A Modest Proposal for Publishing, Inspired By the Oscars Pizzas

Last night, there was pizza at the Oscars. Because, you know, even movie stars get hungry. It was a funny gag--well played, Ellen. And nice plate-passing, Brad Pitt.

But it also underscored the American sensibilities that, OMG, it's been like three whole hours since I ate, I'm staaarving and--more notable for purposes of this post--that it's not Real Entertainment without food. Think about it: hot dogs at the baseball game, popcorn at the movie theater, beer at a rock concert. Hell, these days, Americans can barely even drive without some sort of calorie-heavy comestible in our hand or at least at arm's reach in the cupholder--grease and sugar as security blanket, if not co-pilot (KFC Go Cup, take the wheel!). 

As a writer, I'm always wondering how I can sell books, how I can make this writing thing work in an economically sustainable way. It's rough out there, not gonna lie, not least because we live in an era in which many people recoil at the idea of paying more than $9.99 for a book (even though they'll gladly shell out $11 for ninety minutes at the multiplex), a time when, as publisher Dennis Johnson of Melville House recently told The New Yorker, "Amazon has successfully fostered the idea that a book is a thing of minimal value. It's a widget."

And there are tons of ideas out there about how to fix this and make publishing sustainable and profitable. But there's one I haven't heard floated.

Snacks.

Publishing industry, hear me out. The path to success is marked by a trail of sticky, greasy, unidentifiable-but-oh-so-tantalizing crumbs and splotches. Movie theaters have known this forever. Snacks. Snacks make the money; the movie's just the thing that gets the consumers there.

First of all, books should come with cupholders. I think this goes without saying. Everything has cupholders these days. Strollers. Bikes. Lawn chairs. I bet there are even big cupholders with little cupholders attached. In 2014, not having them is a major design flaw, and one that could easily be remedied by simply die-cutting the back cover. (For e-books, you'll have to sell them separately, obviously. Presumably suction cups would be involved.)

Second, we need an iconic snack that goes with the literary experience. Not kale chips or edamame or quinoa balls, don't give me any of that Wimpy Book Nerd Stereotype stuff. We need hard-core junk food. If Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser aren't clutching their heads in disapproving agony when they hear about it, then it's not good enough. If they'd serve it at your standard Upper West Side book club meeting, it's definitively a no-go. My first idea is Candy Coated Deep-fried Mountain Dew. I'm sure our technology and manufacturing sectors are up to the task. But, anyway, that's just a brainstorm. I'm willing to continue the discussion. For some reason, I kinda feel like Gary Shteyngart would have some great ideas.

Third, and most of all, hard-copy books should come with snacks. At least for a little while, in this start-up phase of what we should probably just call the Snacking to Save Publishing Program (SSPP). You know, to really make it a whole Package Experience, and to hook 'em on the pairing, like how I eat popcorn and suddenly want to watch a movie. Remember how all those commentary tracks got us to switch from video tapes to DVDs? Also, you didn't hear this from me, but if you include snacks in the experience, you can charge extra. Americans. Love. Snacks.

To this end, America, allow me to start things off by offering you ...

THE EUROPE ON FIVE WRONG TURNS A DAY SNACK PACK!!!

Yes, for the low, low price of just $35 (plus shipping & handling), you get:

- A signed and personalized copy of Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day! (Wow!!)
- A can of Coke! (Golly!!)

- A bag of tortilla chips--with one chip also signed by the author! (Phenomenal!!)

- A printed preview of my next book! (Just like the movies!!)

Email doug@douglasmack.net to place your order today!! 

Act now and you'll also get a free can of nacho cheese!! (Yumm!!)

... AND A PAPER NAPKIN!! (Whaaat?!)

Remember, that's doug@douglasmack.net. Order now!!

