BilmBlog500

This fall season marks both my 50th birthday and the 20th anniversary of establishing JABberwocky Literary Agency.  To celebrate, I screened a film at the Museum of the Moving Image for a select group from virtually all phases of my life.  I didn't name the film in the invitation, though the invitations included references to enough of the catch phrases immortalized by the film that it wasn't exactly a state secret. Here, slightly edited, are the program notes I prepared: ---------------------------------------- When Jerry Maguire opened on Dec. 13, 1996, I sat down to see it projected (in 35mm, on part of the screen) on the Imax at the Loews Lincoln Square. I was expecting to like it. I didn’t realize that I was about as close to my autobiography as Hollywood is likely to get. The “expecting to like” is easy; it was Tom Cruise in a Cameron Crowe movie, with a decent coming attraction. Tom Cruise and I have very special relationship.  Top Gun is extra special to me. ...

We are settling in after our move just in time for the arrival of royalty season.  In fact, some German royalties from Heyne, which were the first buds of the season or sprinkles of the monsoon or flakes of the blizzard arrived almost simultaneous with the move. And I realize in six years of having Brillig, I've never spoken much about royalty season. First, royalty season in the publishing industry doesn't arrive at the same time for everyone.  It isn't like spring or fall, but rather more like the last frost. When I was at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency in the early years of my career, royalty season arrived on February 1 and August 1.  Random House was due to send out reports the last day of January and last day of August, and they were very nice about it.  They didn't entrust their big checks to the Post Office in order to get another day or two of float, but rather would messenger them over, though late in the day so the check couldn't make it to the bank f...

So while the rest of the world is having this Carl Sagan moment with the debut of the new Cosmos TV series, inspired by Sagan's original series from 35 years ago, let me tell you what Carl taught me.  It's something different from what everyone else is saying... When I started work at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency in February 1986, I got to be Carl's literary agent.  Well, not really, or not exactly, but each desk at the agency had certain clients assigned to it, and Carl was assigned to my desk.  For Carl, this didn't mean very much. It meant that I was the person in the office who got to type out a transmittal letter for each check.  Yes, this was the 1980s.  This was done by hand on a typewriter, that we had gotten $568.76 for French royalties to Cosmos, and after our commission and 2% to Alan Lomax and some percent to the ex, here is your check for $352.32. This was a pain in the neck, but it was still a thrill to be even that close to someone like Carl...

Ralph Vicinanza was one of the leading agents in sf/fantasy/horror and a leading agent for foreign rights. Like me -- and like many other leading agents in the genre -- he was an alumnus of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. He passed away quite unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm in late September. I did not have time to properly salute him at that time. A memorial service was held in New York this past week to celebrate his life and accomplishments, and this is a second chance I will take.  If you want to know who Ralph was... Stephen King came down from Maine for the occasion and spoke.  Ralph handled King's foreign rights for some thirty years and credited Ralph for the idea of serializing The Green Mile.  John Crowley spoke.  The author of the wonderful Little Big , a dear fantasy novel to me and a novel whose closing lines have long comforted me when I think of loss.  John was grateful to Ralph, because he always felt that he was, in Ralph's eyes, every bit the important...

The world is full of so many marvels that we sometimes lose sight of just how amazing some of them are, and I've been wanting for a while to talk some about how my business has changed over the 20-25 years I've been in it. It's 25 years ago this summer that I started my summer sojourn at Baen Books.  Honestly, I can't recall too much about the technology at Baen.  There must have been some computers somewhere because Baen was one of the first publishers to do a kind of fancy-pants royalty statement that told you how many copies were shipped and returned instead of just making up a number after a mysterious reserve against returns.  I think that was done very early on in Baen history, though I can't recall if it was done that way from the very start.  Most of my Baen work was old-fashioned scutwork.  I do know they had a very nice photocopier for back then.  & writing this just got me to thinking that we're just a few months away from the 25th anniversary of ...