For anyone seriously interested in a career as a writer the story
of how my biography of B.B. King eventually found a publisher may be of interest:
it provides a catalogue of aspiring author woes.
It all started in 1970, when,
with the help of the great blues scholar Paul Oliver, I was
invited by a small English publisher to write a book on B.B. King. It
was to be a very low cost production—small run, no author's advance,
no budget for photographs. After several months of hard work
I submitted a manuscript, my first attempt
to write a book, and waited patiently for a response. I got none, but heard through
the grapevine that the publishing company had gone bankrupt. This left
me with a loose manuscript. I began offering it to American
publishers.
As editors' rejections began arriving I started to keep a list of those
who honored me with a rejection and those I might plan to contact after the next
one.
I was determined not to allow the manuscript to languish on my desk.
Once, when I claimed the parcel containing my proposal at the post office I
repackaged it with a new cover letter to yet another publisher and returned
it to the U.S. Mail without leaving the post office. Along the way I was
advised not to submit my sloppy, poorly
researched manuscript (rather poorly written, I should admit, which is why I used
the word "honored"), but rather to offer
publishers a proposal instead, with selections of the best parts of what I had
already written.
In 1978 I got lucky. An editor at Schirmer Books, a division of MacMillan,
offered me a contract to write a proper biography. Schirmer Books
was the 35th publisher to consider my proposal.
The $4,000 advance
was small but enough to support me while I dogged B.B. on the road and
dug into his past. First I spent about five months on the road, then I completely
rewrote the book, saving only a few pages from my earlier version.
I submitted the manuscript to my editor at Schirmer in the fall of 1978. It
had gone through
several revisions—some of them were painful,
all of them came from my pen (I used a legal pad in those days)—before the editor pronounced it ready for
copy editing. I waited eagerly for the final result, unaware that,
under the persistent nagging of an
assitant editor, my editor had lost
confidence in the finished manuscript,
and that they had settled on a plan to reorganize the book.
When I opened
the package containing my "copied edited" manuscript I was shocked. A large
X was drawn through my Table of Contents and the word "Superseded"
was written across the top. A new Table Of Contents replaced it, one
conceived by the new, anonymous author.
The first page of the first chapter was page 480-something of
my original manuscript.
I flipped through the pages and found frequent additions, a paragraph
here, a page there, and many deletions.
I was livid. When I reached the editor by phone
he explained that they (he and his assistant editor)
had done me a favor because they were absolutely certain that my
biography was so unconventional, that had they published it
as it stood, it
would be devastated by the critics.
"You have two options," the editor told me, "either
cooperate with us and we may let you reinstate some things we cut, or
stand aside and we'll publish the book as is, whether you like it or not."
That phone conversation was followed by a battle that was among the most
unpleasant experiences of my working life. I had to decide if I was
ready to risk never seeing my book in print, or let go of a book that was
really not mine and let it appear with my name on its title page.
When the dust settled I
had MacMillan's permission to hawk my manuscript to other publishers
on condition that I repay the advance if I found one ready to publish
it. While the battle was on I found an agent, Jacques de Spoelberg,
who kindly expressed confidence in his ability to
find a publisher for the book as I had written it. Once I had come to
terms with the Vice President at MacMillan whose signature appeared
beside mine on my contract, I gave the job to Jacques.
Jacques launched a broad campaign of simultaneous submissions,
running the tally of rejections from 35 to 53. One publisher, Doubleday,
had expressed genuine interest in the book but found the asking price ($18,000
advance) too high. Jacques suggested lowering the price. "Take whatever
they're ready to offer," I told him and a contract was drawn up for
an advance of $10,000. The hardback finally appeared. It was The
Arrival of B.B. King, Doubleday, 1980.
Two years later the paperback rights were sold to Da Capo,
which issued the book in paperback two years later.
Painful as the battle was, the decision not to let my book be run
through a literary blender was not difficult. When you
hold out for the value of your work you may prevail. In this case
I also had some moments of vindication. One was provided
by Leonard Feather, a revered historian and critic of jazz and blues who wrote
The Encyclopedia
of Jazz and also composed such
great blues classic lyrics as "How Blue Can You Get," a
signature song of B.B. King for many years, and "Blow Top Blues,"
made famous by Dinah Washington's recording. For many years Feather was
the music critic of the
L.A. Times. When his end-of-the-year column appeared in
1980 he chose my biography of B.B. King as Book Of The Year.
I resisted the impulse to send it to the people at MacMillan.
In the Spring of 1995 I received another heart warming surprise.
Out of the blue an email message came from a writer in
Germany
reporting that he had passed up an offer to write a follow-up chapter
to my book for the German translation. This was the first I knew of
the plans—of an Austrian publisher, as it happens—to
bring out a new edition of
the book in German. When I contacted Doubleday
I learned that Doubleday had sold the German
language rights to that publisher and that no one knew how to contact
me. [I had ceased to get royalties from Doubleday by the mid-1980's
and I had moved a few time since then.] I contacted the
publisher, Hannibal Verlag, in Vienna, Austria. We agreed I would
write a new forward and final chapter for the German edition. The
final chapter was to account for the developments in B.B. King's career
during the 15 years since my book first appeared.
In the fall of 1995 the book appeared with my new chapter
Keep The Hammer Down. ["Mit Beiden Fussen Auf Dem Gazpedal" in German.]
Perhaps the greatest irony in all this came from the publication
in 1997 of a book called The B.B. King Companion, Five Decades
of Commentary. It was compilation of interview with and
articles about BB. The closing
contribution in there is a reprint of the final chapter of
the German edition of my book.
