Print Run Podcast

This week’s show features a discussion on the tricky nature of writing fiction about real historical figures, and the heavy responsibility a writer carries in managing source material, historical gaps, and power dynamics. Then, separately, we talk about how agents and authors might balance the much-justified desire for industry transparency with the fact that the author-agent relationship is, well, human and complicated; how can both parties work together to find a place where everyone’s comfortable? Plus, a great To Loon It May Concern about blurbs!

In this week’s show, we discuss everyone’s favorite topic: grammar. How do certain conventions in grammar, syntax, and punctuation end up as class signifiers or tools for enforcing other systems of power? We talk style guides, copy editing, the new book on grammar by Benjamin Dreyer, and plenty else. Also: the horrors of magazine submission fees, and a new letter to the Loon.

We survived the cold! This week we take a look at Wattpad’s new plan to create a full-service publisher and “revolutionize” the media industry (lol), especially in light of further traditional imprint closures and consolidations. Then, we examine that bonkers New Yorker story about Dan Mallory, and discuss how and why some people in the publishing world are allowed to be eccentric liars and self-mythologizers while others never even get a chance to tell the truth. And a To Loon It May Concern at the end. Join us!

In light of the NYT’s critical response to the debut story collection from Kristen Roupenian (author of “Cat Person”), we trace the publishing route from the initial story’s viral success to where the collection is at now, and talk fairly extensively about how publishing handles and responds to viral success. We see a connection between that response and publishing’s newfound desire for first-person narratives readers can “see themselves” in--so much so that a whole imprint has started to publish exclusively first-person projects. This is one of our better and deeper conversations, in our opinion, and we’re excited to hear what you think!

This week, we take stock of three bizarre and unsettling publishing stories: the apparent missteps in the reporting and fact-checking in Jill Abramson’s new book, the author Sherrilyn Kenyon filing a lawsuit over having been poisoned, and to top it all off, Kathleen Hale getting another book deal that strangely seems to celebrate the fact that she tracked down a Goodreads reviewer to her home. It’s a mix of the weird, and we try to draw some larger lessons for publishing out of the mess. Join us!

Happy new year, everyone! On the first Print Run of 2019, We take a look at the year ahead by going through what we’re excited about in the book world, what we’re scared of, predictions, and resolutions. We’ll make it a great year in which certainly nothing will ever happen that makes us mad at all!

Folks, it’s that time of year again. After a riveting new edition of everyone’s favorite Australia-themed segment What’s Going On Down There, we get into some gift suggestions for the Print Run fan in your life. This obviously ranges from the genuinely useful (electric tea kettle!) to the—uh, less so. Anyway, join us for a loose and fun episode that’s sure to warm the cold recesses of your frozen heart.

As we come back from a few weeks off, we spent this episode getting caught up on all the times people in the book world got mad recently, including the Nora Roberts-Tomi Adeyemi kerfuffle (and spinoff argument!), a poet who tattooed a plagiarized verse on her forearm, and people getting mad at JK Rowling for—let’s see here—having a room in which she writes. So basically it’s another normal week of publishing!!!!!! We also get to Jonathan Franzen’s ten rules for writing novels, which were, well. They sure do exist, we’ll say that. Also: our special episodes for November will be out this week, and we apologize for the delay. Full slate of December epis coming out all month as well.

This week we pay respects to Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee, who died this week at age 95. Then we get into one of the most pervasive yet undiscussed topics in all of publishing: failure. Trying things that don’t work is the signature trait of nearly every facet of the industry, and yet it’s so rarely brought to light in the way successes understandably are. We talk about how failure has informed our respective approaches to agenting, and how working in the industry can feel like its own sort of creative pursuit--one that involves experimentation, failure, and learning from mistakes, all in the name of trying to sharpen one’s own craft and tastes. Join us!

Folks . . . The celebs, there are so many. This week--after digging into a delightful historical episode of a book-theft epidemic in Australia—we explore the concept of celebrity book clubs and their effect on the publishing industry. How does the desire to land a book with Oprah or Reese Witherspoon or Jimmy Fallon change how certain projects get published? And what do those celebrities get, brand-wise, in return? We also look at how tech like Instagram and even newer platforms like Twitch have changed and will continue to change these dynamics. Join us!

This week, after working through our thoughts on National Novel Writing Month (happy writing, everyone!), we discuss the intriguing critical response to the video game “Red Dead Redemption 2.” Apart from it being widely loved, people are specifically enjoying how difficult and tedious it is in spots--is this still an experience readers have with particularly large or difficult books? We talk about the differences between playing and reading, and wonder if seeing games as texts might be able to inform our thoughts on writing or pitching books. And of course, we end with a To Loon It May Concern! All special episodes will be out in the next couple days. As always, you can send us materials for these at printrunpodcast@gmail.com.

We’re back! Fresh off the both of us having our respective weddings, we get caught up quickly on the last few weeks of publishing news before diving into the topic of creative and literary burnout. When someone working in a creative field is feeling low energy, how might that affect their habits, or their reading tastes, or even the types of projects they choose to work on? In publishing, taste is a public matter; when yours changes, it can be tricky to grapple with that out loud, in front of the rest of the industry. We discuss the ins and outs of creative burnout, and then finish with a new and particularly worthwhile To Loon It May Concern. Join us!

We’ve got freshly announced National Book Award and Man Booker finalist lists to discuss, so we give our impressions on what we’re seeing, how these lists relates to the broad Book Conversation that’s been happening throughout the year, and how we feel the winners might shake out. It offers a nice foundation for our other topic, a look at a recent attempt by NYMag/Vulture to create an early twenty-first century canon. The task is obviously impossible, but we talk about their methodology, and share our own thoughts on what might define the critical examination of books from this era in literary history.

This week, we found a very strange new “writing residency” model that, while obviously dangerous in this instance, we feel could crop up more and more. The sheer precarity of the writing life is going to lead to different institutions offering “solutions” that at first might seem attractive, but must be watched closely. Also, in light of two book-tech-related stories from the past couple weeks, we make a simple request: don’t let creators of sales algorithms and other digital publishing technologies pass off moral responsibility for the outcomes they produce. Plus: a new fiction writer under FBI investigation, and another round of To Loon It May Concern. Join us!

This week, after swatting another terrible article about YA literature out of the sky, we talk about the perceived moral stands publishers are able with regard to “controversial” authors. Publishers often wait until the most obviously lucrative moment to support marginalized authors and their projects, and also refuse to cut bait with toxic authors until the last possible instant, when their hand becomes forced. How do morality clauses let publishers hedge their bets while still claiming a supposed high ground? To finish the show, we dip into our new advice mailbag, where we’ve got two terrific publishing questions to consider.