The Royal Omaha Ballet Company

One summer I was on my annual excursion to Provincetown, Massachusetts, a quaint old England fishing town and one of the major gay getaways on the East Coast. It’s easy to meet people there – even Bostonians, traditionally an aloof crowd, let their hair down. You make eye contact, you smile, you say hi. It’s that easy.

The town’s merchants always pray for cloudy or rainy days, as people go shopping instead of to the beach. On such a cloudy day I was in town shopping with some friends, and I kept bumping into a very friendly guy from New York. We quickly struck up a conversation. I’ve blocked his name from my memory, as you’ll soon see why. 

A few days later I was headed to the beach and ran into him. He asked what I was doing that evening, and I told him I was cooking dinner for my housemates. I spontaneously invited him to join us. 

Sand dunes overlooking Provincetown (Garrett Peck)

A completely different person showed up that evening. I mean, it was the same person, only he seemed to be tweaking on something. He was combative, hyperactive and loud. He went to the bathroom every five minutes, I suspect to snort who knows what up his nose. 

While I was making dinner, he came into the kitchen and told me that none of my friends liked him. I didn’t deny it, but responded that that’s because he was arguing with everyone. He laughed way too loud, an eighty-decibel cackle that made you cover your ears. One of my friends, who never complains about anything, approached me privately to ask, What were you thinking?! I don’t know, I responded; he seemed nice before he got here, but now he’s stoned out of his mind.

My dinner guest was also a pathological liar whose tales stretched beyond belief. He claimed he was a fashion consultant and had danced for the Royal Omaha Ballet Company, which raised disbelieving eyebrows around the dinner table. He said he had walked into my friend Scott’s clothing studio in P-Town and offered advice on how to better display his wares. Scott supposedly paid him on the spot for his services. I checked with him the next day. He shook his head, explaining that he had no idea who this obnoxious person was who came in and rearranged his clothes. Scott moved all the clothes back as soon as he left. So you didn’t pay him? Hell no, Scott answered.

As the evening wore on, and as he came down from his high, the person who emerged was angry, bitter and quite toxic. He sat fuming to my left, while to my right was another guest, an 18-year old young man whose two moms were taking him off to college. He was sweet and full of optimism – every path was open to him, and the world was still a place of wonder. I thought, what a contrast between these two. It’s no wonder why we enjoy being around young people. Young people make us feel young. 

The next day I was at the beach with another friend, David. We had just laid our towels out on the sand when we suddenly heard a loud, obnoxious cackle from the sand dunes just fifty feet away. It was my dinner guest from the night before. He was with another man, and they were tumbling from the sand dunes naked and running to the water. I looked at David and asked if he minded that we move. We shifted down the beach several hundred feet. I was glad never to see that dancer from the Royal Omaha Ballet Company again. He was hands down the worst date ever. 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com 

Struck By Lightning: Book Reviews

Four books into my writing career and I finally got a major book review! Woo-hoo! 

The Washington Independent Review of Books reviewed my book, The Smithsonian Castle and the Seneca Quarry. The reviewer, architect Ellen Sands, wrote glowingly, "Interwoven with the history of the C&O Canal and the Civil War skirmishes raging around the fringes of the city, Peck's compact book is an immensely readable account....His affection for his subject shines through the book, prompting you to hop on your bike and pedal out to the ruins of the old quarry." You can read the full review online - and below it you'll see a video of Katie Dvorak interviewing me at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. 

Why am I so excited? Because getting a review these days is like being struck by lightning. 

The publishing world has changed significantly in recent years, largely because of the Internet and changing consumer behavior. A decade ago, a publisher would mail out review copies and send the author on a nationwide book tour. The reviews would be picked up by major publications; authors would quickly hit a mass audience, and the book would sell well. 

The old model no longer works. Along came the Internet and free online content, which seriously put a crimp in subscribers to major publications. The publisher for my first book, Rutgers University Press, sent out around 100 review copies of The Prohibition Hangover. We only got a handful of nibbles, mostly from bloggers and an academic journal a year after publication. Nothing earth shattering like being reviewed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post (all of whom got copies of the book).  

