Voices on Writing: Betsy Lerner
by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Bulldog literary agent Betsy Lerner on writing and fighting the good fight

She can talk a blue streak when it comes to writing and publishing, but if you want anything personal, read her books. The Forest for the Trees is wonderfully personal about what goes on inside the world of book publishing from an editor's point of view. I read it when it came out 10 years ago and have been recommending it ever since. Then Food and Loathing, a highly poetic memoir about Lerner's personal account of her addiction to food and eating, and her subsequent recovery.

But anything else, forget it. Lerner is frustratingly private, unwilling to indulge this curious writer with even something as simple as what does she does with her leisure time.

Here's what I do know: After Lerner received an MFA from Columbia University in Poetry, she won a Thomas Wolfe Poetry Prize, an Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize, and in 1987 became one of PEN's Emerging Writers. She was acclaimed as an editor as well: She won the Tony Godwin Publishing Prize for Editors Under 35. Sixteen years into editing, she turned agent and is a partner in the Dunow, Carlson and Lerner Literary Agency in New York City.

Here's what else I know: Writers revere Lerner. Clients count themselves lucky to have her as an agent. And it's no wonder. Few agents are as accomplished in the various aspects of publishing as Betsy Lerner.

Kathy Rich, former magazine editor and author of Dreaming in Hindi, says, "Betsy's a bulldog on behalf of her clients. And given that she comes from the editing side, she has a wonderfully prismatic view of the process. She's a real insider, with a keen sense of when a fight is worth fighting, and when a writer should just lay low."

BDB: Talk about how you found your way to agenting.

BL: I was an editor for 16 years. A lot of publishing people become agents when they get fired—the last resort for scoundrels. For the record, I didn't get fired, but I did feel the powers that were growing disenchanted with me. I was nearly 40, had a small child at home, my first book was about to come out—all of these factors contributed to my decision to leave what I felt was my calling: editing. But agenting has many similarities, so as it turns out the transition was almost seamless.

BDB: What are you thrilled to see come in the door?

BL: Gabriel Byrne or Jon Hamm.

BDB: What about manuscript topics/genres?

BL: These days, I'm most excited by history, science, psychology, investigative reporting, and humor. And anything where the word "franchise" might apply.

BDB: What topics/material do you wish you'd never see one more of?

BL: Really just material that I don't handle but writers keep sending: science fiction, fantasy, self-help, how-to. I really can't stand spiritual material.

BDB: Your book, Forest for the Trees, is one I continue to recommend. Will there be a second edition?

BL: Next year will be ten years that the book is in print and it needs a facelift. Mostly about marketing since when I first wrote the book, Facebook, Twitter, and social networking didn't exist. The book will show how the market has changed and it will contain new anecdotes.

BDB: You truly seem like the ideal agent. You were a poet, then an editor, you're an author, and you're now a hands-on agent. Do you have any flaws?

BL: LOL.

BDB: Some writers are turning to POD publishing for books their agents can't sell, or for material they can't even find an agent for. Is there a possibility of POD publishing biting them in the derriere when they go to sell their next book (especially if their POD book doesn't sell well)?

BL: I don't think so. I would imagine the goal for a POD book and one that you seek trade publication for are very different. Obviously, if the POD book does well, it becomes a calling card. But if it doesn't, I don't think it even has to be part of the mix.

BDB: How do you see publishing changing? Do you see books going away and the Kindle and ebooks like it reigning supreme?

BL: Not for a while. It's still a very small segment of sales. But eventually, especially as electronic textbooks, etc. become pervasive in the classroom. Once we have a full generation of people who essentially learned to read on-line, then I think the scales will tilt.

BDB: Do you own a Kindle?

BL: I was the last person to get a phone answering machine, a microwave, a VCR, a cell phone… You see where I'm going with this. I'm 49 and I still schlep a red knapsack with about 300-400 pages of manuscripts every night. I will get a Kindle, but not until every person in America has one, and when you can easily take notes on them. Because when I read manuscripts, I take notes.

BDB: What's the market like for memoir?

BL: Still strong. But people are more interested in what I call the loud memoir as opposed to the finely crafted quiet me-moir.

BDB: Define loud memoir, please.

BL: Running With Scissors, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, A Million Little Pieces, The Glass Castle, Are You There God, All Things Sedaris, It's Me Chelsea, A Beautiful Boy. Stories about extreme experiences of poverty, abuse, addiction, abandonment. Stories told with bravado, humor, swagger and vulnerability.

BDB: What about the fiction market?

BL: By all accounts, limping along.

BDB: What do you see as the difference between commercial fiction and literary fiction?

BL: Commercial fiction has foil on the jackets.

BDB: Seriously, though, if a writer is a dedicated fiction writer, what should he or she know regarding what's selling, how to be more marketable, etc.?

BL: I always counsel not to pay attention to what's selling or how to be marketable if you're serious writer, and by that I mean be devoted to your craft above all. If you're looking to make a killing, then it's easy to follow trends. Right now: it's vampire time. Zombies also cashing in. But I still believe, and this may be romantic of me, that editors look for (and readers are as well) something they haven't read before. Something fresh. If Elizabeth Strout had asked her book and film agent if they thought the public would interested in a woman in her late sixties who was overweight and surly on a good day, they would have counseled her to pick a different protagonist and the world might never have come to know Olive Kitteridge. Pulitzer prize winner, bestseller, and optioned, I believe, by Francis McDormand.

BDB: I heard there will soon be a slew of literary novels coming out—but by known authors. I'm guessing if you're unknown, this isn't the case.

BL: I don't know, but it certainly is more difficult to break through. At the same time, editors still love to discover new voices, what we used to call a first novel. Now everyone says "debut." I hate that.

BDB: How do you like to be approached for nonfiction?

BL: With a complete proposal, especially if it comes with a published magazine article and/or a writer with a platform within his or her field.

BDB: Fiction?

BL: Full manuscript for a "debut" author. If the writer is established, 75-100 pages and a synopsis. Though even with an established writer, you might have to finish the book in this difficult publishing climate.

BDB: Memoir?

BL: The same for a memoir.

BDB: What about platform—should a fiction writer establish a platform, as nonfiction writers have been advised to do?

BL: Sure, if possible. Build a following any way you can. One thing editors want to see is that you've been published in the better magazines. Prizes are good, too. Getting blurbs in advance will also help the cause. There must be some ideas we haven't thought of to help get the word out.

BDB: And Facebook, Twitter…should writers spend time there getting word out?

BL: Probably, yes. I have a client who is a monster blogger, has been doing it for years and has millions of followers. As a result she got a book deal and when the book was published hundreds of her followers came to the readings. The book hit the list first week out. But this took years of concerted work and great writing on her blog. You can't do these things a couple of months before the book comes out and expect results. And it just isn't right for everyone. I mean, I ask you, would Emily Dickinson tweet?

BDB: What non-client books are on your nightstand right now?

BL: On the Origins of Stories by Brian Boyd; The Handbook of Psychobiography by William Todd Schulz; Comfort by Ann Hood; Inside the Meritocracy by Walter Kirn; Words in Air – The Letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop.

BDB: Any words of advice for our members?

BL: Drink lots of water.

BDB: And writing advice?

BL: I'm a believer in discipline, in good work habits. But I also think that you're either driven or you're not. No one should have to make himself write since no one particularly cares if you do or don't. Take up an instrument and see how far you get without practicing. It's like that.

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett is editor of The ASJA Monthly and author of the award-winning best-seller, Pen on Fire (Harcourt, 2004). She hosts Writers on Writing on KUCI-FM, which you can now access on your iPhone and which podcasts at http://penonfire.blogspot.com