March
4 , 2004
Today is the day to kiss up to your friend's parents.
As you can probably imagine, the experience of publishing a 60 page book that Amazon doesn't have the time to load the art for has swelled my head to four times the size of normal. Alarmed, I wanted to see if this was common, so for your elucidation, I spoke with Will Leitch, famed writer and author of another small-press book, the critically-acclaimed Life as a Loser. I caught up with Will online to chat about our culmulive experiences and to chat about his upcoming event in Chicago this weekend.
-----Original Message-----
From: Claire B. Zulkey
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 12:20 PM
To: Leitch, Will
Subject: Re: hello
Ms. Zulkey, I bid you a fond good morning. May I say to you how proud I am of you on the publication of your book "Girls! Girls! Girls!" I had expected more nudity, but I was nevertheless ecstatic to receive it. I also very much enjoy that our books reference each other on their respective Amazon pages, though that's likely because we know the same 10-15 people.
Are you enjoying this small-house book publishing business? I have to say, my initial high that I have a book available on Amazon - a real book, with words and everything - has not yet faded. It's frustrating that you pretty much have to buy it online exclusively, but those are the perils of a small publisher. Do you find your family and friends treating you any differently? I have to say, I find it bothersome that people talk to me more now, now that it's actually in book form. It comes down to my belief that something published on the Web has no less merit than something published in print. Hey, I've been doing this for a long time; I don't feel like it's legitimized now or anything. Do you?
Oh, are you coming to the my reading in Chicago on Saturday? I hope someone shows up. I worry about these things.
By the way, what are you wearing? Something slinky?
Will Leitch
Hi Will,
Good morning to you as well although isn't it afternoon on the East Coast already? I think you misrepresent yourself.
I would like to give you an e-pat on the back for all the buzz generated by your book, Life as a Loser, which is not, as some people may think, Loser Goes First, by Dan Kennedy. Look at you go! You're getting coverage on Yahoo, in UR Chicago, and even, I hear, on Zulkey.com.
I hear you on the frustration of online publishing. And if you're like me, and I think you are, you still have to hoof it at a 9-5 job so you can't dedicate all the time you'd like to on pushing the book, shoving it in the faces of book store owners, throwing weekly extravagant parties and so on.
I have this weird thing going on now where I'll tell people that I published a book, and they go "Wow, that's neat!" and I think, "Why did I tell them that? They don't care! They probably think I slaved over this long novel and got it published by Random House when in reality I cheated and published a bunch of stuff that I already wrote." Then I jump on my Segway and speed off.
But let's talk about the good things about the book. What is the favorite part of your book? How on earth did you get Tom Perrotta to write the intro to your book? And yes, I am planning on coming to your reading. Can I help in any way? Like wipe your brow as you sign books? And will there be a Leitch/Zulkey reading collaboration later this year? Inquiring minds want to know.
What's so great about Williamsburg, by the way?
XOXO,
Claire
*********************************************
Now you can ORDER MY BOOK!
www.sonewmedia.com
It's still morning in America, Zulkey.
I keep hearing about this UR Chicago story, but I haven't actually seen it. I imagine they were really mean to me. I'm not really sure about "buzz," considering your Amazon rank is far ahead of mine, and believe you me, I've checked. (Every day. I confess.) It's strange to think that any of us could ever have "buzz;" after all, that's just for hip New York webloggers! (We must remember our place, Zulkey.) But of all the places we've been featured, Zulkey.com is the ultimate achievement. I still miss the George Foreman fiction, though. (For the record, my absolute positive of course obvious my-god-it-breaks-my-soul-it's-so-funny Zulkey.com piece is the one where you compared which how the baby Jesus figurine fits in the arms of various other nativity scene characters. It's a shame something like that can't work in the book; score another one for the web!)
That's the thing, Zulkey: I "hoof" - great word, by the way -- it at a 9-to-5 job everyday, one that barely has much idea that have a book out at all. That's fine with me, frankly. A job's a job, and I'm glad to have it. The goal, obviously, is to get far enough along with this whole silly writing business to where I don't have to go to that day job, but I'm not gonna complain about it while I have it. Jobs are nice to have; they beat starving. But yeah, I think people are impressed that a book is out for about 30 seconds, until you tell them that they likely won't find it at the Barnes and Noble across the street from the Outback Steakhouse. Somehow, that makes it not a real book to them. I dunno. Maybe I should live in the suburbs.
The reading should be fun, if anybody shows up. (Come one, Zulkey.com readers! I hereby promise a peck on the cheek, a free beer and, um, something cheap and painless to everyone at the reading who comes up to me and says, "I read about this at Zulkey.com." Promise.) I would be so honored to read with you, Claire Zulkey, I wouldn't be able to fit into my pants afterwards.
