A person to follow
First of all we want to introduce you Alexandra Alter that deals with books need book publishing for many years: from 2009 to “Wall Street Journal " and from mid-2014 to “New York Times”. There is no fatto o evolution of some meaning of the American book industry that has escaped or escape to its analytical attention and does not receive an important article, signed by you, on the pages "Culture“, in the Friday edition of the New York newspaper, or in the sections “Business/Media & Technology".
Every week interviene, guest of Pamela Paul, on podcast of the "New York Times Book Review"With updates and news from the world of books. Thanks to his interventions, phenomena such as the self publishing, fanfiction, audiobooks, the big data, the emergence of hybrid player and other underground movements of an industry undergoing structural change, are become collective heritage and are discussed on talk shows and on the web. Like the late one David Carr, the media columnist of the "Gray Lady", prematurely passed away last February whose blog "The Media Equation" was the state of the art of critical journalism, honest, politely penetrating and devoid of any irritating assertiveness to the Krugman, Alexandra Alter it's a "an influencer” as an authoritative think-tank could be. Abby Goodnough, NYTimes educational reporter since 1999, described the talent di Alexandra Alter:
“Here are some of the things I appreciate most about her – he wrote -: her playful curiosity, her sharp sense of humor and her imperturbable calm. She's super smart, an intellectual who loves to get to the bottom of things, and of course, she's got a lot of good reading under her belt."
Alexandra Alter was born in Riyadh Saudi Arabia where she grew up. She graduated in journalism and religion at Columbia University in New York in 2001. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters. In addition to books, she deals with religion.
The art of bestselling
Il business of the books is very simple: need post At least one bestsellers per year. If there aren't any, the sustainability of the activity is at risk. The Research of the bestseller it has become even more obsessive in the new scenario of digital mediai, where thenetwork effect unfolds with a efficiency and quickness unknown at the time of the mass media.
No major publishers or studio or music label thinks that the theory of long tail by Chris Anderson is that right for remunerate The shareholders and keep the capitalization of the company high. Rather it is the rival theory, that of the Harvard scholar Anita Elberse, which is in their thoughts: theeconomy of amodern publishing companya base on blockbuster. Elberse's book already has in its title the mission of a self-respecting publishing company: Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment. And it's no coincidence that the book became a bestseller in the non-fiction industry. Easy to say, but difficult to implement Elberse's program.
The point is that no sa how to factory un bestseller whether it's a book, a film or an album. The analysts of Goldman Sachs are able to predict the sales of any goods or services with an irrelevant difference between estimates and final results, but when called upon to estimate the result of a book, Of a film or of an album they raise White flag. Those of the Disneywhich is one bestseller factory, in the past three years have messed up two film with a perdita di 400 million of dollars. Even the recent one Tomorrowland, a highly ambitious $180 million production, received a very cold reception from moviegoers in its first and defining week of screening. Frozen, which was Mickey Mouse's company's biggest hit of all time, has left a mouth open Disney executives, amazed at the numbers appearing on their Excel sheets. Bob Iger himself has uttered various expressions of wonder when talking about the film and Disney Animation.
The late David Carr Yes it was persuaded that only Netflix could have la formula of the blockbuster under the capacity di to interpret i data collected on behavior its subscribers and to derive the tendencies of taste and desire. But then we saw that Netflix is too fallible, its maxi production Marco Polo it didn't greatly impress the public who had let it be guessed as a possible blockbuster.
One more confirmation that the art of build blockbusters falls back in territorio of the "mystical” which Ludwig Wittgenstein did not consider in the least possible to investigate with the tools of logic.
The figure of the editor
One of the few Figures which can venture in this area"mystical” to come back with a loot is theeditor, that is, that tall figure of the publishing profession who, like a sculptor, knows how to recognize the potentiality of a matter, takes charge of it in crafts more rough, and many times convoluted, and knows how to work it to make something out of it that can elicit a “wow”. The editor is still a rather neglected figure, little exposed to the general public and often uncomfortable, but indispensable for building a bestseller.
