On “Thinking Like Your Editor” by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato ***

So I'm preparing to coteach a course next year, and this is one of the books we intend to use. It's a pretty good summary of the proposal process and of the publishing process in general: for serious trade nonfiction. There is other nonfiction, however, like how-to books, and this one doesn't really delve into that. Or humor. And fiction, of course, is yet another animal.

I'll summarize each chapter, mostly so that I remember its details.

The book opens with an account of the controversy over where to shelve a book. Some books, of course, have two or three subjects, and where they end up in a store can make a big difference in terms of sales. Publishers and booksellers don't always agree.

The introduction notes that acquisitions editors often make decisions based on proposals rather than book manuscripts. The author notes why academic books aren't trade books: (1) discipline-specific writing; (2) jargon; and (3) niche subjects. Editors focus on readers. As an author, you need to know why your book is being written, for home, and what it wants to say. These days, TV appearances sell more books than book reviews.

Chapter 1: All book decisions, including marketing, type of edit, sales, print run, jacket, are based on four criteria: (1) Does the book have a buying audience? (2) Who is that audience? (3) What does this book say to that audience. And (4) Will the audience buy the book? Trade books are idea books, not practice books. So there are four more questions to answer: (1) Is it a book or an article? (2) Is it general interest or academic? (3) Has the audience been properly defined? And (4) Is the topic compelling to a core audience?

Chapter 2: The proposal should tell the editor what needs to be known, not just what the author wants to say. The big five questions a proposal answers: (1) What is the book about? (2) What is the book's thesis and what is new about it? (3) Why are you the person to write it? (4) Why is now the time to publish it? And (5) Who is the core audience and why will they want it? Good proposals tell a story. The proposal is twenty pages double-spaced and leaves the editor wanting more. If you don't have a thesis yet, think of the question driving the projects, the thing you will answer. The answer to that question is more than just the thesis, though—it is the thesis plus the answer to the question, “And so?” That is, how does this finding affect the reader?

Chapter 3: In proposal, the table of contents should contain a paragraph for each chapter with basic points. (Two to three pages for the TOC.) The sample chapter doesn't need to be a real chapter. It can steal from other parts of the book. The point is to be compelling—show that you can write. There are three types of books/chapters: narrative, argument, and explanatory. The proposal package should include the proposal, the TOC, sample chapter, and your CV (with previous publications and publicity contacts).

Chapter 4 is about whether to get an agent or go straight to a publisher. The author recommends the former in most cases.

Chapter 5 denotes the importance of balance and truth telling. If a writer argues something a reader knows not to be true (twisting basic facts), how are we to trust the argument when we get to material we don't know. (I'm reminded of a podcast I was listening to just today, where I knew info that the podcaster obviously didn't. Made me doubt the accuracy of everything else that's been discussed.)

Chapter 6 is about using narrative elements to drive reader interest—essentially posing a question and dangling the answer out in front for th reader to discover.

Chapter 7 argues that anecdote to start a book is oversold. If used, it should be short. Intros instead should get quickly to the thesis, a bold thesis. Readers use the intro to see whether to buy the book. In essence, the intro should give away the book in terms of the thesis, but the rest of the book shows how that thesis can be true. That's how readers stay curious. Intro also lays out how the book is different from other related texts. Exception to this advice on introductions: biographies. Those will use an anecdote to lay out one emblematic moment from the life of the subject. After the introduction, in nonfiction, comes the context chapter. Then narrative chapters with side issues in break-narrative chapters or in two-to-three page section breaks with more more context.

Chapter 8 reviews the editing and publishing process.

Writing craft books usually intimidate me a bit. They make me feel like I'm not sufficiently following rules. But the best way to learn is really by doing and by reading, a lot.

On "The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad ***

I was never able to get through Lord Jim, but I was a teen at the time, and then in college I read Heart of Darkness and came to admire it--but I think that was in part because I wrote a paper on it and as such read the book several times over. This book feels like it would need to be read more than once to truly appreciate it; unfortunately, it didn't bear so much interest in me that I felt compelled or desirous of reading it a second time.

The story is one of a secret agent named Verloc who involves himself with various revolutionary anarchist groups to feed, I suppose, information to the government. But that government isn't so impressed by the information that Verloc provides. He's threatened with being cut loose.

Reverse back a bit. Verloc is married and takes care of a wife, his wife's mother, and his wife's mentally challenged brother. The everyday front he has is an adult bookstore--racy photos, books, gifts, and other stuff that men might like, though don't want anyone else to know it.