In order to cut costs, The Washington Post stopped publishing its weekly Book World section, which was a national outlet for book reviews. The Post has cut back significantly on reviews, and the books it does review are scattered throughout the week in the Style section, which lessens their impact. The newspaper rarely if ever touches local history books such as mine. Sadly, there is only one newspaper that even has a standalone book review section anymore: The New York Times. 

With the demise of the Post's Book World section, a few enterprising book readers decided they had to do something to replace it. And so was born the Washington Independent Review of Books. 

Why are book reviews so important to authors and readers? A review is a literary critique by one's peers, usually by a subject matter expert who has an informed opinion about a topic. A review can make or break a book's sales. And book reviews are still an important way to reach a large audience of readers. How often have you gone to a movie without first reading a review about it? Likewise, book reviews help readers find the content that they might enjoy. 

Without formal book reviews such as the Washington Independent provides, authors are heavily reliant on word-of-mouth, part of which comes from citizens writing reviews on Amazon and other websites. Now then, it's painfully difficult to get people to write reviews. Only a teeny, tiny fraction of readers ever bother. Some online reviews are less than helpful. You've probably seen five star reviews on Amazon that simply say, "Great book! A must read!" which is, honestly, next to useless. You might suspect that the reviewer is one of the author's friends who didn't take the time to read the book, but thought they'd be helpful. 

If you ever want to review a book, what should you include? It should be a literary critique (I'd use the word criticism, except that has a negative connotation). Did you enjoy or dislike the book? If you're a subject matter expert in a particular field, did the author widen the scholarship or thinking about the topic? Was the book easy to read and entertaining? Does it tell a good story? Did it make you laugh or cry - or cringe? Did you learn something you hadn't considered before? Your review doesn't have to be an essay - one well thought out paragraph suffices. 

I write reviews for the Washington Independent as well. With every book comes an instructions sheet which includes this vital statement: 

"Don't pan a book unless absolutely necessary. Don't flex your writerly muscles, show off your superior knowledge, or trout out your bitingly clever ripostes at the expense of another writer's dignity. Be true to your critical assessment of the book but never forget that behind the author's name on the title page stands a person who is feeling exposed and vulnerable right now and who may have spent years of his or her life trying to make that book the best it can be. Don't cut your career teeth on the flesh of a fellow or sister writer." 

You can follow the Washington Independent Review of Books on Facebook, or set up an RSS feed to get alerts. They post about two reviews daily. Go Independent! 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com 

The Pasty White Guy

So we’re deep into summer now. How’s your tan coming along? Got that nice golden bronze from laying out in the sun? Maybe you burned first, then it turned golden for the rest of the summer. And now your olive skin contrasts beautifully against the white pants you’re wearing.

I should be so lucky. I could spend a month at the beach, and come back hardly a shade darker. My only consolation is that I didn’t get sunburned. For January or July, it’s all the same when you’re a Pasty White Guy.

Call it what you like: fair, chalky, clear, ghost-like, luminescent, pale, pallid, pasty, see-through, strawberry, washed-out. Or my favorite: alabaster. My doctor jokingly calls it “Victorian.” Then again, he doesn’t want me getting melanoma, admittedly a much higher risk for people with such a fair hue. Why don’t we tan? Pasty white people have little melanin in our skin. We burn easily, then go right back to being white. My entire family is hopelessly chalky. I’ve never had a tan line in my life – though plenty of red neck.

In an era of sun worshipping, those who are fair are at a noticeable disadvantage. And I mean noticeable. We can’t tan any more than you can jump over a tall building in a single bound. It’s physically impossible. I’ve heard store clerks say, “Dude, you need to get a tan!” Gee, thanks for the condescension. Where can I pick one up? Aisle 9? 

You might ask, why not use self-tanning lotion, or go to a tanning booth? I’d rather kiss a Wookiee. Besides the risk of skin cancer, such an attitude buys into the belief that only one type of man can be good looking. Madison Avenue has done its best to define the archetype. I call it the Look. He is dark haired, dark eyed, and olive skinned. He forgot to shave…for the last two days (oops). And yeah, he’s hot.

Skin color is simply a matter of evolution. Yet upon this we place so much racism, cultural and class differences. People who live close to the equator have darker skin that protects them from the sun’s intensity. The opposite is true for people of northern European descent. I lived in Germany five years, and saw firsthand why the people are fair. It was cloudy, drizzly, frosty, hailing, overcast, rainy, snowy and spitting two out of three days in the year. White skin absorbs the sun quickly on those rare days it comes out. The reason? Vitamin D.

