enormous. they used to be deleted you could have been your hands. but with your social media to compete to those generals digitally speaking. and then to stand out and then to take a vintage of the dna. with the new kinds of books. with 3-d handwriting.

>> would you spend the majority of your day doing? >> that is a tough question because each day is different. i spent a majority of the time working with the publishers of what books are acquiring. with the future in the organization but i spend as much of my time there. >> how many books sold last year or water their revenues were give us a sense of how big. >> to give a sense of scale their five publishers that our pretty big.

the second is harpercollins third decided schuster -- simon & schuster. the last three are within 100 million of revenue of each other all pretty close to the same size. with two really big companies. but a unique feature is of the smallest title towns. we are followed by a substantial number of mitt mellon and grant dove publishing. and then to be selective in

of that whole experience that is a unique strength. >> as of publicly traded company? >> our revenues heard 600 million but just acquired perseus that is a $90 million company. >> that sells like a lot but if you compare that that is pretty strong. >> we are much smaller. that is an industry that is built up.

and hundreds of thousands. >> michael is of books all weekend on booktv. >> hi. i wanted to welcome you to this morning's panel on publishing, the big picture. thank you for coming. i have a few words from the festival organizers. please silence all cell phones during the session. personal recording of sessions is not allowed. my name is betsy amster. i'm going to be a model list --

panelist today, your moderator. i am a publishing life are which is to say i have only wanted to be in publishing my whole life and i have been in publishing pretty much my whole life. i am a west coast agent, started out in publishing as an editor at pantheon. i wanted to introduce our panelists. i will start with tom mayer, senior editor and vice president at www. norton who publishes literal fiction and nonfiction including history, politics, music, biography, popular science and narrative journalism. his books include the new york times bestsellers smoke gets in your eyes, building a better teacher by elizabeth green, whitey bolger and shelley murphy and somewhere toward the end by diana and hill which won the national critics circle award. other notable authors include

lidia gladstone, i poked around his twitter account and learned he is a sometimes musician, someone who is willing to swear on twitter. >> and on live tv hopefully. >> nicole dewey has worked in publishing the last 19 years and is vice president, associate publisher for little brown and company, she worked with a broad range of critically claims authors including jk rowling, adam hazlitt, kevin powers, malcolm gladwell, amazing list, jody cantor, elton john, barbara ehrenreich, nancy pelosi, steve martin, michael caine, and mark haddon. she is council of literary magazines, and eager traveler who lives in new york with her husband and two sons. the president of the literary

agency in a represents writers of fiction and nonfiction, ranging from current affairs like pulitzer prize winner henrique's journey and men explain things to me and paradise built in hell call in the extraordinary disaster, and the best-selling funny, mexican time and mexican days and david's living the sweet life in paris. the fiction she represent range from the last chinese chef to antonio nelson's prize-winning short story collection and novels to all of the books in fiction and nonfiction by david foster. at the end, dan worked in various aspects of the publishing industry for 20 years. and executive editor at

ballantine he published such award-winning books as the ice harvest by scott phyllis, the speed of light by elizabeth ruffner, down to a sound the sea by thomas steinbeck and among the missing, 2001 finalist for the national book award. he is executive editor for counter point press, one of the largest independent publishers in the country and one of the few located on the west coast. he acquires and edits action and nonfiction and his project include works by neil jordan, dana johnson, todd kohlberg and karen tender, 2015 finalist for the national book award. welcome to our panelists. [applause] >> i have a friend who recently called publishing a buggy whip business. do you feel you're making buggy whips? is everything we do antiquated?

>> what is that? >> it is a thing you would make to move when driving your buggy. there is a spot that is very old-fashioned business that proceeds at a glacial pace. what do you think? >> no. creating magical apps, you can play with them on your phone, you can read them. it is cool being in la. many of us are from new york, where we are far from the television and movie business. we work on stories, stories exist in a lot of places and exist in tvs and films, even if people are not buying a walk -- a book but want to watch game of thrones, game of thrones was a book. working on stories in any media

is perfectly moderate. >> people are still reading, they are reading on e-books but still reading books, i can't imagine -- we don't need buggy whips. >> having breakfast with reese witherspoon being a powerhouse in the book business and gwyneth paltrow and all these people starting in prince. and wanting to get into the book business, my entire publishing career has always been the sky is falling, what is the nature of this business? we spend our whole career doing this. i would say expect the opposite since these people want to do

what we are doing and do every day. >> good point. do you want to add anything? >> that covered it. books are timeless. the connections our writers were able to form with readers is timeless, aspect of this business of interest to none of us that were antiquated. it is a creaky business but as progressive as we can be with all the different options now to read whether that is on a phone or an ipad or what have you and the essential act is what we do which is making them better and getting into your hands is timeless. >> i used to joke i got up every morning and put on a t-shirt that says old-school but i am proud of that. i have been in conferences where people rail against publishers for being gatekeepers.

