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Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/saltmag/public_html/display.php on line 24 A Portrait of Yo Mama as a Salt Contributor -- 03/27/2005 AB: We had proposed it to an agent in, I think, July of a year that seems really far away now, 2002, and he may have given us some feedback- KR: [laughs] AB: And we changed it. He really liked it, he thought it was really funny, but he thought it would be an extremely tough sell. And I think by November we had an interview with Crown at Random House. During that meeting it was decided that we should do a little bit more with our concept, which was this exposé of Yo Mama. We'd had this idea of having pieces as well as jokes, so we added that to our proposal based on what Crown said at the meeting, and then that pretty much clinched it. KR: The way I remember it . . . well, maybe I'm over-dramatizing in my memory, or whatever . . . we were in there with our only really solid meeting and it was sort of like, "All right, we really want to get this thing published at a big house, and here's our chance," and they're like, "Okay, we need something meatier." AB: Right. KR: "We need something that's more than just jokes. How about pieces?" AB: Crown was basically the only house, I think, of all the major publishing houses that our agent sent it to, that really showed some real interest. SALT: Obviously you were looking for a place that would respond to your particular kind of humor. Was it a problem at first to find that match? KR: Well, you know, I guess it says something for your polar bear piece, Andrew. Andrew had his first piece in The New Yorker, "Everything I Need To Know I Learned-" AB: I'll say the title. KR: Yeah. [laughs] AB: "All I Really Need To Know I Learned By Having My Arms Ripped Off By A Polar Bear." That piece is really how we got our agent, because he emailed me after that piece was published and asked if we had any projects. Kent and I had been working on our book without a real end in sight. KR: It was very slow. AB: Right. And we didn't have a deadline to make us finish by a certain point, so when that happened I think we started working much, much faster to finish our proposal and get it to this agent. SALT: And then, Andrew, you had a second piece in The New Yorker? AB: Yeah, actually the timing was excellent. I had a second piece in The New Yorker in September of 2002. That was during that six-week period between when our agent had the proposal and when publishers got the proposal. So, that was really helpful. SALT: Was the book proposal format something you needed to get used to? KR: Well, we used a book. AB: We used about ten books. KR: Anything that required outside knowledge of anything that was outside of our brains, Andrew was usually in charge of that. AB: I had this book, which I had from maybe a year out of college. I don't remember how I heard about it, but it's "How To Get Happily Published," by Judith Applebaum. I've mailed photocopied pages from it to Kent from time to time and I've referred to it throughout this process and I think that's been helpful. For the proposal, which we did in Gainesville, Florida where Kent was living, I think we got about ten books from the library on book proposals. end of page 2 [ 2 ] read more ... [ 3 ][ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ] |