Ironically,
the publisher was Schimer Books, the one who had tried
to cow me into re-architecting my manuscript because the editor was
sure the book would be ridiculed.
I learned from the author/editor of this book that the Schirmer
editor who had savage my manuscript has since left the trade.
Why did my first editor at Schirmer Books treat it so nastily?
Perhaps because he lost his nerve. Why did he lose his nerve?
What is
it about that manuscript that gave him such nightmares that he was determined
to force me to make changes? The obvious answer is that my manuscript
did not follow the convention of writing a musical biography.
If he got so nervous, it was
about its unconventional design. So he gave the
manuscript to a frequent reviewer for Rolling Stone Magazine.
There was nothing surprising in the
opinion the reviewer gave as he was
asked to assess the manuscript before
publication. Commentators on unpublished
manuscripts, even good ones, tend
to lean on the
conservative side; the bad ones identify with the authors and then find
themselves lacking the courage exhibited by authors. My book was
unorthodox in several ways; let me count them:
It's no wonder I had the troubles I had. That
it was published at all is quit remarkable. I owe the eventual publication to two lucky
breaks: it came onto the desk of an open-minded editor, and his deputy
editor was a guitar player who told his chief "Whatever you do, don't
let this book go by: B.B. King deserved to have his story told."
There were other troubles, too. One deserved mention: the designation
of the book as The Authorized Biography. The people at Doubleday
decided that this was important for the success of the book and so they made it
a condition of my contract that I get written permission from B.B. King
to cite this on my title page. As an author I wanted him
to see the manuscript and have a chance to suggest corrections; as a friend I
wanted him to feel free to voice any discomfort he might feel with any
passage. But this raised the stakes. B.B. and his manager,
Sid Seidenberg, said I would get the permission when they were satisfied
with the manuscript. In the summer of 1979 B.B. received a copy. After
some weeks he phoned me and requested two changes. One change was to
remove a ribald and unflattering story I attributed to him about himself.
He denied having ever told the story. I did not
quibble and deleted it. The other change was over three words
in a sentence about the mothers of his children. Although I thought
the words were significant I knew he was very sensitive on the
matter and I agreed to delete the three words.
These very were small
changes and they put his mind at ease. There was still the matter of the
release to be signed.
Quite by chance the next time I saw B.B. was in Frankfurt, Germany,
where I was visiting friends in the fall of 1979. I saw an ad for
a B.B. King concert and I went to the concert hall. After the show
I talked my way backstage.
"Charles, you did your part by writing the book," he said to me, a
little ceremonially, "I read the book
and now it's my turn to do my part. Here,"
he said producing an envelop and handing it to me. "That's the
release."
I reached for the envelop, but not fast enough.
"I'll take that," said his manager, Sid Seidenberg, taking the envolop. "There
are some details to consider. Call me when you get back to the States,
Charlie."
When I called his Manhattan office he asked me to meet with his
lawyer. We set a time and place. Jacques, my agent, agreed to come
with me.
The meeting took place in the office of Jacob Rabinowitz in
mid-Manhattan. Jack, as Sid called him, sat at his desk, the rest
of us sat in chairs. Rabinowitz opened the discussion.
"Why don't we do this nice and neat? You get half the royalties and B.B.
gets half. Isn't that fair?"
This began a conversation between the lawyer, the manager and the agent
which went on for 45 minutes without any effort to involve me. I began
to feel like Rod Serling would step out of the shadows and say something
like, Although he doesn't yet know it, Charles Sawyer is already
dead and these men are discussing his estate.
A bizarre prop in the corner, a turn-of-the-century
dentist's chair, drew my attention.
I was tempted to walk over and sit in it, but I watched,
fascinated and incredulous. Eventually, one of them turned to me and asked
my opinion.
I told them that the book was not a ghosted autobiography. I was the
sole author. Money couldn't buy a better, more flattering book on
their artist. Furthermore, writing the book had cost me roughly $15,000
(in 1970's dollars!) and I wouldn't consider sharing royalties until
I had at least recouped the expenses.
I granted that since the commercial prospects of
the book were enhanced by B.B.'s stature, I wouldn't
object to his getting some share of royalites after I had made a reasonable
profit.
We worked out a royalty sharing arrangement that would kick in after
I had made some money. An agreement was drawn up, I signed it,
I got the release. It was signed by Sid Seidenberg, under power of attorney
from B.B. King.
On our way out Rabinowitz said something that it would make
any script writer blush:
"I'm glad you didn't take it personally."
I wish that were the end of it, but no. One of the people whom
I approached to write a forward for the book was Nat Hentoff,
a celebrated commentator associated most closely with The Village
Voice. He had written much music criticism, and some liner notes for
jazz albums. He said he was definitely interested and I sent him
a copy of the manuscript. After he had seen the manuscript he declined to
write the forward,
saying he wasn't really qualified to write about blues or a blues artist.
I took this explanation as disingenuous, since it could
just as well have been offered
before seeing the manuscript. Perhaps he got the same jitters as the people
at MacMillan had had. As if it wasn't enough to decline on
transparently insincere grounds Hentoff volunteered to tell
my publisher that calling it an authorized biography would compromise the
book's credibility and kill the book's chances of success.
Now the editor at Doubleday got a bit jittery.
He asked if I would mind taking the "authorized" clause
out of the title. "Damn right I'd mind," I said.
It stayed.