Life of a travel writer in two photos

I love this life, but sometimes a reality-check is in order. (See also, among others, Lee's comments on the not-so-glamorous life of a travel writer, and Alexis Grant's recent post on the same subject.) Right now, eleven days until book deadline, I'm reminded that for every single day I spend here:

... I can count on another--What? Four? Ten? Twenty?--days here:

(And if you panned right just a bit, you'd see another shelf of research books, plus a dozen over-stuffed folders with magazines, my notes, and my parents' letters.)

By the numbers: writing-a-book edition

I finished my first full draft on Sunday! Woohoo!

Date of book deal: 2 June 2010
Date of completing full draft: 16 January 2011
Form of celebration: Surly Darkness! And a delicious, impromptu feast of pasta and pork tenderloin (thanks, Sebastian and Becky!)
Manuscript deadline: 1 March 2011
Editing that I need do before then: Well ... a lot
Target word count: 70,000-75,000
Current word count: 91,810 (gulp)
Total chapters: 12
First word: It
Last word: Friends
Most over-used punctuation: em dash
Elements of Style rules broken: probably all of them
Shortest paragraph: 1 word ("And.")
Longest paragraph: 374 words
Shortest section: 32 words
Longest section: 1,598 words
General section-length target when writing: no more than 800 words
Shortest chapter: Zurich (just barely beating out Brussels)
Longest chapter: Vienna
Median (length) chapter: Amsterdam
Easiest chapters to write: Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Madrid
Amount of time spent on each of those chapters: about two weeks each
Most difficult chapters to write: Paris, Venice
Amount of time spent on those chapters: about a month each
Rough percentage of time spent writing in various locations:
... at desk/table in apartment: 10
... at downtown Minneapolis library: 20
... in easy chair in apartment: 60
... in other locations (e.g. coffee shops, various places while traveling): 10
Percentage written while not wearing pants: 92 (kidding!)
Cities included in "other locations" (i.e. where I wrote on the road): New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, Seattle, Key West
Preferred writing fuel: Bolthouse Farms' Blue Goodness Smoothie
Preferred writing music: Pandora station with classical guitar, instrumental jazz/hip-hop, low-key electronic (nothing catchy, nothing with lyrics)
Computer mice killed in the process of writing: 1
Post-It flags currently in my copy of Europe on $5 a Day, marking Important Things I'm not sure I ever got around to mentioning: 12
Books used as sources for research component of writing: at least 20-30 (I'll try to compile a list and post it sometime)
Newspaper/magazine articles: countless
Frequency of selected words in draft:

... tourist, tourists, touristic, or tourism: 433 (!!)

... travel, traveler, or traveling: 269

... Arthur: 229

... Lee: 176

... Mom or mother: 130

... I: 2,092 (Yikes! Well, it is a first-person memoir)

... croissant, pain au chocolat, or pastry: 17

... awkward, awkwardly, nervous, nervously: 14

... whizzer: 1 (regarding Manneken Pis, "the wee whizzer")

The 125 most common words in my current draft

Tour guides with extended cameos in book: 4

Number of those tour guides used as case study of everything wrong with tourism: 1

Readers of various sections and/or the proposal that started this all: 11 (in the aggregate; some have read only a few pages, others have read everything, all were invaluable)
Special thanks to the superstar readers: Hannah, Jason, Frank, Maggie
... And the proposal guru: Dennis
... And especially the sidekick and reader extraordinaire: the one and only Lee
... And! My brilliant and supportive agent and editor, without whom, no book: Elizabeth Evans and Marian Lizzi
Amount of my gratitude to you all: Boundless. (Wow, that really sounds cold and rote when it's just shoved into a list. Really, truly: molto grazie, all; I'm fortunate to have such a good network.)
Amount of time I plan to take off from working on or even thinking about the book before diving headlong into the editing: two weeks
Likelihood of me actually resisting revisiting/tweaking/obsessively worrying in that amount of time: Ha! Probably nil. But it's a goal.
Anxiety that I forgot some important point or left out a crucial scene or didn't include enough history or enough jokes ... or generally screwed up and everyone's gonna hate it: Pretty high, to be honest
General contentment with how it's all turned out, in spite of the above: Also pretty high. Go figure.