Vitamin D is a necessary nutrient. You can drink gallons of milk and take supplements, but you’ll never quite get a proper dose like being in the full sunlight. So getting sun is a careful balance – the need for Vitamin D now, versus skin cancer, basal cells, and leathery skin in the future.

The same thing applies for brown eyes. Those of us with fair eyes have increased sensitivity to sunlight. The worst days are those with thin, opaque clouds that scatter the sunlight in every direction. It’s nearly blinding, so painful the tears stream down your face. When my mom asked her ophthalmologist what she could do about her light sensitivity, the doctor responded, “Come back with brown eyes in your next life.”

Recently a couple in their early 80s sat waiting at the carwash. The man was very fair. He removed his baseball cap – one of those foam caps popular among old men – revealing a bald head with numerous sun spots. And several fresh scabs from where the dermatologist cut out the sins of the man’s youth.

I have a hunch that my generation, Generation X, will look much different when we are in our 80s. At least I hope. Yet the short-term desire for a tan wins over the long-term health consequences. Sun worshipping continues, despite the depletion of the ozone layer and the dramatic rise of skin cancer (Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world. It’s a sun-drenched country occupied by Englishmen). There are still a shocking number of people at the beach who don’t put on sunscreen.

Not so long ago, swarthiness meant you were a laborer, one who worked outside for your bread. The elite, on the other hand, could afford to stay inside. Being fair was fashionable. In fact, for much of recorded human history that was the case.

In the erotic Song of Songs from the Bible, the peasant girl is embarrassed that she is so tan from laboring outside. “Dark am I, yet lovely,” she tells her lover apologetically. “Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards.”

Blonde wigs became fashionable in the Roman Empire, as the swarthy Romans copied the barbarian Germanic tribes. This fascination with fairness carried over into the Renaissance. Have you ever taken a look at Renaissance art, and noted what the paintings have in common? The Holy Family – Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus – and all the saints, angels, cherubim and seraphim are portrayed as fair-skinned and blonde. The olive skinned Italians held light features as an artistic ideal.

Now the last time I checked, Jesus was a Jew living in the Middle East. Do you really think he looked blonde and blue eyed? He was Semitic, for Christ’s sake! I highly doubt he looked even remotely European.

Giovanni Boccaccio, the Medieval author of The Decameron, wrote scathingly that Florentine women would do anything to become blonde: wearing wigs, dousing their hair with lemon juice, even spending hours bleaching their hair in the sun (but without exposing their faces). And we all know that Queen Elizabeth I dabbed lead-based white makeup on her face. Ghostly white was the Look of her day – and it was hip.

Then one day I had a revelation: some people are actually attracted to whiteness.  It’s the timeless lesson that opposites attract. How well light and dark are together, like chocolate sauce with vanilla ice cream. And everyone wants what they don’t have. In Argentina, most of the upper middle-class and wealthy women have blonde hair, even though they’re of Italian and Spanish descent. Their blondness comes from a bottle.

Being fair was once an aesthetic ideal, but it certainly isn’t today – thanks to skimpier beachwear and Coco Chanel, two trends that date from the 1920s. Smaller swimsuits show a lot more skin, and fishbelly white suddenly became gross. Chanel started the craze for the “healthy tan.” (Healthy? More like cancerous and wrinkled.)

Today there aren’t many well-known pasty white men, other than former Pope Benedict XVI, probably the chalkiest Holy Father in history. House Speaker John Boehner has a suspicous orange tan that makes you suspect he regularly visits a tanning booth (puh-leaze! He works indoors all day long. When does he have time to be out in the sun?). Hollywood favors actors who are tall, dark, and handsome.

My ticket to fame is to create a line of cartoon superheroes: the PastyPuff Girls. They’ll blind their enemies with their brilliant luminescence. “Take that, Dark Vader!” says Buttermilk as she wields her SFP 30 dispensing wand. “You’ll never seduce me to the Dark Side of the Force! Then again, it couldn’t hurt to try. Would you rub this sunscreen on my back?”

