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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind John L. Jackson Jr.

Academic vs. Trade Publishing, Part One

It is an age-old debate within the academy, but I have been revisiting it quite personally during the first half of this year.

With my new book (my first “trade” book), Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness, just released in May, I am still trying to figure out if my writing experiment (away from a university-based publishing house) was worth it. Obviously, it is still early in the life of my new book, but I do need to determine how to make the most of my little foray into trade publishing — and decide how soon I want to do it again.

One thing is clear, I have attempted to get the word out about the new book much more forcefully than I ever did for the first two. I actively tried to get C-Span interested in covering a book reading. I emailed my favorite shows at National Public Radio. I responded to almost all of the journalists who called for my reaction to the top news story of the day. I sent books to Tavis Smiley, Bill Maher, and even Bill O’Reilly. (I figured that I’d wait to see if any of them might be the least bit interested — so far, a resounding “no” — before I try to find an “in” to Oprah.)

I even started writing op-eds and blogging right here for The Chronicle, genres that demand quick turnaround times over and against the slow-burn of normal academic publishing deadlines.

I grew up a pretty shy and private kid (as I’ve already admitted in my previous books), so these gestures were real challenges for me — putting myself out there.

Indeed, I am trying to really figure out if my own current (and very minor) dance with the role of “public intellectual” has been worth it — intellectually, politically, and psychologically. Am I any good at it? Do I even want to be?

I know the book is brand new and that we have a long, hot summer ahead of us, a summer of election campaigning by a major party’s first black presidential nominee, which means that many of the arguments that I make in the book (about some of the newfangled ways in which race functions today) will be on explicit and high-charged public display all the way through November. It’ll be interesting to see how much people use the book as one of the many tools they deploy to make sense of this electoral season. If they don’t, I can’t take it personally, right?

Well, off to a family BBQ. (We start early!) I’ll have to continue this later…

Posted at 06:00:51 AM on July 4, 2008 | All postings by John L. Jackson Jr.

Comments

  1. I am the first with my comment because as far as I am aware I am the only one who has admitted in this forum to buying your book. I am glad you have opened up a thread to discuss your book openly. But first of all you must develop a thick skin very quickly.

    I am not an author myself YET, (I am thinking of writing my memoirs, a daunting task) so I cannot speak from experience, but I do know that the books that are most successful are usually touted loud and long BEFORE publication, whetting the public appetite for say another Harry Potter. Just one aspect of the book is picked out, for instance Barbara Walters’ “shocking” revelation that she had an affair with a black man! Who cares??? Somebody must, I assume her book sold, but it also had the advantage, (aside from this salacious tidbit) of being plugged continuously on her daily show. Rejection I am told is something authors have to live with, especially poets. Sylvia Plath learned to live with it so well she even dealt with her husband’s rejections so that he could carry on his creative work uninterrupted. As soon as one lot of rejections came in she sent them out again.

    Have you tried Steve Colbert? You will have to be prepared to laugh at your work if you go on his show but you may have a better chance with him than Oprah who appeals mainly to middle class housewives who are more interested in finding a girdle to disguise their spare tire than racial anything. Also her show is so self congratulatory its sickening, if there is nothing in it for Oprah there will be nothing in it for you. Her screaming hysterical choreographed give-away shows are a case in point.

    — Job's Comforter · Jul 4, 08:45 AM · #

  2. Steve Colbert is a great suggestion. He was taping the show from Penn’s campus the week before my book came out, but I didn’t figure out a way to get on his radar. And you are right about rejection and thickened skin, the lot of many writers, indeed.

    — John Jackson · Jul 4, 07:31 PM · #

  3. My own forays into trade publishing have been frustrating, especially since I have a strong belief in the importance and value of “the public intellectual.” My first book, a narrative examination of the ways teenagers make use (and sense) of their built environments, was rejected by a pile of trade houses before I finally gave in and submitted it to SUNY Press, where they raved over it.

    My second book, a narrative of one young man’s struggle to define an acceptable adulthood for himself, was rejected by a dozen or so agents before one took it in. That agent collected an impressive pile of very generous and positive (personalized) rejection letters, mostly saying that they liked the manuscript but couldn’t imagine how to sell it. One acquisition editor took it on, only to get shot down at the editorial board level. “I think I get this book,” he said, “but it’s a hard book to get.”

    That manuscript remains unpublished, five years after I completed it. I’m at work on a third manuscript on architectural theory and ethics, again aimed at a general readership. Will it fly any farther than #s 1 and 2? No idea. But I have to try it.

    So, John, no nuggets of wisdom from this reader. Just encouragement to keep writing about the things that matter to you, and the hope that you’ll make them as public as you possibly can. If ideas matter, then we need to include as readers the people who are most affected by them.

    FYI, I just got a copy of Racial Paranoia, and will be reading this week.

    — Herb · Jul 5, 08:55 AM · #

  4. I caught your book discussion on C-SPAN yesterday, by accident. You should have told us ahead of time! It went very well….

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 5, 12:05 PM · #

  5. John, Push hard to get on the Steve Colbert show. Mark Twain is on the front cover of this week’s Time magazine and Time describes him as the godfather of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

    This is your moment.