The art and joy of random riffs and references

One of the joys and frustrations (in equal measure) of working on a research-intensive writing project is that your brain becomes wired to look for connections and associations everywhere. Several times a day, I'll be reading a random newspaper article, magazine article, or blog post--purely for pleasure, not for research--and I'll suddenly stop and think, Wow, that's a great point about the World Cup/Sartre/local noise ordinances/the Fourth of July/pistachios/font design/NASA! I should work that into my book! 


[NOTE: This became an essay about the artistry of piecing together connections, and my own struggles with same. I suspect that most of my readers don't actually care to read 700 soul-searching words on the subject, so I've moved that section to a footnote at the bottom of the post, after the jump.]


About two-thirds of the time, I think for three seconds and realize, no, it would be completely ridiculous to quote this. Dude: Smurfs do not tell us anything about Paris or Parisians. And wherever you were going with that, it was probably offensive. But a third of the time, I write it down in hopes that, yeah, maybe I can do something with that. A few recent examples (sans my commentary on how it relates to tourism/travel/travel writing; I'll let you guess):

1. From this Associated Press story about travel in South Africa during the World Cup:

Like any worthy pilgrimage, the World Cup throws unlikely souls together and generates deeper understanding if not always deep conversations.

2. From Tad Friend's profile of Steve Carell in the current issue of The New Yorker:

Modern entertainment increasingly strives for an orchestrated spontaneity. Even as scripted comedy tries to seem unscripted, reality shows such as "Wife Swap," "The Hills," and "The Real Housewives" have evidently become "soft scripted," with their arcs and conflicts built in. ... Yet they all plan for unplanned moments, engineering scenarios that feel like life minus the boring parts.

3. From Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch (which I read when I was about 14, and totally did not understand, aside from the soccer references; now, at 29, I am halfway through again and laughing and crying on every page, mesmerized by--and profoundly jealous of--Hornby's storytelling abilities and artful, insightful connection-making, of which this is just one example):

There is a short story by the American writer Andre Dubus entitled "The Winter Father," about a man whose divorce has separated him from his two children. In the winter his relationship with them is tetchy and strained: they move from afternoon jazz club to cinema to restaurant, and stare at each other. But in the summer, when they can go to the beach, they get on fine. 'The long beach and the sea were their lawn; the blanket their home; the ice chest and thermos their kitchen. They lived as a family again.' ... [The story] manages to isolate what is valuable in the relationship between parents and children, and explains simply and precisely why the zoo trips are doomed. 

4. From Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story," in his collection of connected short stories, The Things They Carried (probably my favorite book ever, and one I return to whenever I need to be reminded of what powerful, evocative, completely entrancing writing is like):

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. ... The pictures get jumbled, and you miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed. 

Show me the merch

[Forgive any formatting problems below as I update this post with new additions to the list. Blogger is acting up and not posting the same way twice!]

Coming soon: Eat, Pray, Love-inspired jewelry, according to Galleycat:

According to WWD, the LA-based jewelry company Dogeared will design the fashion line. Readers and viewers can buy the merchandise at Fred Segal and ABC Home, and prices will range between "$20 to more than $100." In addition, the company will provide similar merchandise for Sex in the City 2 ...

This got me thinking about merchandise tie-ins for my book. What would be the logical options? Um. Tacky t-shirts. Tourist action figure (Now whips out the camera 3 times faster!). Postcards. Beer bottles or coasters, maybe. Pastries, definitely. Yes, that's it: E5BID-branded croissants! Any bakers who read this should call me to talk numbers, make deals, plan strategy. Big money awaits! Mega-profits guaranteed!!  

