Tuesdays with Story
November 2nd 2021
The first word . . .
Be polite. The editor you email today may be the CEO of your publisher next year.
Here’s who presented this week
Larry Sommers (MemoirDebriefing) . . . My introductory chapter to a projected memoir, titled “Debriefing,” was generally well-received as a tentative start of something as yet indefinite. John felt the material between the initial aerial reconnaissance scenes and the final paragraph, looping back to the concept of debriefing, could be omitted. Jack felt the passage from Yeats’ “The Second Coming” may have been misplaced. Jack and Jerry suggested that the idea of having been born in a golden age could be expanded. Thanks everybody. Onward and upward.
Jack Freiburger (poems, “Mannan’s Dream” and “Fall Fire”) . . . Always interesting to drop something unusual into the group pot to see what everyone makes of it. Some poetry is difficult to review, including by myself as the referent structure can be too narrow for general readers, so the sense or image then is the goal so that one can read affectively and get the feel of the thing while remaining as perplexed as the author
John Schneller (chapter 24, Precious Daughter) . . . Clarifications are needed as several readers noted the problem with stage directions. Characters, we are told, moved deeper into the cave yet remained at the fire. A variety of reactions were shared when the mountain fighters observed the soldiers in the woods. Some wanted immediate defensive response. The recruitment of the animal folk was welcome but clarification was needed that they were not in the immediate area.
Jerry Peterson (chapters 31-32, Night Flight) . . . Amber felt we didn’t need to go through everything in the funeral, that it can be edited down. “But keep the business about removing the lid from the coffin so Lottie’s parents and Rooster and Rachel can see Lottie one last time. Jack agreed with Amber, that the funeral could be cut by a third to a half. “I would add that someone has tied a noose in the end of the bell rope,” Jack said, “that someone in the church wants Sammy to hang, that Rev. Todd has to undo the noose before he pulls on the rope to ring the bell.” Larry ticked off a list of small items he wants fixed. John said Rachel has to react when Rooster pulls his gun and takes off after Sammy. She has to fear her husband’s going to get into trouble, probably end up in jail, John said.
November 16, your presenters
Kashmira Sheth (manuscript, picture book, Dragon Wagon)
Mike Austin (something)
Paul Wagner (???)
Jaime Nelson Noven (chapters 1-2 rewrite, New York, After All)
John Schneller (chapter, Precious Daughter)
Jerry Peterson (chapters 33 and 34a, Night Flight)
Looking ahead
November 30 is out next Fifth Tuesday. Jack will host us at his farm. We need a writing challenge, so bring your ideas to our next meeting.
Our editor
John Schneller continues as our November editor for Writer’s Mail. Do you have something that you’d like him to include in the next issue? If you do, email it to John.
Merriam-Webster adds 455 words to its dictionary
It happened last week, the dictionary company added 455 words to its mainline tome, words such as dadbod, whataboutism, and even fluffernutter. Here’s the link to the full story: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/new-words-in-the-dictionary
Bill Watterson on generating ideas . . .
Want to keep young as a writer? Keep busy as a writer? Keep writing as a writer? Cartoonist Bill Watterson—Remember Calvin and Hobbes? They are his creation.—shared his hard-won wisdom in those and other matters 32 years ago in a commencement address to graduating seniors at Kenyon College. Here’s the link: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/may-20-1990-advice-on-life-and-creative-integrity-from-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson?utm_source=pocket-newtab
DOJ Tilts at Random Penguin; O Bennett Cerf, Where Art Thou?
“Authors are the lifeblood of book publishing. Without authors, there would be no stories; no poetry; no biographies; no written discourse on history, arts, culture, society, or politics.”
Warms your heart, doesn’t it? Who said it? Hemingway? Stephen King? Jane Friedman? Some agent or publisher with a heart of gold?
No. The words above are the opening salvo of UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. BERTELSMANN et al., an antitrust action filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, this past Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021.
It all started a long time ago (see “Big Bang Theory”), but for our purposes it goes back to July 1, 2013, when Random House merged with, or swallowed up, Penguin, creating a new entity called Penguin Random House and reducing the Bix Six U.S. publishers to the Big Five.
Fast forward to Nov. 25, 2020, when Bertelsmann SE & Co., the German corporation that owns Penguin Random House, and ViacomCBS, the U.S. corporation that owns Simon & Schuster, announced that PRH would buy S&S for $2.175 billion. The agreement between the two included a rumored $200 million indemnity for S&S if the deal was thwarted by authorities.
In March 2020, when S&S was first put up for sale, its current CEO wrote in a letter to one of its best-selling authors, “I’m pretty sure that the Department of Justice wouldn’t allow Penguin Random House to buy us, but that’s assuming we still have a Department of Justice.”
The Nov. 2 filing constitutes DOJ’s notice that it still exists.
If the acquisition goes through, the Big Five will become the Big Four, and the combined Penguin Random House / Simon & Schuster entity will dwarf the next biggest U.S. publisher, HarperCollins.
The Justice Department action, under the Clayton Antitrust Act, claims to represent the interests of authors, especially “authors of anticipated top-selling books” and, incidentally, the interests of the book-buying public. A specific definition of “anticipated top-selling books” is not offered.
What about the interests of authors and writers in general? On January 29, 2021, the Authors Guild, Romance Writers of America, the National Writers Union, Sisters in Crime, Western Writers of America, and the Horror Writers Association jointly wrote the Justice Department asking it to stop the deal.
The Justice Department’s brief states that “If consummated, this merger would likely result in substantial harm to authors of anticipated top-selling books and ultimately, consumers. . . . Post-merger, the two largest publishers would collectively control more than two-thirds of this market, leaving hundreds of authors with fewer alternatives and less leverage.”
DOJ points to the head-to-head competition that now exists between the two houses in the form of bidding wars for “anticipated top-selling books.” The filing details seven bidding wars between PRH and S&S that resulted in six- or seven-figure advances for the authors in question. In each case the head-to-head bidding drove up the price, to the author’s benefit. Anticipating this objection to the purchase, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle, in a private Zoom interview Sept. 20, announced the merged company will allow competitive bidding between its two halves after the merger, though he reserved the right as CEO “for governance reasons,” to “weigh in at a very high threshold of well over $1 million.” Translation: “We will voluntarily act as if we were not one company, up to a point, and then we won’t.”
One might speculate that the government’s stress on “anticipated top-selling books” is intended to vitiate the offer to voluntarily continue competition, since many top-selling books, however defined, receive advances exceeding Dohle’s $1 million threshold.
Gainsaying the totality of the government’s assertions, PRH and S&S said in a combined statement, “This is a pro-consumer, pro-author, and pro-book seller transaction, which will allow increased investment in the publishing programs of both S&S and PRH. . . . Blocking the transaction would harm the very authors DOJ purports to protect.”
It will be interesting to watch this case as it progresses. Its outcome could shape the future market, and authors’ earnings, for years to come.
Tuesdays with Story 
Leave a Reply