There are some advantages to the Victorian look, especially in our youth-obsessed culture. So maybe we pasty white folk don’t have that “healthy tan” – but at least we won’t be prematurely aged. Sunscreen and moisturizer are my secret weapons. No need for Botox. And guess what? I still get carded occasionally when I buy alcohol – and I’m in my mid-forties.

Who says extreme fairness can’t be attractive? There is more than one kind of beauty. Can’t we appreciate the entire spectrum, from light to dark? We pasty people should embrace our pastiness. Repeat after me: I will wear shorts! I will not put on bronzer, self-tanning lotion or use a tanning booth! I will wear my sunscreen and reapply! I will not have body issues over being the whitest person at the beach!

The rest of you have been warned: put on your sunglasses or prepare to be blinded.

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com 

Paywalls

The Washington Post has initiated its online paywall. Online access to the newspaper is now $14.99 per month. For those who don't subscribe, you can read twenty articles in a month, and then the paywall will prevent you from reading further (although you will be able to access articles that friends post via social media, such as Facebook or Twitter). This mimics The New York Times paywall implemented a couple years ago for $15 per month.

There's this part of me that says, Pay up, freeloaders! 

There is no such thing as free. Free doesn't exist. There is always a cost. If you didn't pay for something, it means that someone else paid the bill. And without book buyers or newspaper subscribers, it becomes less financially tenable for people to write books or publish newspapers. Reporters and writers need to be able to make a living. Without subscribers, papers like the Post can't do the vital Fourth Estate work of investigative journalism, such as uncovering the Watergate break in. All these things have a real financial cost. 

One thing I am looking forward to through the Post's paywall is how it weeds out the online "trolls" (see the Wikipedia definition, which nails it). Many trolls are freeloaders, and without paying for an online subscription, they won't be able to comment. The New York Times has had advantage, not only in enlisting a paywall, but also in moderating comments to its articles. The Washington Post does not do so. The comments can be scathing and blood pressure raising. 

I will readily admit that the Post isn't the paper that it was ten years ago. Buyouts have weakened the news room, and it now outsources much more of its content to AP and Bloomberg. The Post has cut back significantly on the number of books it reviews. For us authors, seeing the demise of the Book World section was tragic. Only the New York Times has a dedicated book review section.

And the price for the Post has risen significantly: it is now $55.60 for eight weeks of home delivery. The Post has lost so many subscribers that it takes in less revenue for advertising, meaning that the remaining subscribers have to pick up the bill.

Consumers have gotten accustomed to content being free. They read blogs for free. Until now, they've been able to read most newspapers online for free. Or they expect a big, big discount to buy a book, thanks to Amazon's reduced pricing. At book signings over the years, I have seen numerous people who have told me to my face, "Oh, I'll just go buy your book on Amazon." All to save themselves a couple dollars. While I've never shamed anyone publicly over this, I have immediately thought: Frickin' cheapskate. You come to a bookstore, use their electricity and restroom, take up the staff's time, and yet you contribute nothing other than to add to their costs. The nerve!

You go to a restaurant and order food, or go to bar and order drinks. You don't expect your food or beer (or service for that matter) to be free, do you? Then why is content expected to be free? It isn't. By not purchasing a book, or by not subscribing to the newspaper, you are contributing to the demise of an vital industry and compromising people's livelihoods.

If you want good content, pay up.

Garrett Peck
www.garrettpeck.com

Dedications

You may notice that many books have a dedication in the opening, a page where the author dedicates the book to someone meaningful in their lives. It's often to a spouse or partner, the author's parents or children. When I published my first book in 2009, The Prohibition Hangover, I dedicated it to someone I've never met: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. 

In mailing him a copy of the book, I sent Kennedy a letter explaining why I had given him the dedication. I wrote: 

"Besides the fact that we’re both from Sacramento, I wanted to explain the dedication. First off, you wrote the majority opinion in Granholm v. Heald in 2005, a case that required states to handle interstate wine shipments on an even-handed basis, rather than discriminating against out-of-state wine. Because of your opinion, the direct-to-consumer wine market has opened significantly. Consumers have many more choices now for wine, and we are one step closer to a 'virtual wine store.' Your decision was the right decision for consumers, and the wine industry owes you a debt of gratitude for your sound judgment.