Some other ideas for merchandise tie-ins for famous travel books:

• A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson): hiking boots, freeze-dried meals, bear spray
• The Innocents Abroad (Mark Twain): cigars, random bones of random saints
• Assassination Vacation (Sarah Vowell): replica of Ford's Theater, grassy knoll, wind-up toy of singing-dancing assassin 
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson): um, nothing that would be legal to sell
• Skating to Antarctica (Jenny Diski): mittens. Thick, super-insulated, Gore-Tex mittens.
• A Year in Provence (Peter Mayle): pastis glasses, piece of sheetrock
• Heat (Bill Buford): chef's toque, knives, book of Dante 

UPDATE:

• Via Twitter, from @CGTravels:  Into The Wild: emergency snacks
• Global Soul (Pico Iyer): Skymall gift card, recipe for Korean Tandoori Calamari Tacos
• Anything by Calvin Trillin: bib, Pepto-Bismol 
• An Irreverent Curiosity (David Farley): Um ... Italian vocabulary flash cards. (Wait, what were you expecting me to say?)
• Round Ireland with a Fridge (Tony Hawks): magnets, Tupperware, baking soda, Roisin's phone number

UPDATE II:

GalleyCat has picked up this important cause (thanks for the shout-out, GC!), with editor Jason Boog offering this inspired-yet-terrifying suggestion: H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Cthulhu Sushi.  Lee, I'm sure, would love it.

So you want to be a travel writer

[By Lee]

Say you are, hypothetically, on an online dating site trying to find interesting people. You aren’t lame enough to NEED an online dating site, of course. You’ve got TONS of options. But let’s pretend. You might, hypothetically of course, type in “writer” in the search criteria in the hopes of turning up someone interesting. You might be surprised at the number of hits you get.

Until you find that every mention of the word “writer” appears somewhere in a sentence like this: “I’m an investment banker but what I really want to do is be a travel writer.” Or “My dream is to be a travel writer but right now I’m in sales.”

Everyone wants to be a travel writer. Travel writers get to go all over the place and see amazing things and have adventures and people pay them! Who wouldn’t want to be a travel writer? You probably want to be a travel writer. At least you think you do.

I’m into week two of traveling with a man who actually makes a small portion of his income selling articles about travel and let me tell you: you do not want to do this.

We’ll skip immediately past the hours of rewriting and research done in a lonely room in a cheap apartment in a city that is not glamorous but is just home. We won’t dwell on the fact that these solitary work hours are probably twenty times more common than an hour spent traveling. Let’s focus on the good stuff; the travel itself.

We walk something like eight miles a day, eating at least one of our meals, if not all of them, on our feet. Doug can write while walking and often does, pulling out a small spiral bound notebook as he navigates cobblestone streets. He goes through approximately a notebook every two days. It’s sick. Doug takes something like twenty pictures a day, often simply as visual notes. These eventually have to be catalogued. That note taking time doesn’t include the two hours Doug spends turning those notes into word documents on his laptop while I make bad jokes from the other bed and fall asleep.

But at least we’re being put up in a nice hotel, right? No. Feel like returning to dorm living? Travel writing is the job for you. Right now six German boys are wrestling in their room down the hall. We share a bathroom with them and with travelers from two other rooms. But at least we’ve got a balcony, right? No. We’ve got a window so old I’m afraid I’ll get lead poisoning by looking at it.

But trying new things is fun, right? Well, how often do YOU do it? People don’t really like to do new things. New foods cause upset stomachs, new sights take time to process, new people take energy to meet and get to know. Go down the street and ask the average person how many new things he or she has done in the last three days. Travel writers do not have the leisure of picking a few, shiny, hygienically treated new things to experience. They must be willing to try everything and anything, always. There’s no structure, no rest. When a travel writer wakes up in the morning, he often doesn’t know where he’s going to get breakfast. From the moment Doug’s eyes open, he is at work.

You don’t want to be a travel writer. You want to be paid to travel and, occasionally, opine. Who wouldn’t want that?

Those who ARE travel writers do not work in sales and talk about it. They go into debt to travel and write. The last thing they do each day, after putting their tired feet under their thin rented sheets and before closing their aching eyelids is think, “I hope someone pays me for this.”

