatgifts.com. Check it out!

What does it mean to be “in the zone?” To me, that’s a place where I am focused, creative, avoiding distractions, and truly “on task.”

When were you last “in the zone?” What did it feel like? What were the circumstances that made it possible? Did you turn off your cell phone? Shut the door to your office, if you have an office? Did you stop checking e-mail every five minutes….every five seconds?

It’s so crucial for so many of us to find that place within ourselves that enables us to have optimum concentration. It is definitely more difficult these days to find quiet for reading, thinking, writing, or planning. In my workshops so many more people than ever before are sharing with me that they are getting into work earlier and earlier and leaving work later and later so they can find that quiet time. But is that right? If you are paid for 40 hours a week, and you’re working 50, 60, or 70, or if you are a business owner who has to be open from 9 to 5 but you’re there from 7 till 7, are you living a balanced life? Do you have increased productivity to show for all those hours?

Is it possible to find an inner peace, to get yourself “in the zone,” even within your work day? What about that lunch hour you should be taking? Are you even taking a lunch half hour? If you are taking even half an hour for lunch, could you use that time to think, to take a walk and reflect? How about finding a quiet place at your office or place of business where you can recharge your physical and mental self so you can get so much more out of the rest of your day?

How will you get yourself “in the zone” today? What great ideas might you come up with if you’re not racing from task to task, dealing with distraction after distraction, rather than giving yourself even twenty minutes a day to consider what innovations you might come up with to revolutionize your business perhaps even transform your industry.

 

Jan Yager, Ph.D. is the Founder & CEO of Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc. She also helps individuals and companies to become more efficient and to handle their relationships better through workshops, coaching, and her writings, most recently, Work Less, Do More: The 14-Day Productivity Makeover (Sterling Publishing Company). She is also the author of Creative Time Management for the New Millennium (Hannacroix Creek, 1999). For more information, go to: www.drjanyager.com