Alexandra Alter, in this titled article Her Stinging Critics Propel Young Adult Best Sellers published in the NYTimes, it shows how she works and what she has achieved Julie Ellyn Strauss-Gabel, editor of books for children and young adults to the publishing house Dutton Children's Books of the Penguin-Random House group. In April 2015 five of the ten titles of the "New York Times Best Seller list” of children's books had Strauss-Gabel as editor. Overall, 22 of the books she supervises have made the NYTimes bestseller list in the children's and teen section. This 43-year-old lady who grew up in New York, daughter of a forensic photographer and a home economics teacher, knows how to build a bestseller that knows how to go beyond the target audience, that of young adults, to impact readers of all ages .
This is undoubtedly good news, but also sad because it is an art that cannot be transmitted. Alexandra Alter explains why Julie Ellyn Strauss-Gabel is so special.
Happy reading, especially to young people who intend to pursue a career in publishing and books.
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It's worth it
John Green still remember the passwords with which his editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, commented the first draft of The fault of the stars. The critique began like this: “It was very pleasant to read this romance ambitious e promising” and in the other twenty pages he tore it apart, as Green himself recounts. "Her letters editorials are famous because they make you to cry and they put youanxiety. I am really long, Detailed and to say the least severe".
One of his most memorable barbs involved a scene whose grotesque climax resembled “le worst fan fiction by John Green". Green understood that would have been appropriate rewrite il final of his latest book, but his ego did not suffer in vain, because the revised and corrected version of The fault of the stars, a love story between two teenagers with cancer, it became a big hit.
It's been three years, but the book is still a bestseller and has been well printed 18,5 million di copy all over the world. It was stretch also an film, which was followed by a wave of realistic novels e current, who are revolutionizing the schemes of the children's literature after over ten years of wizards, vampires and werewolves.
Signed Willy Wonka
In the fairytale world of children's books, it could be said that receiving a letter from Julie Strauss-Gabel, editor of Dutton Children's Book, is like finding a golden ticket: give the privilege of accessing the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory, aka theopportunity to get the approval of criticizes and readers.
Julie seldom writes, but her letters are really sharp and she herself admits it “I know I am particularly demanding, but it's stronger than me, that's how I am. If I don't like a book, I just throw it away”.
To get an idea of his nose for talent and its ability to enhance them, just look at the ranking of bestsellers for children of the "NewYork Times" of April 2015, in which the Dutton novels occupy five positions among the top ten (in total, Strauss-Gable has published 22 of the bestsellers of the "New York Times").
The boom in fiction for teenagers
With her team of successful authors, this woman has become quite influences da to drive il boom in children's novels, phenomenon which is transforming publishing, but also the habits di reading of American.
In the last ten years the publishing cases have been affected by the sales drop and from library crisis, not to mention the price war in the ebook space, but i libri per bambini, in return, they are booming: between bestseller papers from last year, eight books out of ten they were for children o teens, leaving Bill O'Reilly and Gillian Flynn as lone representatives of adult literature. Indeed, in 2014, according to theAssociation of American Publishers, the revenues of the children's books and children they are increased of the Present in several = 21% year-over-year, while adult fiction and non-fiction sales were down 1,4%.
As for Strauss-Gable, a unconventional taste , passion for the items more literary extravagant they have them permesso di track down some of the biggest rising stars of children's literature and help them ad express yourself at your best.
In addition to Green, which has released more than thirty million copies worldwide, theeditor has "bred" successes like the series matched, of Ally Condie, which has sold 3,3 million copies between the United States and Canada. It also launched authors such as Nina LaCour, Stephanie Perkins and Andrew Smith, who has been deservedly compared to Kurt Vonnegut for surrealist novel Grasshopper Jungle.
Even adult authors have started hovering around her, like John Grisham e Meg Wolitzer, who have published several novels featuring Dutton.
"When Julie buys a book, she's effectively buying the author and her career," says Don Weisberg, president of the Penguin Young Readers group, which owns ten children's editions, including Dutton.
The fault of the stars
“Publishing seems to have forgotten i long-term relationships than once, and yet Julie has me devoted a lot of time, before purchasing, yet i started to get a profit”, explains Green, “I have never written a book without her, I would not be capable of it”.