how do you feel about the gatekeeping function? they wrote something interesting, i wonder if you could answer first. >> i hope i can remember what i said to you about that. we are a conduit. we are here to -- put them in human's hands, going through publishing to do that but i don't think -- i think our job is to let people through the door, not keep people out of it. >> it is not always fun being a gatekeeper. i find people are astonished to discover how many people want to be writers. people who want to be writers are amazed that hundreds of thousands of other people want to publish books and they don't want to read their books.

the other day -- i read 500 book proposals a year and published 12 books a year and those are things are represented by really talented book agents who have also looked at 500 manuscripts from people who want to write them. there is a lot of stuff out there. a lot of stuff out there. to find really interesting things is what we are passionate about. it is our passion to dig through big piles of stuff and find something really electric and exciting. to be a reader and to find things is very challenging. what i find all the time is people want book recommendations, what should i read? i don't know what to read, what should i read? to be able to say you should read this, i looked at a lot of stuff, this is the best i have seen all year, it is incredible, you should read it. it is a happy appearance for the reader, happy experience for me is a really happy experience for the writer. i see it as a service rather

than a defense mechanism. >> how do you keep from getting overwhelmed when dealing with that many things happening in your eyeballs and brain, how do you keep from getting overwhelmed? >> as a gatekeeper we get 200 submissions a week every week, maybe five ask to see the entire proposal or the entire manuscript, out of this five may be one that we feel confident taking on and feel we can help the writer make the book shine and be the best possible book. the thing is if you keep reading bad things, would i know something good if it came across my desk? we have entrance where they are like how will i know? you will know. they are like -- you always know.

it shines. there's something to a voice, something that captures you. i feel like you always know, the good ones always rise to the top. you can always tell. our job is to make it better but it always rises to the top and you can tell. >> the good ones also continue to be good at 4:30 p.m. as opposed to 10 am after coffee. at 10 am, this is incredible and 4:00 it is the worst i ever read. >> the fifth time you read them when you are editing them they continue to be good also. >> i find being overwhelmed we have probably been at peace with that many years ago. if you just did the numbers there will always be more writers and people who wish to write then those of us who can help and facilitate and publish that. i think that is probably just part of the job, feeling

overwhelmed. publishing is a business and sometimes people forget that because there are so many other things you attach to writing. it is a hope, a dream, and aspiration but from the side it is a business and there are rules to follow within that business and i feel the system works. whatever words you wish to do as a gatekeeper, facilitator, there are ways in place that help us get to as many writers as we can. >> another way to think about it, i play music sometimes and when i was in younger i used to be in band, to start a band is to start a small business and some bands succeed really well because somehow a group of four or five people in the band have the talent to do the defending the business needs, not just to make the music but record the

thing well and talk to the media and the press and be good business people and a right or whoever you are, whether you are sitting at your desk writing for yourself or a professional bestseller you have to think of your self if you are jacqueline smith, this is jacqueline smith's writing career and you hire people along the way to help you run your business are jacqueline smith hires a book agent in order to help sell her works to publishers, she hires a publisher in a certain way to help publicize her craft. there is another side we are working for the writers in a lot of ways and some writers have all those talents themselves and don't need publishers, they don't need the gatekeepers. some people don't have the talent of publicizing their own work and they need to hire people who can do the job for them. >> i was once at a speech

jonathan glassy gave, he was saying his sister at that time worked at nestlé and had to explain publishing was like trying to figure out a marketing plan for every chocolate chip. >> this is also delicious but in a different way. >> that is a huge challenge. how do you decide who the market is for the book, how do you reach that market? >> you read the book 1st of all. >> do that. >> i know it sounds crazy, but there is this point when we are looking at things in a proposal, looking at acquiring things where we are talking about what the potential market is, we read the book that is the thing that answer the question for you the

best, and we have things like comparable titles we use to think about what that market is but almost everything we have is like a separate chocolate chip. they are all separate products, people don't like that word, but being able to define what is different and unique and special and wonderful about that particular book, that particular product, helps you figure out what the audience is and then it is a math problem of figuring out different conduits to the audience, the job of the publisher is to be that conduit between the media, retailers and audience who want to read books like that book. >> a conduit to the reader. >> if readers find her books through following other writers on twitter, we need to do that.