As for the "No Image Available" thing, well, it took a very long time, I'm afraid. Amazon is awfully friendly to consumers, but with publishers who don't have the name "Random" in front of their name, not so much. My publisher had to bug them repeatedly via email to get that photo up there. (Getting someone from Amazon on the phone is impossible.) We had even more difficulty fixing a mistake that Amazon itself had made; my foreword is written by Tom Perrotta (author of Election, and the new, great Little Children), but for months, it had his name listed as "Perrotta Tom Perrotta." We begged them repeatedly to fix that, but it wasn't until he and his publisher stepped in that it got fixed.
The Perrotta thing is a funny story. I've been a huge fan of his for a long time - I think The Wishbones is required reading for everyone who is at least three years removed from college - and my publisher asked me if I had any ideas on whom should write my foreword. (I didn't really want one, actually.) But the first name I came up with was Perrotta. Seriously. The publisher happened to have met him once, and he sent him my manuscript. Turns out, Perrotta actually knew of the column, was a fan and was happy to write the intro. Just blew me away. I'm halfway through his new book right now, and this one is required reading for any married suburbanite who used to listen to Nevermind and do beer bongs. The guy is so underrated it's disgusting.
Oh, and the favorite part of my acknowledgments is the end, where Claire Zulkey's name is. It's the best part of the book.
Do you like everything about how your book turned out? I have a few things I would have liked to change, but I think that's just my inherent perfectionism creeping up. Or maybe I just screwed up a lot.
Best,
Will
Dear Will:
If you remind me, I'll get you the article myself. And thank you for all the inter-ZulkeyLeitch buzz.
I confess I check things like Amazon rank and Alexa ranking but I try not to do it too much, especially since it's out of your hands. What are you going to do, personally email people and tell them to check out your site or buy your book? It's just a way to get you really paranoid. I like to pretend that the same 10 people bought my book and read my site, so then I can be pleasantly surprised when it's actually 12 people.
I really like how my book turned out--I think the content is funny (am I allowed to say that?) and I think it looks really pretty. I just wish it was longer but that's one of the limitations of publishing small. But better to leave people wanting more, right?
So speaking of buzz, there has been a bit of kerfuffle about blogs and the people who run them, at least in your neck of the woods. What is your definition of a blog, Will? Why are they getting all the attention now? And should I start TheMindofClaireZulkey--The Zulkey.com Blog before I slight off into oblivion?
Also, what are you working on now? I know you're working on something, Will, so don't be a chump, cough it up!
Love,
Claire
Yeah. Amazon rank is really confusing. I was at 8,012 about three weeks ago, and now I'm at 500,000 or something. I'm don't think it's overall sales; I think it's number of sales congruent to a certain time frame. There's a good article about it here. I stopped looking a while ago, though, because the number kept getting too high. I will confess an obsession with Alexa, however.
One of my favorite things about Alexa, to be honest, is how silly it reveals the whole blogging thing to be. Don't get me wrong: I'm very fond of a lot of blogs in NYC, including Lindsayism, Gawker, The Kicker, TMFTML, Maud Newton, Lockhart Steele, et al. I find them funny and pretty much check them every day. But Alexa reveals how they're mostly just screaming in a vacuum, linking to each other and talking about things 99.9999 percent of the country could care less about. And let's not beat around the bush here: A blog is not writing. It's not. It's smart, it's witty, it's quick ... but it's not writing. Honestly, I think a lot of blogging is done by creative, talented people to avoid writing. I think you'd be doing yourself and your readers a huge disservice by turning into just another blog. Please don't!
I feel like my book is too small too, though it's 200+ pages and uses a weird font that packs a ton of words on a page. I think I'll just wait 20 years and try to talk someone into a Life as a Loser Illustrated Reader, with everything in there. I just hope the other janitors at the middle school don't mind that I do some work on it during office time.
I do have a new project coming up, but it's pretty early and I don't want to get too ahead of myself. But it's a fiction project. That's one of the reasons I'm quitting the column at 200 at the end of the month. I'm a little tired of writing about myself, at least in a literal format, and it's very easy to get lost among, you know, the millions of other people writing about themselves on the Web. I've been doing it for five years now; probably time to stop.
Anyway, other than stuff for the Black Table, I'm gonna just do fiction from now on. I don't know whether I can pull it off or not, but that's the plan. I kind of want to be Woody Allen like that; just write a book a year until I die. If I could do that, I'd be a pretty happy person. I have some nice support for this first one, so if I don't screw that up, hopefully I'll be on that track. I don't really know how to do anything else, you know?
What's your plan, Zulkey? Other than napping.
MUCH LOVE,
Will
I may have to show my readers this through the magic of technology but Will Leitch is writing to me in very pretty colors. This is sort of a mauve.
So, my question is, we both have books based on Internet writings. Do you think anything from the blogs will ever leap off the screen? And also, what would an illustrated Life as a Loser look like?
Wait, I obviously have more than just one question. But I do have a few more. What have you learned from doing this book that you could use in the future for new projects? Like never use Helvetica? How to promote yourself?
Meanwhile, have you written much fiction? What do you like about it? Have you ever written a novel before? I've tried like 10 times and I can't get past page 60. I don't know if it's because my ideas stink or I'm just lazy.