But in the morning they do it again anyway. It is a wonderful life, but it is not for you.

HELP ME WRITE MORE!

Okay, a bit of shameless self-promotion/begging.

I just found out that I'm a semi-finalist in the Trazzler.com writing contest for a short piece I wrote about Waterfall Garden Park in Seattle. You can read it here. You can spread the word by passing around this nice, tidy, shortened link (goes to the same place): http://bit.ly/3AhlRH

. . . And, of course, you can vote for me. That would be very much appreciated. The catch is that you'll have to sign up for their site. (Sorry! But they don't seem to be evil--I don't think they'll sell your address or spam you. So that's good, right?)

To sign up, go here: http://www.trazzler.com/signup. If you're on Facebook, it's simple--they'll let you sign up with your Facebook account (via that same link). Otherwise, you can just sign up for the Trazzler site.

To vote for me: Once you're in their system, go back to my piece (again, it's here) and click "add to wishlist" (below the photo).

And what do I get if I win? $10,000 to go to New York and write about it. Wouldn't you love to read my comments on the Big Apple? You would. I promise, you would. (And I'd love to start earning a living with writing, which would allow me to entertain you with even more bon mots and insights. Everybody wins!)

So, to recap. Go here to read the piece and "wishlist" it. Go here to set up an account. Simple. (Not simple? E-mail me with questions: doug@douglasmack.net.) Voting runs through September 14, 8:00 p.m. EDT. You can only vote once per account.

Also, if you live in Seattle (ahem) and want to tell all your Seattle friends to promote your fair city by spreading the word about this awesome article, I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce would love you and give you a key to the town. I, at least, would love you.

Thank you! Apologies for the interruption and self-promotion. Normal Europe-related programming will resume shortly.

Getting sloshed with celebrities

Arthur's opening line for the Amsterdam chapter invites snickers and raised eyebrows: "Amsterdam is a swinging town." The modern reader can't help but think, Oh, really, Arthur? What do you mean by that, exactly?

One thing it means in 2009--one of the more wholesome interpretations, actually--is, "Amsterdam is a great placed to party hard and get smashed out of your gourd." At least, that seems to be what this town has become, tourism-wise: the one place people visit in hopes of a trip they won't remember.

According to our tour guide yesterday, Amsterdam's famously lax drug laws and the attendant rise of the infamous coffeeshops didn't come into place until the late 1960s. (I'm on a public computer and am dashing this off, so no time for a fact check. But it sounds good, yes?) So that would be post-E5D.

But even now, the swingingest, liveliest, most popular part of the Amsterdam tourist experience seems not to be the part that is illegal in most other places, but that which is really quite readily available most everywhere: getting rip-roaring drunk in seedy bars.

Two nights ago, Lee and I took shelter from the rain in a bar near the train station. It was not Old World and wood-paneled and charming, nor was it kitschy and cheesy and touristy, and therefore charming or at least fascinating on an entirely different level.

It was just a dive. There were some gaunt, sallow-eyed toughs playing pool, and I have to confess to a few moments of panic and a vision of the night ending with a broken pool cue through my chest.

Lee and I took our beers to the tiny basement area, which was halfheartedly decorated with retro beer posters and broken sconces. Our conversation drifted to the writing life and the joys of people-watching in anonymity. We decided that well-known writers have just the right level of fame: people know their names but not their faces. No one recognizes them in public.

As we were joking about turning down autographs and wearing sunglasses in seedy bars such as this one, a young woman gaveled a massive beer stein on the table next to Lee, then eased herself onto the adjacent stool.

"We heard you talking," she said in a clipped British accent frayed with tipsiness. Gesturing to her four friends, she continued, "She says you were saying something about being famous. Are you famous?"

"Well, we will be," Lee replied, grinning. "Give us some time. A few weeks, maybe."

"Are you famous now?" the woman asked, apparently hoping we were just being modest.

"Yes, you've discovered us," I said. "I'm Brad Pitt and this is George Clooney."