    — Job's Comforter · Jul 5, 02:23 PM · #

  6. Mr. Jackson,

    I was able to see your book review on C-SPAN and it was great. You were right on point about the discussions being uncomfortable and making one nervous. If race relations between whites and blacks, and for the record that is the ONLY relation of race that matters for this country’s sake then many uncomfortable and hold me back moments will have to take place. Entrusting that each party is seeking groundbreaking and sanded down communications between two people who can come to common ground and have potentially life-altering and fulfilling friendships. Most won’t, but for those, particularily white persons, I salute them as much is to gain, in a country parlyzed by previous decisions played out as smokescreens to keep the two races apart. I can see them now, THE ELITIST, their nervous now. The time is now for change.

    — Myj, Myj · Jul 5, 02:50 PM · #

  7. I just figured out how to read the comments from my blackberry. Sorry for the delay in responding:

    Herb, your story is educational. Thanks for sharing it—and for the overall encouragement. Have you really given up on that other manuscript? Email/Call me at Penn if you want to chat about more potential publishers. Okay? And let me know what you think of the book. Thanks for picking it up.

    Job’sC: I just sent a series of queries to other shows. I’ll let you know what comes of that. Thanks for pushing me to really go for Colbert. It is hard to even reach a contact person who will respond to a message, but I’ll keep trying. And I’ll let you know if I ever hear back.

    Myi Myi and anti-H A:Thanks for the generous words about the C-Span appearance. I really appreciate that. Maybe I can send a link to the C-Span segment to producers at some of these shows (like Colbert) so that they can get a sense (for better or worse) of my speaking style. I know they don’t want someone who seems boring or low-energy. If nothing else, I think they might like my energy.

    — john jackson · Jul 8, 09:13 AM · #

  8. On Comment 7 from the blog host:

    Suggestion: Send along a favorite clip or two from your C-SPAN segment (with permission, of course) because most of the time C-SPAN requires a purchase to view the segement online “off-air”. And with the DVD/CD of your excerpted “clips”, you might send a sheet of some “provocative” quotes/passages from your book which you think Colbert, et al. might find intriguing. These people are inundated with mail, so “grabbing” them with short and “to the point”, as it were, will likely lend an advantage.

    Good luck – and do let us know if you get any nibbles from your bait!

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 8, 09:48 PM · #

  9. P.S. Don’t forget to let these show hosts know about your blog. That’s of interest, too, because it means that their audiences can easily follow up and contact you on the topic, etc.

    — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 8, 09:50 PM · #

  10. Great advice. And I’ll follow it to the letter. Thanks.

    — john jackson · Jul 10, 07:03 AM · #

  11. “Well John, What did you think of your Uncle Jesse yesterday?”

    That is the kind of question Steve Colbert may be likely to kick off his interview with you on his show. Then depending on your reply, he could follow up with, “We need to get right down to the NUTS and bolts of this…… What do you make of it all?” Then looking directly into the camera, he may say “With friends like those, who needs enemies?”

    — Job's Comforter · Jul 10, 11:57 AM · #

  12. Because there has been no response to my last message (not a beep) I want to ask; is that kind of banter acceptable or not? Did I cross some line? Perhaps John IS related to Jesse Jackson? If so, what a clanger!!

    John talks about many many racial issues in his book. In fact if you have questions when reading the book he answers them in his conclusion. It is very well written and the loose ends are tied up nicely at the end. He has a far greater understanding of racial issues than I will ever have, the nuances, the voice inflections, the body language, the hidden agenda, the “paranoia”.

    In the ordinary course of events, (everyday life) unless the study of human beings in some form is our work we go about our business concerned mainly about numero uno. Only pathological individuals are sinister enough to plan harm to others, – unless it’s war, but then some would argue that war is pathological. Bin Laden for instance, is that war or is it pathological? And on a much smaller scale, Andrea Yates; was that war against her controlling husband? Why didn’t she kill herself? Did she want to live to see the effect on him, or was she really off her head hearing voices as she claimed?

    I think, (leaving race out of it for the moment) that the human animal does not naturally get on too well with others. He/she can be tamed, trained to get on with others, or they can be cunning enough to be able to pretend they can get along with others, (hypocrites) or they can pretend to themselves that they can get along with others (delusional). The reason Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyers fill auditoriums to bursting point (and no doubt what made Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha so popular) is that they are perceived to hold the key to our being able to get along with each other and thus lead to perpetual happiness. It is just a dream, it will never happen until we get to Paradise. The most we can hope for even in our own families, (perhaps especially in our own families) is an uneasy truce. But therein lie the seeds of paranoia. The son-in-law and the mother-in-law hate each other, but for the sake of his wife and her daughter and the children they put on a “face”. The underlying tensions are there, unspoken but sensed. If you study other forms of animal life this happens too. Just study a wolf pack. We cannot get away from the human condition however hard we try. Man is not a docile animal. The only docile human beings are a six month old smiling baby and an inebriated adult,(and then not always). Man could not have attained what he has if he had been a docile animal, it is going against nature to be nice to each other, UNLESS IT SUITS OUR PURPOSE. (Did you notice the body language of the guy Jesse Jackson was whispering to about Barack Obama? Watch the clip again on You Tube).

    The point I am making is that tensions are there between human beings whatever the race. Whites cannot be programmed like The Stepford Wives to think just as the blacks would like them to think. Our thoughts (at the moment) are our own, we cannot be forced or legalized into loving each other. What a perfect world it would be if we could all be programmed to think and behave without animosity towards each other. But then if I remember the story correctly, even the Stepford wives malfunctioned in the end viz. Revenge of The Stepford Wives

    — Job's Comforter · Jul 12, 09:28 AM · #

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