oliver yeh

When you agree on books, you agree on life.

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A quote from “… a British editor [who acquired] nearly every project sent to her by a particular agent who was also a good friend. People in the industry seemed to resent the close relationship…” — Betsy Lerner in How Agents Operate and the important role of relationships between agent and editor/publishing house.

I think this quote extends beyond the editor/agent relationship…

(Source: pw.org)

So I’m walking my dog this morning and I run into a vague acquaintance who stops to chat, and leads with: so are books dead? Friends, remember, I was walking my dog. I had a plastic bag filled with warm shit. In other words, I was armed and dangerous. Are books dead? Bernard Malamud said book will be dead when the penis is dead.

Am I paraphrasing? I saw three people reading on Kindles on the subway today. I was desperate to know what they were reading, so I got over my shy-on and asked. One was reading Tolstoy, one reading Chekov, and one reading Dusty. What is the likelihood of that???  Tonight, I taught a class at Hunter and one of the attendees said she was reading my book Kindle. That gave me wood; c’est vrai.

- Betsy Lerner, literary agent.

(Source: betsylerner.wordpress.com)

In a PW rant last week, a famous writer said, “The Internet is not to blame for your unfinished novel: you are.” As far as I’m concerned, the internet was created to keep more crappy novels from crowding the in-boxes of bitching ass agents like me. From crowding the shelves of bookstores. From taking down trees. From becoming e and crowding the what? ether? I think the more the internet keeps people from writing the better. Thank you internet porn. Thank you E-Bay. Thank you YouTube. Thank you Mark Zuckerberg. Every minute you surf the web is a minute you don’t write something stupid and pathetic.

- Betsy Lerner, literary agent, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

(Source: betsylerner.wordpress.com)

So today, I was the distinguished guest at a Master’s tea at Yale. I was invited to talk about publishing, writing, agenting, the usual. I thought it would be really clever to eat a few “pop’ems” before I left the house. These are Entemann’s idea of munchkins, only a little more dense. Anyway, I like to show up for these gigs with a little white powder on my chest in case my cred is in question. Then I like to remind the kids that life is long, but not that long. That if they do enough drugs they will become great writers. And that getting published is like getting spit on. It’s exhausting being this inspirational.

- Betsy Lerner, literary agent at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

(Source: betsylerner.wordpress.com)

Font size is one of those issues. Like penises, they can be too big, too small, or just right. 12-point is the standard, friend, don’t fuck with it. And don’t go all Boldoni or Helvetica on my ass either. Bring it in 12 point type, Times New Roman, double-spaced paginated pages because there is nothing uglier on the face of the earth than an agent who has reached over for a sip of her Numi ginger tea and dropped an unpaginated manuscript all over the floor.

- Betsy Lerner, literary agent, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

One of the most important things a writer needs to learn is how to to separate information from analysis.

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Betsy Lerner, as heard by Janet Reid:

If you think of every rejection as an analysis of your work you’ll make yourself nuts.

If you think of the query process as simply as way to get information —which agent wants to read your book— you’ll make yourself less nuts.

(Source: jetreidliterary.blogspot.com)

… character is not best revealed through dialogue. Characters have to act.

- Betsy Lerner, Dunow Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency

Ask yourself, who is going to read my book. Actually, fuck that. Just write it.

- Betsy Lerner, “Here We Are Now, Entertain Us.”

I will always be a sucker for this: for words to take me away from me as they console me, to make me forget myself and remind me who I am, to be trustworthy and manipulative, to seduce and destroy, to implicate and complicate, to come alive.

- Betsy Lerner, Agent at Dunow, Carlson and Lerner Literary Agency

Just imagine yourself at a party. You discover someone writes. You ask, what is your book about? They reply with a five minute plot description. I would guess that by the end of thirty seconds you find yourself wishing you were never born. Now imagine the writer responding, “It’s about a woman who kills her therapist.

- Betsy Lerner about why it’s a good idea to boil down the essence of your book into one sentence if you want to hook someone.