She was not amused; her face became a mask of derision and disappointment. We were no longer interesting--just some losers in a bar, not celebrities she didn't recognize. I could almost hear her thinking, "Fuck you for not being famous." And also, probably: "I walked all the way over here and you can't even be some B-list reality TV stars? Just some writers? I'm wasting my breath on writers?!"

Lee and I, however, were amused and willing to continue the conversation. They were from London and had come here just for a long weekend to celebrate our new non-friend's birthday.

"Wait, you flew to Amsterdam just for the weekend, for a birthday party?"

They gave us blank looks. Of course you'd fly to another country for a few days for a birthday party. Dumb-ass Americans, stuck in the dark ages of travel.

"But ... why Amsterdam?" Lee asked.

The five answered in giddy, drunken unison: "To get fucked up!"

I'd like to point out, once again, that we were in a bar, drinking beer (that is, not in a coffeeshop consuming other items). Last time I checked, England had bars. Rather a lot. Also beer.

But such is the nature of European tourism now. With the open EU borders and the ease and low prices of air travel, going from London to Amsterdam requires about as much effort as traveling up to Edinburgh by train or even across to the other side of town. So why not?

They certainly weren't the only Brits we've met in the last few days who have come to Amsterdam to drink lots and dance to crappy pop music. (And incidentally, is European music just stuck 15 years behind American music? Because everywhere we go, even the quiet, Old World bars or side-street Thai restaurants, we hear the same godawful mid-1990s techno and Euro-hip-hop, of the variety that Lee termed "Fisher-Price My First Turntable.)

Once it was established that we really were lowly nobodies, the conversation turned to writing, and the pathetic nature of writers, specifically those who are Americans traveling in Europe looking for material. Our new non-friend drunkenly (and accidentally) tore the cover half off E5D when I brought it out to explain the project.

"So what kind of bad ideas have you had so far? Have they been really bad?" Her eyebrows waggled salaciously, as though I could redeem my lack of fame by offering a laundry list of vices, regrets, and deeply misguided doings.

"Well, I ... I showed up here without a map," I said.

She scoffed. "Did you go to the red light district?"

"Er, no."

"That's terrible. Your ideas aren't bad enough." Looking at her friends, she added, "I want a hot dog."

"So will we be in your book?"she asked as she drained her beer.

"You haven't been interesting enough," Lee said brightly.

"Just mention the drunk girl in Amsterdam," came the slurred reply.

"Let's go see a sex show," her friend added. I'm not sure if it was a sincere suggestion or just the first excuse she could think of to ditch these non-celebrities.

They headed out with half-waves, leaving us once again anonymous and at peace. We were fine with that.

Confessions of a non-TV-watcher

So last night, the Travel Channel debuted a new show called "Confessions of a Travel Writer." On its surface, it sounds pretty interesting: a reality show about the travails of the travel writing life. Best of all, at least for those of us who try to make a living writing about travel, it ostensibly shows how this job is not exactly as easy or glamorous as it might seem--the job description is not just "sit on a beach drinking daiquiris, waiting for a call from the editor of Conde Nast Traveler, who will then pay you to go to another beach and drink more daiquiris, then write about it in a bon mot-filled essay that you drunkenly dash off a week after the deadline."

I mean, yeah, most days it's like that. But not, like, every day, okay? Some days I drink Mai Tais on mountaintops instead.

But the show. I did not see it, due to lack of a TV and abundance of preparation needed for a certain little trip. (Nine days left! Oy.) I figured that if the show were any good, I'd have ample opportunities to see later versions; pilots always kinda suck anyway.

... This one, apparently, more than most. The reaction from around the net was almost uniformly negative (a round-up is here); the commenters on the World Hum interview with the show's host, Charles Runnette, were particularly scathing, with most calling out Runnette himself for being narcissistic, whiny, and generally annoying.

Pass your own judgment during the re-run, this Sunday (August 16th) on the Travel Channel. Me, I'll be packing. And drinking daiquiris.