if readers find their books on the front table at a bookstore when they walk in, all those things are conduits. >> to what extent do you depend on the author to trail marketability? making their own gravy as marketers? >> i would be very interested to hear from agents what you think of that because we get proposals from you that help that this that is among the author's toolkit. sometimes the only thing the author does well is right, and that is fine. we need to know that so we know what other parts we need to fill in for someone or other ways we can utilize the other talent if we have more talents if they are great public speakers. if they have a huge media platform we want to use that but

i don't think we require that of anyone. >> to what extent do you look for that care about it, not care about it? >> it is helpful, absolutely as an independent press we are 12 people doing 70 originals a year. it is not a small list or a small workload. each book is evaluated on its own merit and whatever strengths of the author may be may help us get the word out on the book is helpful. it is not a requirement, it is an advantage and something that will help the author for this book and all future works as well. >> as a long time agents, calls notwithstanding, publicity is often the weakest link in publishing because you wind up with a 22-year-old who does not

read the book, at her first job and entire understanding of what to do for publicity is put a book in an envelope and send it off and nothing happens and when you ask them what are you doing? i sent all the review copies out. i am sure betsy knows this as well, yes, publishers spend more and more on what they referred to as a platform and some authors have a platform and some authors don't and some are good at social media and some shy away from it because what they do best is to write it is particularly hard with fiction as we will all tell you but even nonfiction when you have a subject matter people are interested in, whether it is science or food or plumbing, whatever it is. >> do you have a really good plumbing book you want to sell

me? just thinking about that. >> chocolate chips. i would buy that right now. >> it helps when someone has a subject matter they are an expert in but it is true that publicity often is lacking and it does rely on the author doing as much as possible. >> smart authors think of publishers as microphones. the thing about microphones is whatever you say to them comes out louder and sometimes distorted so the best authors have very clear things that they say, very clear messages they want the publishers to promote and they help their publisher to spread them. one of my writers is caitlin doty, a young mortician who wrote a memoir called smoke is in your eyes. caitlin hits a lot of targets. she is a blogger with a small social media following, she is writing about dance and what happens to the body and people

are curious about that. and she is creating fans, wouldn't go to play a show in seattle. and and here is the person to talk to. and >> if your work as promise, we will nudge you to improve your platform and suggest different ways and different consultants

you could talk with. it can be difficult to sell your work if you are invisible. i like the band analogy a lot. you wouldn't go somewhere -- >> bands fail. >> i know. to go where their audience is or develop their audience. statistics on who makes a living as a writer kind of sad. the question of discoverability, where our industry is now is there is a resurgence among independent bookstores, who have been prized traditionally for their ability to encourage discoverability, consumer discovering a book. are there new ways of

discoverability? the retail landscape the bill is challenged even though there is a resurgence of independent bookstores either new ways you guys are thinking of especially publishers of promoting discoverability? >> i would say discoverability happens on bookshelves in bookstores, from humans that work in bookstores, the frontline, people placing books in people's hands, that is why they are really important and more important, as shelf space dwindles and the retail landscape, i like social media, because it is a way for others to interact directly with their audience, something that was really hard for authors to do unless they had a volkswagen book -- a bus or a publisher

willing to send them into the world to meet a lot of humans, you can meet a lot of humans who like reading books like yours and interact with them and develop not the same kind of relationship but develop a relationship with them through social media platforms. it is a way when we talk about platforms like how many novelists had a platform 20 years ago and there are plenty of novelists that have a platform now because they have a way to talk to people. at is another way for people to discover books, certainly not through the heartfelt conversation and building actual relationships. >> the best way still with all the social media and modern inventions the best way to

discover writers is through word-of-mouth. that is the one thing we can never manufacture or expect. that is why this business is mostly magic and luck. we can get it reviewed everywhere, put it in front of you 50 different ways in bookstores and print media and social media but if that book doesn't catch on, if it doesn't capture your imagination, if you are not talking about it with your friends and other readers, we will be stuck. >> you hit the zeitgeist at the right moment. sometimes you do and sometimes you don't and when you do it is light likening natalie -- lightning in a bottle, you had the conversation or you change the conversation out there and it is not even something, once it starts, you can make the train move faster. it is an amazing thing.

