Writing Outside the Academy

by

Lev Raphael

As the publishing word goes through a revolution, publishers increasingly expect their authors to be relentless. It’s not enough anymore to send yourself on tour and maintain a website, produce print or email newsletters, go to conferences and book fairs.

You also have to have a presence on Facebook (author page and personal page),YouTube, GoodReads, Twitter, Tumblr. You need to do Skype video interviews and talks with book groups. You need to do a blog tour. You need to produce your own unique and unforgettable book trailers.

Publishers seem desperate and exigent. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m surprised there hasn’t been a Real World episode yet featuring midlist authors. Forget about eating bugs, how about eating your own words? And what about a cage match with the latest macho memoirists? Or “The Real Authors of Jersey Shore”?

The sad truth is that writing is a business, but one that’s always been hard to figure out when you’re an author. There’s art, but without learning how to sell your art, you’re sunk.

Pitching myself and my work wasn’t exactly what I expected when I left academia to start writing full-time. As Auden almost put it, I leapt before I looked. I didn’t know if I could flourish as an author, but I had to try. I was tired of publishing just a few stories a year—I needed to do more, and I needed serious time to do it in. Summer vacations just weren’t enough.

Within two years, I had my first book out and so the risk paid off.  And I paid out, spending thousands on a two-year book tour that took me from the East Coast to the West Coast, with plenty of stops in the Midwest. I got myself, my name, and my book’s title out there. I learned the public side of my craft the hard way. I learned how demanding promotion was, but more than that, how much work was involved in doing an organized, entertaining talk and reading that sold my book and sold me, too. My partner came with me for parts of it and I got director’s notes on each reading. I’d been a double major in theater and English in college, so I welcomed the intimate feedback that helped me hone my performances.

Because that’s what they were. Reading is a private event; doing a reading is a public one. A written text has to be massaged, played with, put across in a completely different way when it’s read aloud. And even when I wasn’t reading, I was on stage, from the moment I got picked up at the airport, through dinner, at the signing, and afterwards over drinks. It can be exhausting and I understand how friends of mine on tour have gotten ill or depressed and even had crying jags.

But whether publishing books or reviewing in print or on radio, I’ve been a working writer ever since 1990. I don’t have a regular paycheck the way I would have if I’d stayed an academic with a secure home base once I’d gotten tenure. My income is never the same year-to-year, I don’t get to work closely with colleagues, I don’t have the engagement with student minds to keep me fresh.

But then I haven’t had papers to grade, student plagiarism to watch out for, and backbiting from those same colleagues. Or the kind of campus politics I satirize in my mystery series. I hear about the latter especially when I do talks or readings at any college or university. Academics always have some horror story or other to tell about their peers and the administration. That’s true whether they’re at an Ivy League school or a community college. The common denominator is paradox and scarcity: bald men arguing over a comb, as Borges put it.

I spend a lot of time helping my publishers promote my work, and promote it myself heavily between books and campaigns. That involves what seems like endless research and emailing. It’s not romantic or exciting, it’s not even about the work itself, it’s all about PR. I’m not alone in this effort, and have known people on the New York Times best seller list personally work hard to get interviews, reviews and coverage. The business side of a writer’s life can't be ignored, but with the right attitude, you can enjoy it. And it leads you to unexpected destinations. If I hadn’t promoted my book My Germany so heavily to German cultural institutes in the U.S., I wouldn’t have spoken to a full house at the Goethe Institute in Washington, D.C. Someone on the staff there was transferred to the embassy in Berlin where she talked me up, and I’ve now done two different two-week German book tours thanks to that contact.

In some corners of academia, however, I’ve encountered contempt for this kind of crucial management of one’s own career, and so have many writer friends of mine. We’ve met professors and writing professors who say things like, “I marvel at your ability to keep promoting yourself.” It’s clearly not a compliment, and it’s the kind of thing that academic-based writers are more likely to say than someone who appreciates the hard work working authors have to do.

These academic writers have their own tight networks of summer workshops and conferences to which they invite their friends. They have a head start at prizes, fellowships and residencies. Some even have their own little bailiwicks—a journal, a conference, a summer workshop—that other writers grovel to be part of. They act like John Cleese’s French character taunting King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They look down their noses at us working authors and seem to think we’re trapped, that promoting ourselves is somehow menial and degrading. But you know what? Their contempt is really what D.H. Lawrence called in another context “a rattling of chains.” They’re the ones looking out through prison bars, not us. For all its uncertainties, we have more freedom outside the academy than they can ever have inside.

Lev Raphael grew up in New York but got over it and has lived half his life in Michigan where he found his partner of twenty-six years along with a certain small fame. He escaped academia in 1988 to write full-time and has never looked back. The author of twenty-two books in many genres, and hundreds of reviews, stories and articles, he's seen his work discussed in journals, books, conference papers, and assigned in college and university classrooms. Which means he’s become homework. Who knew? Lev’s books have been translated into close to a dozen languages, some of which he can't identify, and he's done hundreds of readings and talks across the U.S. and Canada, and in France, England, Scotland, Austria, Germany and Israel. His latest book Pride and Prejudice: The Jewess and the Gentile is his second e-book original. You can learn more about Lev and his work on his website. Lev has reviewed for the Washington Post, Boston Review, NPR, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Jerusalem Report and the Detroit Free Press where he had a mystery column for almost a decade. He also hosted his own public radio book show where he interviewed Salman Rushdie, Erica Jong, and Julian Barnes among many other authors. Whatever the genre, he's always looked for books with a memorable voice and a compelling story to tell. Contact Lev.