"Equally important for me is that you have a lengthy history of deciding against discrimination. You wrote the majority opinions in both Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas, two cases with enormous significance for the gay community. As I’m a gay man, I am personally grateful for your being on the court and for being a decisive voice for fairness and equal treatment. Dedicating my book to you was the least I could do to express thanks from my community." 

Two months later, a FedEx envelop arrived. It was a thank-you card from Kennedy, which you'll see below. 

On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional in the case Windsor v. United States. Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. Likewise the court ruled that the supporters of California's Proposition 8 had no standing, making gay marriage legal in California. These decisions were narrow in scope, rather than sweeping judgments that demanded nationwide recognition of gay marriage. The court did not want to go beyond where American society is clearly headed. And yet these are major victories for the gay community, as the federal government now recognizes gay marriage de facto. 

A third of the country now lives in states where gay marriage is legal. That's huge. Most Americans are behind gay marriage. Those who aren't (such as Justice Antonin Scalia) are old and dying off. As the national consensus builds behind gay marriage, there's likely to be another Supreme Court decision in 5 or 10 years from now along the lines of Loving v. Virginia in 1967. That decision declared that laws banning interracial marriage were unconstitutional. 

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer penned a thoughtful op-ed in the Washington Post two days after the historic Windsor v. United States decision. He argued that nationwide gay marriage is now inevitable. "Washington must give the same federal benefits to gay couples as to straight couples because to do otherwise is to discriminate against the gay couples," he wrote. "After all, they are equally married in their states. For Washington to discriminate against them is to deny them equal protection of the laws. Such discrimination is nothing more than irrational animus - and therefore constitutionally inadmissible." 

While states will now debate legalizing gay marriage in the coming years, you can expect to see additional legal battles that ultimately will lead to a national Supreme Court decision. Just remember this: A marriage contract is a legally binding contract. If a straight couple can marry in one state and have their marriage license recognized in any other state, but a legally married gay couple is likewise denied recognition in a particular state (such as mine, Virginia) because it doesn't recognize such marriages, you now have a Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause violation. The Supreme Court can then make a sweeping decision, a la Loving v. Virginia, that sweeps away state constitutional amendments and laws that ban gay marriage on grounds of discrimination. This will happen, and yes, we will live to see it. 

I extend my sincere thanks to Justice Anthony Kennedy for yet another vital decision based on equality and fairness, "in order to form a more perfect union." 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com 

Seneca Tour

This Saturday, June 29, 2013, I'm leading a free tour of Seneca, Maryland as part of Montgomery County Heritage Days. We'll visit four sites related to the Seneca quarry: the Seneca Aqueduct, the turning basin, the stonecutting mill, and the Lafayette Square piers. The tour starts at 1pm and should last about 45 minutes.

Before the tour, I'll be signing copies of The Smithsonian Castle and the Seneca Quarry and The Potomac River: A History and Guide starting at 12pm, which will be available for purchase for $20 each.

Where does the fun begin? We'll meet by the Lock 24 lockhouse adjacent to Seneca Aqueduct on the C&O Canal. It's right at the end of Riley's Lock Road in Poolesville, Maryland. There's a big parking lot at the site.

Seneca Aqueduct. Photo by Garrett Peck 

The Seneca quarry itself is too overgrown with foliage once spring hits; the site is ideal to see in the winter (November - March). Check back with me this fall if you'd like to take a quarry tour. There'll be a big tour through Smithsonian Associates on November 10, 2013, and small group tours through SideTour during the winter.

Bring your camera! And lots of water - it'll be quite warm. 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com 

Just What is a Hipster?

Recently I was standing in line to get into DC Brau with a bunch of hipsters. A friend of mine, who is slightly older than Your Esteemed Author (and Gen-Xer), asked just what is a hipster - and wondered if I was one (no, I'm not). I gave it some thought. My reply: 

A sub-species of the Americano, the hipster is an urban creature, the city-living, bicycle riding Millennial offspring of Baby Boomers. While there are hipsters of every color, they are predominantly white. And they aren't particularly religious. They've been brought up to see the world as possibility, and so they tend to see the glass as three-quarters full, though what separates them from their Boomer parents is a noted lack of materialism and self-absorption that their parents learned growing up in the years o' plenty after World War II. 