>> a lot of it, you made a good point about putting a book in front of people in a lot of places. discoverability is the biggest challenge publishers have. a lot of little things too, we work on keywords to make sure google searches are higher, make sure it is in bookstores if you happen to go to one, you will find it. make sure it is on the radio so if you are listening to the radio you might discover it their too. all of that is giving the book a chance to survive. we can't force you guys to walk to the cash register with a copy of the book and put down $25 to buy or click on amazon or whatever it is unless you really want to. we try to reduce the friction of you finding the book, make it is available and present for you but the book itself has to make you want to buy it. >> there is a huge element of serendipity in publishing which is why our motto is basically

you never know. that is a really fun aspect of this industry and something that keeps us involved. >> a great business model too. it doesn't keep you up all night at all. >> what we do in our daily life aside from answering a ton of emails, is sell our enthusiasm for our authors but i would like the audience to get to know you panelists better and i want you to abandon all modesty and talk about what you think you're special knack is that serves you well in publishing. when i first met you i was struck by how extremely well you pitched your books just in conversation. that is a knack of yours.

what do you think is your special thought? >> justify your existence. do it now. i just want to confirm this is live tv. i think it begins with personal and editorial act of discovery when you read something that moves me or touches me or illuminate something i didn't necessarily know about, a very exciting thing, whether a debut writer or continuing writer or whatever, that is the kind of initial burst of passion that fuels me as an editor and as someone who acquires a lot for a list and that initial passion that gets me through 5, 7, however many drafts we have to get through, more tedious

aspects of the job, meeting upon meeting or whatever it may be so when you go out into the world and talk to other people about it, the natural spark, what you are hearing is this is what i found and can't wait to tell you and it happens a lot that is a great and joyful thing. >> i can say this with dan, having turned down a book that dan actually bought, i will not say the other's name, i couldn't see it. i couldn't figure out where she should go and you figured it out. we live in the same neighborhood driving somewhere, how did you figure out what to do with this? proceeded to explain it to me. >> yes. >> okay. >> i was very cryptic.

probably staring out the window watching a bird. that is another kind of great old-fashioned creaky thing about this business. it is the same for us as it is for you. we could every one of us in this room read a book and all have different thoughts and feelings and opinions on it so i will read something and not get it and you will get it and have great success with it so the book found its right people. a lot of that remains absolutely true. that is one of the great aspect of this business and we have a diverse and interesting group of publishers and writers here. >> so i am a sucker for voice. someone who essentially takes you by the hand, come here, i will tell you a story, they just take you away with it. i suppose as an agent i tend to

be fairly honest, you might even say brutally honest because because essentially i need editors to trust me and i need writers to trust me and i need editors and publishing people to trust me that if i say this is the one, this is really good, three bad things before this so they pay attention and read this right away, actually do. there are agents who are like yes, this is good enough, see if it sticks, i have never been that way and the few times i tried it always lit up my face, that didn't work out at all. i take on what i love because if i don't it doesn't work. you have to tell writers the truth. part of what we do as agencies

manage expectations. i remember years ago a woman writer who was well known but not best-selling and not famous was like i would like to be in the new york times like on the front page. i would really like to be a writer in residence somewhere. i would like a tv deal or a movie deal and i looked at her, i am an agent, not a fairy godmother. i am sure you know this, part of what we do is manage expectations of what is possible and what isn't possible. >> to echo what dan and bonnie said, if you succeed in this business you can figure out how to convey your optimism and enthusiasm for a book in a way that makes people want to open the cover and read it and you

find a lot of joy in being able to do that, something that sustains you and you get excited over and over again about discovering a voice or discovering a story and wanting to share that with the world, it is up really thrilling thing to be able to do. >> what was the question? >> what is your special knack? >> a special song? >> we are publishing a book. >> i saw that. >> the books i like tell me how the world works. one of the first books was the art world, 7 days in the art world, about each chapter took place in a different institution as sociology, how does that work, it opened at an art auction, christie's art auction,

selling $10 million and the writer goes on to describe $10 million and the others worth nothing, and more valuable than a green and the market dynamics, and go to la, and sits in a grad school course and the professor talking about breaking all the rules and she notices everybody breaks the rules and things look like art. does that make sense? it was a book that showed intellectually, physically and economically how a particular community operated. the rules of it. i found that really interesting and always look for books that explain how things work, the hidden substrate of culture or business or society or period of history. that is the sort of nonfiction, narrative is important. i love nonfiction storytellers

