Alan Jacobs

Why We Need Independent Publishers:

The process of creating art and then asking others to assign it a somewhat made-up market value is admittedly one of the most bizarre aspects of a writer’s job, for all that it is necessary for those of us trying to make a living. It seems likely that the math could prove even less favorable to authors — especially debut authors, especially those from marginalized backgrounds — if smaller publishers cannot thrive and maintain their independence. Indies routinely bet on daring literature and play a crucial role in launching, building, and sustaining the careers of writers whose work we need. The work being published by these presses — places such as Tin House, Graywolf, Milkweed Editions, Coffee House, Akashic Books, New Directions, Melville House, and The Feminist Press — is one thing that gives me hope for the future of publishing. Whether or not one industry giant is ultimately able to acquire another, whether we end up with a Big Five, a Big Four, or a Big One and Everyone Else, the publishing ecosystem needs strong, flourishing independent presses — and authors and readers do too. 

Nicole Chung is right. And (as a Penguin/Random House author) I really hope the proposed merger with Simon & Schuster is quashed. Indeed, I’d love to see a devolution in the publishing industry. Back in the 1970s, when I worked as a receiving clerk in a bookstore, shipments came from everywhere; it seemed that we got books from a thousand presses — though maybe it was just a hundred — all of which had their own niche, their own style, their own mission. The homogenization of the publishing world is sad, and, like the dominance of a handful of social media companies, bad for our intellectual and moral environment. Down with monocultures! 

So, cue Ted Gioia: 

When I was publishing my first three books … my editor had my trust and vice versa. We worked together closely as individuals on every issue, from writing to marketing, even down to the tiniest details. I knew publishing was a business, even back then, but it didn’t feel like one. That started to change in the new millennium, and every aspect of that downstream process became more acutely corporatized.

Fortunately, the rest of the world has changed too, especially technology. And authors have options that didn’t exist years ago. Or, in some instances, they have options that didn’t even exist just a few months ago.

Substack is one of those options.

So I’ve decided to publish my next book on Substack. 

This is interesting to me, because Ted and I have similar writing trajectories: We’re about the same age, we’ve published roughly the same number of books over the same number of years, and we’re both “midlist” writers (though he has more consistently been at the upper end of the midlist than I have). I’ve also experienced the “corporatizing” that he speaks of, but perhaps in slightly different ways: the chief factor making my life unpleasant has been the outsourcing of much of the editorial business to freelance copyeditors and production companies, which has led to extreme problems with quality control. (One reason I enjoy working with Princeton University Press is that they still keep most elements of the process in-house — though the freelance copy-editor for my Book of Common Prayer biography helped me allow some embarrassing errors to slip through.) I have several books that I want to write but I find myself thinking, mournfully: Do I really want to go through all that yet again? 

I tell you, Ted’s post makes me fret — and not for the first time — about all the money I might be leaving on the table by not moving to Substack. But I love being on the open web; and in any case I would only have a fraction of the subscribers that Ted has. (I just don’t know how small a fraction: 1/10? 1/100? 1/1000?) I think I’m better off where I am. Probably. Maybe. 

“Repeated, long-term exposure to standing also has been implicated in the development of serious health problems.” Exposure to standing? Like, being in the same room with a standing person?

The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed:

Americans could learn simply to do politics through ordinary statute rather than staging constant wars over who controls the heavy weaponry of constitutional law from the past. If legislatures just passed rules and protected values majorities believe in, the distinction between “higher law” and everyday politics effectively disappears. 

Hard to see what could go wrong! No Constitutional guarantees for freedom of speech, freedom of the press — heck, no Constitutional prohibition of slavery! Let whatever “values majorities believe in” reign! I mean, come on, when have majorities ever believed in unjust things? 

What logicians used to call the “planted axiom” — the fundamental unstated assumption — is pretty obvious here: People who agree with me will always be in charge. So if there’s no freedom of the press, how is that a problem? We’ll just use our power to shut down Fox News, not any of the networks we approve of. 

As I’ve been saying for many years, I am always fascinated by the number of philosophers who habitually consider political questions from the position of power. They never seem to imagine what the situation might look like if their enemies were the ones in charge. 

Re: Freddie’s post on the various ways you can like or dislike something, I wonder of this from Auden’s “commonplace book” A Certain World might help: 

As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between Taste and Judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don’t like.

For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don’t like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don’t like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don’t like it. 

National Parks Lifetime Pass? ✔️

I’m borderline-obsessed with these differently-angled straight lines.

After further reflection: I’m the mark. The easy mark. It pains me to say so, but I fell for it. Jimmy didn’t change — didn’t change at all; but he made me think he did. You got me, Jimmy. You’re good, man.

You have to play the cards you’re dealt, and Jimmy was dealt some very bad cards. But in the end, during that final courtroom scene, he played them beautifully — he worked a simultaneous double con.

Con one: To make the court — and ultimately the public, when the news is out —  believe that he was the real mastermind behind the Heisenberg drug empire. Sure, he could’ve taken the seven years in cushy prison that he negotiated: but that would have meant being portrayed as a small-timer, a minor player in a game full of bigger players (Walt, Gus, Lalo). Not the deal he wants. So he trades in those seven years for a life sentence — but a life sentence in which he is forever known as the genius, the power behind the throne, the Big Player who had simply been disguised as, in the words of Betsy Kettleman, “the kind of lawyer guilty people hire” — and poor guilty people at that.

Con two: He makes absolutely certain that Kim is there, because at the same time that he is testifying to his own artistry and skill he also works to convince Kim that he has been moved by her example to become a brave truth-teller. (With the Sphinx-like Kim you can never be sure, but I’m inclined to think that she buys it. I don’t think she’d have visited him in prison otherwise.) Note that this idea — that Kim’s courage in making her affidavit stung his conscience and impelled him to reveal his real importance — also works for the public narrative: it makes his claim that he was the real mastermind feel like a confession rather than a boast.

Anyway: it’s fabulous! — the two parts moving in opposite directions, like a complex mechanism that opens one door even as it closes another. He cons the court and the public in one direction while conning Kim in the other. And life in prison is just the price he has to pay for executing that brilliant move. His satisfaction is in knowing that he is the absolute master of his chosen craft. That’s something he can meditate on for the next forty years or so. With or without ice cream.

Whither the Lambeth Conference 2022? I’ve been turning that question over and over in my mind, and I’ve finally realized what I think. 

Imagine a married couple. The wife is dynamic, energetic, involved in the community and the pillar of the household too. The husband doesn’t do much, but he does love his weekly poker night with his friends. One afternoon he returns home after buying some beer for his poker buddies and discovers that his wife is gone. He has no idea where she is or when she might be coming back. But, you know, it’s poker night, so off he goes to Bill’s house. 

That’s what I think Lambeth 2022 was. Poker night at Bill’s house, while one’s spouse is missing.