We also meet along the way the various revolutionaries and some police and law enforcement types. In the middle of the book, a bomb goes off, and a man is blown into pieces. Some witnesses say another man was with him. Who was the other man? Who was the man blown up? Much of the rest of the plot revolves around this. In the process, we see more about Verloc's character, the character of those involved in law enforcement, those involved with the government, and those involved with the revolutionary movements. No one comes off looking very well, and one feels sad for those unwittingly caught up among them.

On “The Twelve” by C. Bernard Ruffin ****

This is the fourth book I've that focuses, in some way, on each of the twelve apostles following the books of the New Testament. It is not as good as Sean McDowell's Fates of the Apostles, which focused chiefly on how they died and is a bit formulaic in chapter setup but which is also more up to date, more readable, and more focused on sources. Nor is it as good as Brian Liftin's After Acts, which also is somewhat formulaic, does not cover all twelve apostles thoroughly, and is often lacking is source citations, but which is very readable. However, it is better than William Steuart McBirnie's The Search for the Twelve Apostles, which while thorough and quotes heavily from sources, is kind of a drag of a read and seems too heavily focused on burial places and relics. Ruffin's book covers each of the twelve and is somewhat thorough; however, like McBirnie's work, the writing at times drags. It also seems a bit too heavily and uncritically dependent on legends and Catholic teaching (though I have no idea whether Ruffin was actually Catholic). Unfortunately, it's unlikely that any book will ever satisfactorily fill one's curiosity about the twelve after the events of the New Testament or even about them in terms of their background and biography, since in some cases, all we know of them in the New Testament is a few scattered quotes and their names.

Although I was familiar with most of this material, there were things I learned—or perhaps was reminded of that I'd forgotten. Ruffin engages in some closer readings of the New Testament text and raised for me some perceptions that I hadn't yet come across. Take, for example, the two callings of Peter, one while fishing and another with his brother Andrew coming to tell him to come meet Jesus. Ruffin puts these together, with the idea that Peter met Jesus once, and then was actually called to discipleship sometime later while fishing. There were also some descriptions of Jesus's extended family that I was only vaguely aware of—for example, the idea that Matthew was conceivably a cousin of Jesus. James Tabor makes much of how virtually all the disciples were related to Jesus and tries to make the case that all three of his brothers were among the twelve (or maybe that's Jeffrey Butz's argument or maybe both—I get these ideas and whose they are confused). But in making such a case, Tabor's claims begin to stretch credulity, and one feels that the writer has an agenda. Ruffin clearly has an agenda also, but that agenda would not be forcing familial relationships on Jesus's disciples, as such would seem more to discount his belief that Jesus was God in the flesh than to serve it, insofar as if so many of his followers were family members, it's easier to make a case that this was a familial conspiracy. In that sense, at least on this account, Ruffin comes across as a bit more believable, when he makes cases for at least five the apostles possibly being cousins. Another interesting claim: That Philip the deacon and apostle were the same. He notes that the twelve may well have wanted an apostle as one of the seven deacons to preserve doctrinal truth, and Philip, who would work heavily among the Samaritans and whose Greek name suggests a connection to the diaspora community, would have fit the agenda well.

Anyway, the book was worth the read, even if it took longer than I would have expected for a book of its size.

On "Road Dogs" by Elmore Leonard ****

I placed this as my last book on my Elmore Leonard list after reading that it had characters from City Primeval, La Brava, and Out of Sight. It also, as it turned out, had a character from Maximum Bob, which I didn't read. But really, the book is one about characters from La Brava and Out of Sight; other characters are simply mentioned.

This is a Jack Foley book, the main character in Out of Sight. Cundo, a violent offender in La Brava, is also here. Now, they're prison pals. Cundo has a good deal of money and a good lawyer, and he sets Foley up with that lawyer on an appeal, who gets Foley out of prison with barely a sentence to his name. Now Foley owes Cundo big time.

Cundo is crazy about some gal named Dawn, a woman who professes to be psychic but who by and large seems largely to be a conman. Dawn wraps Foley into her arms and tries to enlist him in her schemes—one to rip off a grieving actress and another to rip off Cunda. But Dawn is too confident in her appeal as a woman, uses it to get power over a lot of men whom she uses. But it's not enough, by and large. For some money is remains too important. And for Foley, it's a kind of honor. It seems he's determined to go straight, if only he can find a way.

It was probably George Clooney playing Foley in the movie Out of Sight that did it, but he remains my favorite Leonard character. I can't see help but see him playing the role, his cool and suave persona, likeable even if a crook.