and i love novelists who bring ideas, we are publishing her novel next month, her fourth novel, it is at once a thriller, a woman is on the run and her husband is chasing her, you heard that story before but by the end of the book it turns into a story of the fate of humanity, where we are going if we keep doing what we are doing to the planet, it is all these big philosophical ideas you come to while reading a great story. so i think books that are able to give us a different perspective on the world and show us how things work so we come in and use that elsewhere in our lives, those are the books i really love. from a business standpoint i always want to tell a story about an author. we all read books because there are a lot of reasons. a constellation of reasons to

pick a book up and spend money on it but also spend time on it. there is other stuff you can do, a novel takes however many hours to read or nonfiction book, to do that you have to have a lot of reasons for it. i like to say this author thought this way, went to this experience and thinks this way and that is why he is telling the story now, this book is informed by this author's experience and there is a theory of our criticism and the artist intention should have nothing to do with a product that they made and we all respond to the story on the page but also the story of how the page came to be. i like books where i am able to talk about a writer in a way that i narrowed it as much as i can. >> i love that we are in a business where love is a factor. you can see this and all the panelists. i often think back to my days of being an english major when no one cared if i loved beowulf or

not. it is really uplifting to be in a business where how we feel about what we are representing the publishing or publicizing factors in to our work. did you want to say something? >> no. but love is really important and there is a measure of belief we feel with any piece of work, and so much stuff is art fixed but you have to believe the story is real and it matters to you. you have to believe this author is worth listening to and there ideas are valid, they are not charlatans, their advice is going to help you become thinner and have more sex and become richer or that their history will tell you what happened in 1776 better than anything else and that kind of authenticity and conviction is important and

those stem from a love of the topic of the writer or the story. >> my most successful books have been almost without exception little engines that could, started small and ended up with movie deals or sold 1 million copies. one of them, the tribes of palos verdes i sold 20 years ago for not much money to saint martins after seeing a fragment she wrote in a little literary magazine that was only distributed in my silverlake neighborhood called one little ball and she wrote very beautifully about a girl who served. when the book came out it went to the bestseller list, she was on the cover of everything, there were foreign sales. it has been under option for 20 years and is now being made into a film starring jennifer garner. it started out really small and i love those.

i adore them. do you have any similar little engines that could stories you would like to share with your audience? >> an independent press, every engine is a little engine that could. we are and -- what you are waiting for is going out on huge level, and talk about beautiful and wonderful writer named karen vendor who struggled for years, a couple short stories and nice magazines, we collected them into a book called refund which was beautiful and amazing but a story collection, this business teaches you to manage your expectations when it comes to

short fiction. we published it in january, the reviews happened almost immediately to great acclaim. she was put on the contest for the franco connor prize and a finalist for the national book award last year. that would be my cinderella story from a deeply talented writer who had faced adversity and struggle and placing these stories and had a wonderful experience with her collection. >> i think we all have stories like that. i would use the book men explain things to me which is a book that hit the site guist at the right moment. i represented her for 20 years, we met in san francisco. i sold her first book for

$10,000 to range rover revolutionaries, they drive the range rover's, never pay royalties. i know this is live tv. >> this is on live tv. >> you make good tv. >> notice the -- lots of versions of the same story. this book men explain things to me was a collection of essays some of which you can find on the internet if you looked. i sold it to a really small publisher called haymarket which is two guys in a room in new york and it took off and every young woman read it. everyone tweeted it, excellent essays about gender politics and men and women and communication and it keeps going and going and

many thousands of copies because it was the right book at the right moment. >> first book i ever worked on in publishing i worked at an independent press which is not so little anymore called 7 stories press and our publisher had bought a collection of nonfiction essays, a homeless crack addict who lived in the tunnels under grand central station for ten years. he was a smart guy, a camera man, working in advertising and a casual drug user who fell over the edge after his brother died of aids, the book deal was made because the publisher, dan simon, bought a copy of street

news from someone on the train, his train got caught between stations and he read the whole thing and noticed even though a couple stories had different bylines they were all written by the same person and were really well-written and all about the experience of living as a homeless person in new york city and having a crack habit. he gave, can't remember, a couple thousand dollars he gave, it took him several years to write the book, he had to -- he was going to rehab and finally finishing the collection, kurt vonnegut read it. this book landed in my lap and they said any publicity for this? and being able to tell the story