My plan? Well I would like to work more on my freelance career and also try to get returns on Girls!--longer books, different formats, and so on. Of course, I'm turning 25 in about a month so I also plan on doing a lot of freaking out about how I have absolutely no idea where my career is going. Do you ever feel that way, Will, or are you a cocky bastard?
What are you having for lunch?
Claire
I don't eat lunch, Zulkey. Lunch is for the weak.
I think blogs are pretty limited, frankly. I think at best, a blog can get you as a talking head on some VH-1 show, and those have the shelf life of a whippet high. Particularly media blogs, which, as entertaining as they are, are far less read than, say, some guy who writes about pro wrestling. I'm not saying they don't matter, or that they're not well-done; I just, ultimately, don't see much point. Of course, maybe I'm just jealous because I never get invited to blog parties.
I think an illustrated Life as a Loser reader would only have this picture of my father drinking a Natural Light while driving:
(He'll be at the reading, by the way.)
Zulkey, promise me you won't say, "I'm turning 25 in a month or so" like it's a bad thing again, OK? I'm 28. That's scary enough. As for my future career .. well, I just kind of think if I keep doing this long enough and don't derail it by getting married and moving to the suburbs, something should work out. That might be a naïve viewpoint, but, all told, this is the only thing I know how to do. I mean, you're pretty good at this, Zulkey; there are plenty of people who aren't as good as you still striving to "make it," or something. Have faith. We have so much time it's silly.
Through promotion of this book, I've learned that radio interviews are, on the whole, embarrassing, idiotic and complete pointless. (I'm not sure I've sold a single book through a radio interview.) It ends up being a bunch of dorks named "Frankie J. and the Big Dog!" asking me if Losers have small penises and similar rubbish. I usually just play along, because, you know, I'm playing on their field. But it's silly. My main promotion technique is just being a whore and accepting every invitation I get. If NAMBLA asked me for an interview, I'd probably take it. And I'm not even Catholic! (Sorry.)
But no, I have no idea where my career is going. Isn't that the fun part?
Will
I've often wondered about that picture. Does that accurately depict your father? Or was that an anomaly?
Media blogs can be really fun sometimes and then others, especially for those of us who do not live in proximity of the Conde Nast building, it can be tiresome, like you're looking behind the curtain for so long that the Great Oz runs out of things to tell you.
Oh, I'm not going to bitch about turning 25 like it's a bad or old thing. But I do have to admit that I am heading, at least numbers wise, into adulthood and soon there will be no excuse for some of the things I do. But thanks for the good news.
Now I know you were being tongue in cheek about it, but regarding moving to the suburbs...do you really think there is much relation between location and quality? Because some people who will go unmentioned have been pressuring yours truly to leave my beloved Chicago because apparently my career here can only stagnate. Your thoughts?
Oh! I never got to ask you about your radio interview, did I? Please give me a few details. In fact, you must. How many of your peers who are authors do you know who get interviewed on Morning Zoos? Not many.
Write me back. I'm 2-good 2-B 4-got-10.
It's really him. He doesn't wear Oakleys that often, but that's him, in all his glory. I think if he knew I was distributing that picture across the Interweb, he'd, well, he'd threaten to do something and then fall asleep in his chair watching Cops, just like when I was a kid.
I think it's stupid to think you have to be anywhere to achieve any amount of success in this little world we've chosen for ourselves. (Personally, I think New York is a more difficult place for a writer to live than most place, because there are so many distractions from, you know, actually writing. It's a perfect place to go to parties and tell people you're a writer, though.) All that matters is that you write and keep trying to master your instrument. I think the external stimuli - and inevitable subject matter - that a place like New York provides is outweighed by how hard it is here to find a minute alone to get your work done. The main advantage, I'd think, is being around other people who are refusing to give up their childish dreams; they provide a constant control group. They help to boost you up when you need it. But you have that in people like me, Ms. Zulkey. My opinion: As much as I'd love to have you here, stay there. It's cheaper. I'm here because I actively love living here, not because I have to be.
Radio interviews are hit-and-miss, mostly miss. Usually it's drive-time dillweeds who make wacky clown noises in the background while the head jock makes armpit noises and asks how hot your mom is. It's certainly not an ideal medium for interviewing authors. That said, some were really nice and appeared to at least looked at the book. But I don't think they translate into sales, and if they're not doing that, they're kind of pointless. It's not like we're becoming friends or anything.
I'm listening to G'NR Lies right now, by the way. God this rules.
This has been most enjoyable. This is the part where we shamelessly plug everything we're doing. My book is available through Amazon and BN.com. The Black Table is updated daily. And the Chicago reading on Saturday will be so much fun, it will require water wings.
You rule, Zulkey. Let's do this again, OK?
Kid-tested, mother-approved,
Will
Will, before you go, how does it feel to be the first author colleague to have a literary powwow with Claire Zulkey?
It feels like you and I got what it takes to make it.
We won’t fake it. Awww …. I’ll never break it. ‘Cause
I can’t take it.