How can you identify the hipster among all the other Americanos? He is young, having barely passed his third decade in this world. He may have quirky facial hair and clunky, big-framed nerd glasses. She has tattoos - plural (one just isn't enough, as there are so many life occasions to celebrate with ink, starting with the third grade graduation ceremony where everyone got a blue ribbon just for showing up). The hipster wears his pants low, giving him an unattractive flat ass (it's the only bad thing I have to say about the generation, and it's rather superficial. But please! Young men of America! Please pull your flat-assed pants up. They really, truly look terrible. I'm not saying that to be mean - I'm saying that because we all want to appreciate your best asset). 

You can never tell if a hipster is gay or straight. You just have to ask. Don't be surprised if the answer is: both. 

The hipster has a finely tuned sense of irony. With his quirky beard, the male of the species will sometimes dress like a lumberjack, even though he lives in a tiny apartment or group house and has no wheels to get out of the urban forest. His gardening tool of choice is an iPad. The hipster drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) for the sheer irony: she knows it's terrible beer, but this is about making a self-aware statement among hipster peers ("Hey look at me! I'm drinking shitty beer and I know it! I'm being ironic!"). Some even say that hipsters have obliterated the meaning of irony. 

The hipster is a global citizen. Chances are he or she studied abroad in junior year of college, already has a passport stamped full of entries and visas, and has hiked the four-day Inca Trail. 

The hipster is comfortable in any urban setting, and the noisier the better - that's just the buzz of popularity and goodness. When a new restaurant opens up, they swarm like bees, herded by Facebook and texts and Twitter. Hipsters make places hip. 

Hipsters flat out do not pay for content. They grew up on the Internet, happily downloading songs for free and getting their news from blogs, Stephen Colbert and John Stewart. If there's an author talk, they'll come but leave empty-handed: why would they buy a book when content is universally expected to be free? (Nevermind that they pay $100 a month for an iPhone.) On the other hand, have you seen the size of their student loan payments? The kiddos will be hobbled with debt for years, decades even. Frugality is a trait that they share with Generation X, but not with their parents. 

The hipster rarely owns a car, as he's unconcerned with this basic American status symbol. Instead he often rides a bike to work - not the fancy racing kind (he can't afford those), but the clunky red Capital Bikeshares. They're conscious about race and racial justice, and feel kinda bad about moving into Columbia Heights and Shaw (did you know that the historically black DC neighborhood of Shaw is now majority white, thanks to all the twenty-somethings moving in?), but the rent is so much cheaper than Dupont and Logan Circle, so...uh, yeah, sorry about that. But hey, what neighborhood isn't sorely in need of more yoga studios and frozen yoghurt? 

Hipsters have the hubris to believe they really can change the world - and the confidence that they just might (again, they are children of the Baby Boom). They lean left politically and mean well. They have a strong libertarian streak: they're for gay marriage and legalization of pot. The hipster vote will go to Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

The kids are alright. More than alright. Now please, wear your pants just a little bit higher. 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com 

The Most Spectacular Book Event Ever

I’ve held way more than a hundred events to publicize my books. If I had to pick just one as the Most Spectacular Event Ever, that would have to go to a 1920s-themed cocktail party at Boston’s Eastern Standard on September 23, 2009. Jackson Cannon is the head bartender there, and boy howdy did he throw a party. The staff turned the bar into a speakeasy, and while the event was free, every participant needed the password (“Scofflaw”).

Eastern Standard is near Kenmore Square, just blocks from Fenway Park. We planned the event for a week that the Red Sox were out of town – otherwise parking in the neighborhood would be impossible. I had learned about the bar the previous year from its Repeal Day party, and so noted to contact them when I got closer to publication. It was an ideal match.

Marlo Fogelman handled the public relations for the restaurant. She is one of the best public relations people I have ever worked with. She’s quietly confident, experienced, super organized (I recognized in her right away that she’s a fellow list-maker), and has a knack for both thinking big but in also building a solid foundation. When we’d talk on the phone or e-mail, she’d simply say, Okay, this is what we need to do, and I knew that she had everything under control.

Three weeks before the event, Marlo said that we already had 170 people registered. She worked the press, getting me interviews with the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. Many bloggers wrote about the event, so we had incredible buzz. This was a fine example of what a good PR person can do for you.