of the writer as well as my telling in the book. and i called people because i had no idea what i was doing, cnn crews followed them around going under the tunnel to grand central and i think maybe they advanced 3000 copies of that book and sold 50,000 copies. lee stringer is a writer today who has written a couple of books and i thought this is what publishing is like? this is great! i think thinking about that, that i could have the opportunity to get somebody's voice out in the world like that is something that makes me have a spring in my step when i go to work every day. >> that is a great story. one of my heroes i have to say, it is really exciting to have

you tell that story. mine you mentioned in the intro, born in 1919, nearly numb 100 years old, lived through world war ii, lived all the 20th century, she was a book publisher who published all the great american, hit the booze so she could finish her novel, she used to say when things got bad at least i am not married to nightfall, was the worst. she wrote this book on her 89th birthday called somewhere towards the end, what it is like to be very old. >> a great title. >> it opens with this incredible scene where someone bought her a tree, imagined a big beautiful tree for and that would be in her garden and she would gaze on it from her window and realize i am not going to be there as

these get any bigger. because i am quite old, can't get a dog because it is not fair to the dog. she wrote about it so precisely and honestly, unflinching about the problems but also the beauty of it. the book was wonderful, 190 perfect pages. not a word out of it, it was published in england, the english rights director came to my office, said you never heard of her? it is about being old. don't you want to buy it? i don't want to do that, who wants to do that? i fell in love with it and made a small offer and they sold it. they started publishing it and started sending out copies of it, handwritten notes, went to alice munro, famous writers i admired and started getting

calls back, paula fox called me, i read this book, too old to review it but i think it is wonderful, send me a postcard. she won a nobel prize. it came out in december, and a front-page review, started taking off, things started sparking, it hit the bestseller list. she went on to win in the critics circle and became -- uk letters and when she won book circle awards, went to this dinner and here i was, back seat. had publishing lady and walked into the room and they all

responded as if a great beauty had arrived, she was 91, here i am at 91, a showstopper. i went to england last year, she is a national treasure, someone everyone calls to talk about being old always. she is beloved and i am going to see diana, moving to the old folks home, gave people a lot of courage, i am going to see her. it became a were shocked tests of people hiding. you should bring her a book you love. that is not going to go anywhere, should bring a big bottle of whiskey. that is a better idea. one publisher said you should print her a really hot caribbean man. that is exactly what she wanted.

she is the little engine that could. >> i love those stories, i adore them. we will open up to a few minutes of questions. very practical question. what can writers do to increase their chances of being published? >> they should write really well. >> i thought someone might say that. >> maintain good attitude. people who can publish your book or publicize your book are overwhelmed, they get a lot of submissions, asked to do a lot of things and have a lot of homework to do. if you are polite to them and help them out and seek to understand what their role is rather than saying why haven't you got me in the new york times yet, that goes a long way. >> maybe remembering they want to get you in the new york times, publishers want the same things writers want, agents want, the same thing they want, most number of people to read

your book, that is how the word-of-mouth happens, how more people find the book and more people read the book. we are working towards the same end. >> even in the la times, i would say as a writer to do research. research agents, research publishers, look on your bookshelf, see if you can find the agent who represents those people because the more you go into the process the better and faster it is for you to find the right person. do your homework before you start because it gets rid of a lot of disappointment because you are going to the right people as opposed to the wrong people. >> to professionalize yourself, think of your writing as a career and work yourself up from the bottom and you are not going

to magically become malcolm gladwell or some famous writer. you have to work hard for a lot of years and a lot of professional steps you have to take and learn what those are is really important. >> to be part of the community, read, come to events, be a part of the community you wish to join. it is not difficult, not hard, but it is necessary and helpful. >> that is really important. i maintain i am often approached because my last name begins with a. that is not a compelling reason. we would love to hear your questions. we have 11 minutes. if you would line up at the microphone and speak clearly we will try to answer your questions. >> i heard the statistic recently that 80% of books are

bought because of the cover art. if that is true it is kind of sad i think that people are not buying it for the content. do you have any experience or comments on that? >> a good cover can help sell a book but you assume when people do, the cover can catch your eye but what most people do is read the first page and then the second page and see if it appeals to them and decide whether to spend their money on it or not. it helps, but it is not the be all end all. >> do you think that statistic is wrong? 80% sounds awfully high. >> i think that presumes that people buy anything for one reason, which is a false presumption. it is hard to quantify something like that. >> i don't know about that test. >> the subtext, is the game

