So, about that Student Edition...

As I mentioned yesterday, I suddenly got the bug again to try to push to have my Student Edition of The Left Hand of Darkness published. The problems with that quest are labryinthine. Hold on to your piece of thread...

The thing really only works as a Student Edition of the novel, comprising the complete novel plus all the stuff I created. And way back when I was on sabbatical to work on the project, Le Guin's then agent contacted Penguin, which owns the paperback rights. I was frustrated in the extreme that she didn't fully convey my idea, so it got shot down: their response was they wouldn't sanction such an edition because it would jeopardize their sales--but the whole point was that I wanted them to publish it. I immediately contacted Le Guin and the agent, but got rather sniffy responses: it wasn't the agent's job to sell my project. Well, true, but god dammit, she got me walled out before I could even get going. I asked her whom I should contact at Penguin to try to get them to consider the project themselves, and she gave me the name of one of the high muckety-mucks--who, of course, never responded to my email, my follow-up letter, my follow-up follow-up post cards. I tried several other editors, also to no avail.

I've talked this over with a dear friend who knows more about the world of trade publishing than I, and her take is that no one responds not because the project strikes them as useless but because it does not fit into any already defined categories--and in the current high-stakes corporate world of publishing, editors are as risk averse as the people who green-light movies at Disney (who can only seem to approve live-action versions of animated movies that were hits decades ago, because, what if we generate new content and it isn't a hit??).

And there really isn't anything at all like what I'm proposing out there. Nothing. There are guides for teachers--some published by Random House, in fact (and Random House is the educational conjoined twin of Penguin). There are the Oxford critical editions, which include footnotes and other apparatus, but they're not as extensive (or as geared for undergrads) as what I'm proposing. There are the online cheater sites, which are very easy for students to find and use--and use to avoid having to actually read or think, and from which to plagiarize.

As a side note from that: I know it will be extremely important to emphasize the fact that the student edition can be "web enhanced"--because educational publishers now have gone wholesale into the "students know how to use digital sources and are comfortable with them and want them, so we must provide them," creating a Worm Oroborous of giving students what they want, not what they need, so they only know to want what they already know, and never find out what they really need, and around we go.

Returning to the part of the maze that is "finding an editor," there is the problem that neither Penguin nor Random House will accept any unsolicited submissions--which means one must have an agent--but generally speaking, agents don't deal with scholarly/educational materials. If I were trying to get a novel published, it would be almost impossible to find an agent--but something that agents don't even represent in the first place? Fuhgeddaboudit. That said, above-mentioned dear friend did find a lead to agents who might consider representing me/something like this. The text accompanying the link she sent reads, "Though most literary agents negotiate contracts with commercial publishing houses, some specialize in representing public intellectuals and negotiate with editors at university presses in addition to their counterparts in commercial presses."

Another branch of that part of the maze is this: say I decide to go ahead and send a letter of inquiry and my one-page proposal to editors at Penguin-RH in the spirit of "What the hell: you don't know if you don't ask." PRH does not publish a staff directory (perhaps understandably), so the only option is to try to find names of people through one of the many online networking sites. I did that, focusing only on people with a rank of full editor and higher--but I know that each one of them has a particular line or interest, and there is no information I can locate about who might be the most likely person to try.

OK, so the current thought is, why choose? I can send the same letter to everyone whose name I found--but then the question arises: since they're all in the same publishing house, should I let them know that I'm sending to a whole bunch of them at once? Multiple submissions are usually expected, so if I were sending the proposal to a bunch of different publishers, I wouldn't think twice, but this is a different scenario. Hmmm.

I've also rethought the tone of the letter of inquiry, for if/when I ever send it. I no longer have the "in" of "X agent from X agency suggested I contact you," so I need--heaven help me--a "hook," an "attention grabber." I mean, I completely understand the concept and how it works and have no problem with the need for it--if it weren't for the fact that I've just experienced decades of students starting their essays with the most random and generally idiotic stuff because they are looking for the magic bullets "hook" or "attention grabber."

Nevertheless, the letter in its current incarnation is a great deal more humorous, informal, and ... well, I guess in a way indirect, as I have to generate a little interest before I get to the project or the person reading will never get that far. Even if it's the first paragraph--"I have this specific thing I want you to consider"--the reaction is likely to be a swift and unconsidered "nope," unless I've managed to engage in a little, what, flirtation?

Oh, what a mess this is. But I felt impelled to try again to get some kind of traction on the materials for Left Hand largely because I think it would be wonderful fun to do the same work again on a different novel. In effect, I want Penguin to say yes not just to this one Student Edition but to an entire line of them, with me working as editor on the first few (specifically and other Le Guin they have in their backlist, but hey, I could do the work for just about anything, if need be)--and then the line expanding to other editors with expertise in whatever other books might be among the top sellers for students.

And I want to do that because I still am groping for a sense of something I can not just do but be in this whole new chapter of my life. Not Prof. P but Prof. P, editor of Student Editions for ....

Yes, I still want to tutor, and do the freelance editing. I am not looking at the Student Editions as a potential revenue stream, though of course if they bring in money, all the better. I'm looking at that kind of work to use a particular part of my brain--and it's a part that involves writing but isn't writing creative work (fiction, poetry). And speaking of that, I have again hit a moment in which I reread the fiction I'm trying to  churn out and simply hate the way I write. It's not even about having written myself into a corner--though there's that problem, too. No: I mean the actual words on the page. I reread and think, "Judas Priest, what treacle! What sappy, sodden bilge!" Not conducive to wanting to continue the process, though at some point I'll grid my lions and try again.

Now, however, I am going to switch to being a student again: time to get ready to head into the City for a fiddle lesson. And I may blog about that process, too. Because, well, talking about myself: a very favorite pastime. About which, may I recommend this article: https://theascent.pub/research-confirms-that-no-one-is-really-thinking-about-you-f6e7b09c458?fbclid=IwAR10dc6Ibd_kMT3ZtpsYwUtL5vzQR8WmtaIBEOPTgXhWIb-1PA7DISYACTA

Off I go. More soon.