The morning of the event, I spoke with Marlo, who told me we were now up to 420 RSVPs. And most of those people showed up. Because of the size of the crowd, Marlo suggested that we forgo the usual author speech and just meet-and-greet participants. I was inclined to agree. The party space had no podium or microphone. It was actually broken up into three separate rooms joined by large doorways.

Jackson Cannon and his bartending staff made amazing Prohibition-era cocktails. Many people showed up in 1920s-era garb. It was a Wednesday, people were in a great mood, and the feeling in the room was festive. I got to meet a number of writers from the alcoholic beverage industry, such as Liza Weisstuch, Wayne Curtis (the “Rum Guy,”), and an alcohol researcher, Dr. Curt Ellison from Boston University. But I wasn’t certain if people were there to hear about the book or just to sip the fabulous cocktails. But over the course of the evening, probably twenty-five people approached to ask me when I was going to speak. After I while, it finally sunk it: people actually wanted to hear me talk!

I found a stepped-up alcove in the center part of the party space where I could stand (I’m short, only 5’6”), so I put myself where most people could see me. My friend Sahil Mehta, who was crazy for cocktails and who had acted as a “town crier” on Facebook to get so many people to attend, clapped his hands, and like magic, the crowd suddenly gathered around me and started applauding. So that was it: I would speak after all.

I had prepared a twenty-five minute talk about the book and Prohibition’s aftermath on Massachusetts. I lopped fifteen minutes off it – the room was quite crowded, and people primed with liquor tend to have short attention spans. I kept to the most humorous parts of the speech.

The crowd was enthusiastic and well behaved. There were the usual outbursts: whenever I’d say something particularly funny or interesting, people would suddenly start discussing it loudly among themselves. Then we’d get the crowd’s attention back and continued the speech. I ended it with Homer Simpson’s alcohol toast. “To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems,” and people went nuts.

The speech made all the difference in book sales. Beforehand, we had sold only a half-dozen books, but now the crowd flooded to the book table, and the Barnes & Noble rep was kept busy ringing up the sales. I signed books till my fingers bled, I joked with my friends. That was a good night, a home run event that left me floating on air for days afterward.

When our last guests left, I departed with friends in search for beer and sweet potato fries. I bumped into Garrett Harker, Eastern Standard’s owner, on the way out, and told him how fortunate he was to have Marlo Fogelman supporting him. He responded, “You don’t need to tell me!”

The next day, I dropped flowers off at Marlo’s office for doing such an exquisite job of roping in the press and bloggers.

What made this event work so well? Clearly, having a veteran PR person – Marlo Fogelman – made all the difference. I was extremely fortunate in that Eastern Standard employed her services, and thus I could piggyback on the event. The key lesson is always about partnering with other people and organizations so everyone is successful. 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com

Royalties: Getting Paid

So you’re going to publish a book. Great! So what can you expect to be paid for publishing a book? No one goes into writing books for charity. This is a business, and writers have bills to pay. 

The standard royalty rate for both large and small publishers is 10 percent for the first 5,000 books, 12.5 percent for the second 5,000 books, and 15 percent thereafter. Paperback royalties are commonly paid at 7 percent. The publishing industry is still figuring out how to pay royalties on electronic publications. These can be as low as 5 percent and as high as 25 percent.

If you have an agent, they will negotiate the royalities for you. However, some publishers are looking at tweaking the model towards profit sharing (and by sharing, that means you get half of the profits). If you think you can sell many books, this might be a better route.

When you get your first royalty check, you may notice that the publisher has withheld a certain amount as a “reserve” (35 percent is common). This is to cover potential book returns from retailers. You’ll get the withheld sum with your next payment, assuming the books actually sold.

You only get paid once when a new book copy is sold. You may notice on Amazon that there is a large secondary market for used books: you get no royalties on those, as they’ve already sold once – and you’ve already been paid for those. Hooray for recycling! But boo for not getting paid.

To further complicate things, royalties aren’t calculated on the retail price (say, $30), but rather on the wholesale price, which is about 60 percent of retail. Thus for a $30 book paid at a 10 percent royalty, you won’t be paid $3, but rather $1.80. Subtract 15 percent of that if you have an agent. You’ll get paid even less for an electronic book, as it has a lower base price. Don’t be surprised if your royalty check is less than you hoped.