rigged. a cover can determine so much and i don't think so. it can be very helpful but the question i was asking myself is can i think of books that have terrible covers that sold a lot of copies? yes. >> thank you. >> i wanted to thank you guys for coming out. as novel writing month winner or accomplish her or leader i'm in the stone skin phase of sending out queries. any advice on how to write a better query or what you look for and a query that jumps out, you get 500 a year, 200 a week, what helps jump out off of the query page to say maybe i want to look deeper into this?

>> i think it is they are extremely well written. it is a professional moment for you and you would be amazed by what we get. i am not a writer but i wrote a book. i have a whole comedy routine i do a conferences, they are alarming. the good letters stand out and you want to be able to describe your book succinctly and position it, part of the little parlor game we play, what else would you add? >> don't compare yourself to hemingway and thomas pynchon in the same sentence because it doesn't work. put them in different sentences. in different sentences you are fine. >> if you are reading out of the literary scene you will know that a new book just came out in february and it is by this particular writer and it is kind

of like that and i am friends with her because i went to her book event, demonstrating knowledge of the scene, where we are now. it doesn't help me if you are like voorhees, you have to be somebody who is writing in contemporary. >> the any advice on any channels on how to -- i don't remember who said look at the back of books that you have on your bookshelf, are there different ways or channels i can look for to find key masters for the gatekeeper? >> there is a website called publishers marketplace. there is a huge wealth of information. >> thank you so much. >> i am not a negative person but i'm about to go a little negative. i will try to be coherent. i want to challenge something dan said a little earlier,

publishing is a business, there are rules to follow and i feel the system works. i was hoping to get you speaking a little more about that. i have been working in the publishing industry between 9 years, all the evidence i have seen is it is only working for the people already in the system. young people are getting pushed out of their jobs, people of color not being represented in the industry as much as they are in the world and i was hoping you could give me some evidence of where it is working, how it is working, who is making it work and especially how it is working for people who aren't already sitting at the table having these jobs. >> i didn't say that, did i? that quote you used, we were talking about the gatekeeping and submission part of the industry meaning new writers have to find agents who work with them to find good homes as

opposed to writers trying to approach publishers themselves or go off on their own thing. that was a specific part of the business. if you want to talk about the changing demographics or not changing demographics of those people who work in the industry that is a different industry. >> a big problem, diversity is a huge problem in publishing. number of people of color who have editorial jobs is very low and it is deeply distressing. and that is the thing. all we can do is be aware of our own biases and tried to overcome them. >> publishing is open to all

sorts of sources, and talking about gender, most publishing editors and agents are open to this and very aware of this, and increase, it is true and not particularly diverse industry, but not for lack of trying. >> to echo what bonnie says it is not -- and outside of publishing, people need to be asking that question and looking at ourselves and actively trying to make our workforce not just an editorial department but make the entire workforce more diverse because that will foster more diverse voices of all kind

true publishing. any industry you try to get started is hard to get a job in. in the last year. >> it is an apprenticeship business. we all worked our way up and the whole business is based on apprenticeship. >> it is a great panel topic. >> i am a teacher, constantly working for good literature, well-done books to pass on to students and one of my concerns is, a lot of entertainers

publishing books, i don't think they are actually good literature. getting to your level becomes there entertainers and we put their name out and hope they make money? >> it is instructive to go to book expo, the major book publishing industry show that happens in a different city every year because you see how many different kinds of books are published every year and to a certain extent the market determines what gets covered and what gets bought. if you are famous you have a platform and there are people who have heard your name who might be interested in your story and that is the basic market demand for celebrity memoirs. i work for a publishing company that is independent. we have a huge academic division, we are expanding to sell really good books to high

school students and ap students and try to get good books in the hands of smart young people who want to read and it is tough to cut through the noise of what appears to be a lot of celebrity blather but there are really good books, lots and lots of them. in a lot of ways we are trying to connect with teachers like you to find good books. publishers publish schlock because it makes money. we tried to publish good stuff because it also makes money and people want to read celebrity memoirs, a lot of people do. >> it is not the memoirs i'm talking about but the fluff really -- and depending on the celebrity they have a great story to tell. but often they don't, they just -- >> also make a point for reading begetting reading. a