The rapid rise of the American writer reflects, in several respects, the strong impact of children's literature on contemporary culture. Last year The fault of the stars He had a unstoppable success, bookstores created entire sections dedicated to John Green, perhaps near the cashier, and the film, whose colonna sonora it is now famous, Has grossed $125 million only in the United States. The novel, between hardcover and paperback, was one of the top three bestsellers of 2014, according to Publisher Weekly.
In its latest financial report, Penguin Random House, which controls nearly 250 editions worldwide, said that The fault of the stars was one of the best publications of 2014, adding that “the big ones bestseller, especially those for CHILDREN” contributed to an increase in the 25% of the company's revenues.
Anticipating the release of the film adaptation of another novel by John Green, Paper city (2008) dutton ha printed an altro million and a half copies of the book, with images taken from the film. The figure is considerable, when compared with the most anticipated adult title of the year, ie Go Set a Watchman, the second novel by Harper Lee, which will start with two million copies.
The blurring of the line between children's fiction and adult fiction
La fiction for teenagers è took off between the years '60 e '70 with great successes by Judie Blume, SE Hinton and Lois Duncan, while the children's book category began to expand and evolve rapidly in the late 90s. The success JK Rowling's disruptive with the saga of Harry Potter, Which has won a great di adults and to date has sold more than 450 million copies all over the world, it has paved the way other bestseller of various kinds, which followed one after another (Twilight, Shadowhunters, Hunger Games, Divergent), accompanied by successful Hollywood adaptations which have brought older readers closer to children's literature.
Basically, the confine between books for adults and books for teens it is becoming more and more indefinite and the same authors they started experience disturbing plots e complicated narrative structures. According to a recent study by Nielsen Books & Consumer, in 2014 adults aged between 18 and 44 years formed the Present in several = 65% of children's book buyers: 44% of them were men, up from 31% in 2012, and the Present in several = 65% admitted to having bought the books for himself.
Since the children's literature it is arousing interest even beyond outside his natural demographic category, many have begun to wonder, especially on the net, whether children's reading can actually be edifying even for an adult: there are those who see its expansion as a potential threat to American literary culture, also because by now many adults read nothing else. Carl Kulo, director of editorial analysis at Nielsen explains:
This trend has radically changed the dynamics of the market. We have seen a decline in adult literature as children's literature has grown.
It is no coincidence that many writers famous are elbowing for grab a slice of the new market and the list of authors looking to extend their brand is already long and growing: James Patterson, Harlan Coben, Jodi Picoult, Sophie Kinsella, Carl Hiaasen, David Baldacci and John Grisham, to name a few.
“Books about teenagers are in great demand,” says Meg Wolitzer (author of Belzhar, a children's novel published last year by Dutton), who has already signed a contract for two more books with Strauss-Gable, and adds that "children's literature today is so strange and varied and interesting that it wouldn't be fair generalize".
The Formation of Julie Strauss-Gable
Forty-two-year-old Julie Strauss-Gable still remembers the exact moment she realized that i books for children they could be sophisticated e complex as those for adults. She was in eighth grade and was already reading adult books, when the science teacher issued a challenge to the class, promising a few more school credits to anyone who could answer a simple question: "Where is the East Pole?".
Julie was very puzzled, then discovered that the question was from Winnie the Pooh and read it for the first time. “It was a real revelation. I love that book, it's a extraordinary classic”. Twenty-five years later, thanks to what for her was "crazy luck", she became the Dutton's number one, the publishing house publishing Winnie the Pooh in the United States.
Julie è grown a White Plains, in upstate New York, where his father did the forensic photographer and its mother he taught domestic economy; Yes is graduate in English Literature at the prestigious Amherst College, where he met his husband, David Matthew Feldman, writer of texts for popular American children's programs where you exhibits like puppeteer; today they live in Bedford Hills, in upstate New York, in a cheerful and chaotic house, with a five-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son.
Since their college days, when other students measured themselves against Proust and Tolstoy, Julie had a 'authentic passion for the children's stories: attended a children's literature course and a seminar on the Brothers Grimm and in his own thesis explored the issue ofuse and function of the rhetorical figures in fairy tales; after having graduate in pedagogy ad Harvard, where he took courses in comparative literature and demology, found his own first job in publishing at New York Hyperion Books for Children; In the 2011finally landed at Dutton and it was immediately understood that with her things would change: to begin with, reduced the list annual of the Publications from 50 titles for children of all ages to 10 books, focusing the activity of the publishing house on quality fiction for teenagers. A nice change, if we consider that until twenty years ago, as she herself admitted, "no one would ever have thought of publishing children's books without pictures".
