By Sarah White

I originally wrote this piece in 2006. I’m dusting it off & publishing it now because I will soon announce big publishing news for yours truly. I am somewhat more sanguine about the book publishing industry today, now that I’ve broken out of the business how-to genre. But there’s still a cow in the room.

I live in Madison, Wisconsin, where the World Dairy Expo dominates the calendar each year. Thousands of vendors and farm managers converge – as well as thousands of cows  –  to showcase and test the latest in dairy equipment.  The World Dairy Expo comes to mind whenever I think of my experience with book publishers at the American Booksellers Association’s annual convention, BookExpo.

In early 1995 my first book was published, a how-to titled Do It Yourself Advertising for Adams Media Corporation. Adams had wrangled a speaker’s slot for me to give the booksellers advertising advice at the Expo that year. I did not work the convention to promote book sales the way a more motivated author might have. Even though I wore the prestigious “AUTHOR” name badge around my neck, which commanded a flattering degree of attention, I was intimidated. I fled for home as soon as my speech was over.

The next year I returned to the BookExpo in Chicago because the first book had led to a second offer. This time from the Complete Idiots Guide series, for a book on marketing. The publisher’s acquisitions editor would be in Chicago for the Expo and we would take a meeting–me represented by the freelance acquisitions editor J.W. who had arranged my first book deal (and given himself a co-author credit, as I discovered when he handed the first copy to me and I saw both our names on the cover.) J. and snakes have a fair amount in common, but he’s the only contact I had in publishing and I relied on him to lead me through the snake pit as only a denizen could.

And so in 1996, I found myself again at BookExpo, waiting for the appointed time for this meeting.  Again I wore the coveted “AUTHOR” name badge, which had an effect something like a halo in this gathering of people who worship books.

I did a circuit of the tradeshow floor, then went to the exhibit of Adams Media. A sales rep read my name badge and reacted with delight – “Oh, you’re one of OUR authors.“ He motioned for me to come deeper into the exhibit booth. “Sit down, rest a while with us. Here, you can sit on the white couch. It’s reserved for our authors.” He shooed a couple of salesmen from the couch into the folding chairs nearby, then introduced me. In regal glory I sat alone on the white couch, enjoying their attention. When the time came, I rose from the white couch and excused myself. “I have to go meet with a publisher about my next book.”  Does it get any better than that?

For several years in the mid 1990s the BookExpo was held in Chicago’s cavernous McCormick Center, the only venue big enough to host this gathering of publishers and booksellers. Entire product lines are decided there, and a number of publishing contracts are signed, as publishers use the occasion to meet with authors.

The BookExpo furnishes a room just for publishers meeting with authors about books – you have to have an invitation from a publisher to get in.

The main feature of this special room is food. There was a long buffet – spiral-cut ham, smoked salmon, fresh fruit and vegetables, warm croissants, muffins, more and more wonderful-looking food. Conventioneers outside this room were spending $8 on Chicago-style hot dogs and $5 for Starbucks coffee. Inside this room authors like me were enjoying much better fare, and for free.

I immediately loaded up a plate, then joined my snake/handler J. at a table. Dick from the Idiots joined us, a little bowling ball of a man with a hard-driving style. J. handed him a copy of my first book. Dick weighed it in his hand, checked the table of contents, flipped quickly through its pages. Then he began to ask J. questions about its development. The questions flew between J. and Dick as I sat between them, munching my salmon and melon wedges, my mini-croissants and muffins. Barely a word was addressed to me. Astounded, I watched and munched.

This was the equivalent of the dairy equipment vendor cutting a deal with the farmer, and I was the cow. Once they had figuratively hefted my teats and judged I could produce, my contribution to this meeting was over.

I wanted to be back on the white couch, enjoying the fawning attention of salespeople. This was a little too real. I wanted my fantasy of authorhood back.

My advice to would-be authors is a warning. You will be producing milk for publishers and booksellers to haggle over. Your carefully chosen words are to them a commodity. They have no interest in your beautiful precious mind, only your ability to distill its contents into a marketable fluid they can pour onto pages and sell at 40% discount on Amazon.

Write if you want, pursue publication if it pleases you to do so, and sit on the white couch when it’s offered. But don’t ever think the process is about you.

© 2024 Sarah White