Publishers usually pay royalties twice per year – though some, including many university presses, only pay once per year, usually in the first quarter of the following year. It may be a challenge to keep yourself afloat financially if you have to wait so long to get paid. And given the shrinking size of advances, it’s getting tougher to make a go of it as a full-time writer. So don’t quit your day job.

A question for you: even if you never made money writing, would you still write? If all your writing did was earn just a basic minimum to cover your writing and promotional costs and you broke even, then that’s a victory in itself. This is the new “normal” for writers. No one said writing books would be easy or even lucrative.

So why publish a book if there isn’t much money in it? 

- Because your spirit calls out to write, regardless if you get paid or not. 

- Because your story can contribute to your community. 

- Because you have a story to tell.

- Because it can advance your career. Books lend credibility and subject matter expertise. 

- Because you can explore a topic in more than just a thousand words, unlike a magazine or newspaper article. You can go far deeper into a question that interests you. 

- Because you can answer a challenging societal question through your writing. 

- Because you’ve been holding onto a story and wondering if you could ever do it. Now’s your chance to prove that you can. 

Given how little authors make these days, and that most books only sell a few thousand copies, where’s the money to support authors? It isn’t in book sales, but in speaking engagements, where you get paid to speak.

Now that music downloads, Pandora and Spotify have effectively killed CD sales, how do you think rock bands make a living? It isn’t from selling CDs, obviously. Rather, they make their money going on tour and selling tickets for their concerts. The music and publishing industries offer some parallels. Most writers can’t charge tickets to speak at libraries and bookstores (with the exception of David Sedaris); however, you can get hired to deliver a presentation by a trade group. I’ve gotten better over time in asking groups if there is an honoraria – my time is worth something, as is yours. (BTW, the minimum to be considered a “professional” speaker – one who does public speaking for a living – is $2,500 per speech, plus expenses.) 

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com

Redefining Success

I’ve collected royalty checks so far this year from my two publishers, The History Press and Rutgers University Press. So how am I doing financially? Without getting into details, let me say I’ve got a ways to go to make a living as a writer.

This is an incredibly difficult time to be a writer. The publication market has been retrenching for years, and the Great Recession accelerated trends that have led to consumers canceling their magazine and newspaper subscriptions and buying fewer books – even while the number of titles greatly increased, thanks to self-publishing. And consumers have gotten used to free content and are increasingly reluctant to pay.

So what does it mean to be a successful writer? Maybe we should redefine success. Even getting published, period, is a success in its own right. If you can find 1,000 customers to buy your book, then you’ve done well and deserve a pat on the back. But the hundreds of thousands of book sales that you’re hoping for probably isn’t a realistic goal. Few books sell that many copies.

For the longest time, I’ve had the goal (and still have the dream) of one day making my living as a writer. But I had a sharp reality check when I received my first royalty check in March 2010 for $120. Nope, I'm nowhere close to quitting my day job. 

I do earn some money from my writing – books, the occasional freelance article or speaking gig – all of which I plow back into my next project. This income is balanced by many costs: my website, a graphic designer for maps, acquiring images, hosting publication parties, and major research costs (my writing is research-intense, as I write nonfiction). I basically break even on writing. It’s a hobby that pays a little, not a lot. 

But hey, there are a lot more expensive hobbies out there, like owning a boat or a horse. Those hobbies are money pits. Mine at least is cost-neutral. 

At the Gaithersburg Book Festival this year, held on May 19, 2012, I gave a talk to about twenty-five people, and proudly sold out of books. As I was finishing my talk, we suddenly heard a loud cheer from hundreds of people in the tent next door. I learned later that the hubbub was for author and "bloggess" Jenny Lawson. 

Lawson had blogged for several years and developed a large following that led to her first book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. It rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. According to the book festival staff, she has a crazed following. A staff person told me that one woman came up to her seven times to ask if Lawson had arrived yet (hello, stalker!). When she showed up at the book festival, she had a police escort. She couldn’t just walk around the festival like any other private citizen.

So be careful what you wish for. If success means having stalkers and maintaining police protection, I’d say no thank you and stick with my 25 rational fans. One of the nice things about being a writer is that few people ever know what you look like. You can hide in plain sight. I wouldn’t trade places with Brad Pitt for any money.

Garrett Peck

www.garrettpeck.com