In person, Strauss-Gable is nowhere near as terrifying or menacing as her legendary editorial letters. In his office he has one collection of objects di Winnie the Pooh, including soft toys and old picture books. He has a calm tone, but transmits un enthusiasm contagious, especially when he talks about the success of his authors, for whom test un pride virtually motherindeed, he regards his literary offspring as a sort of extended family. He often talks to Green, even every day if he is very busy with a new novel "I call her in the evening and read her what I wrote".
The relationship with the writers
Like exasperated puppies, sometimes the writers si complain of his excessive claims. A few years ago, in Los Angeles, on the occasion of a dinner in honor of Judie Blume, the grand lady of fiction for teenagers, some of Dutton's authors sat down at the same table and the conversation quickly turned to the boss's letters.
“Dinner yes transformed in a group therapy about Julie and her criticisms,” says novelist Adam Gidwitz, “he reads the book and then tells you everything that sucks, but his advice are really lighting".
As a good editor, the Strauss-Gable supervises each stage of production of the books: from the manuscript, which he meticulously reviews, to the design of the cover and the choice of advertising slogans (in the case of The fault of the stars, for example, insisted to the last on the precise shade of blue of the title and on the style of the characters, which they were meant to be vaporous and remember a hand written) and often follows five manuscripts at a time, despite having a editor only within his team. Admits Jodi Reamer, Writers House literary agent representing John Green and Ally Condie:
When I work with Julie I feel confident that the book will be amazing it has the power to build the author into a brand and to reach a level few dare to aspire to.
A genre that has become very crowded
Recently, however, the sector è become increasingly competitive. Almost were released last year in the US 12.900 books for children, compared to almost 6.000 in 2004 (according to Bowker, a company that surveys the performance of the publishing sector).
Now not a week goes by without some new teen novel being labeled the new Harry Potter o Hunger Games and as if that weren't enough every big hit è following from a river of imitations.
“It goes from vampires, to dystopia, to contemporary fiction, to fantasy,” explains Strauss-Gable, “I don't like it when authors claim to write books that resemble current bestsellers, it's precisely at this point that fashions get bored".
Even if they are few (Dutton will publish only eight titles this year) i books of Strauss-Gable are surprisingly diverse (from science fiction, dystopia, psychological thriller, social realism) and although the publisher prefer generally the realistic narrative e Contemporary, recently bought also Biography e essays. Julie's opinion is that
We are in an age in which children's fiction can finally be reinvented and it is the public itself that feels the need. No one has the right to dictate what can or cannot be said in a children's book.
The intuition of a bestseller
In fact, she happened to glimpse a certain potential in manuscripts is they wouldn't be interested in anyone, such as when literary agent Sarah Burnes sent her a chapter from the first book of Adam Gidwitz, some years ago. There first draft had big problems “It was a picture book in which children are beheaded by their parents,” says Gidwitz, who was then a substitute teacher in Brooklyn.
However, Burnes was well aware that Julie was a fan of scary fairy tales and thought she would appreciate the story precisely because of its weirdness. When the three met theeditor said a Gidwitz that the book as it was not had no possibility di break through, but advised him to rewrite it in such a way that turn it in a romance for older children. She offered to read it and make some suggestions, without promising to publish it, and a year e three devastating drafts after it ended for buy.
The novel in question A Tale Dark & Grimm, has become one bestselling trilogy and was named one of the top ten children's books of 2010 by Publishers Weekly and the School Library Journal.
Gidwitz still vividly remembers Strauss-Gable's pep talks. He not only hoped it would be a bestseller, but he wanted to make it a children's classic and set out to create aopera is didn't go May out of print. “Aim really high,” Gidwitz commented, adding that the letters scare him so much that he has become addicted to them:
Every time I receive one I fall into a kind of depression, with very specific phases: the first day I go into a rage; the second day I start crying, I think she's right and I'm a horrible writer; on the third day I tell myself I'm not that bad of a writer, but I can't write; finally, on the fourth day I get to work.
