[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: You’ve written seven books correct?
Chip Jacobs, Author/Journalist: Yes, but some of them have been updates of previous books.
Film Courage: How many have had a traditional publisher and how many have been self-published?
Chip: Zero self-published.
Film Courage: Why?
Chip: I don’t know, I want professionals. Self-publishing is a much bigger option. Publishers aren’t perfect but when you self-publish, that is a load, that is hard. You’re competing against:
-Companies with endless resources many times
-It’s hard to get shelf space/promotion
-All that editing
In a way, it’s very wonderful:
-It’s democratizing
-People can get their story out
On the other hand, it’s contributed to the decline of bookstores. It deluded the field because can you imagine if there’s already too many lawyers but now you can get your law degree after one year? What’s that look like for people getting representation?
Nothing against them. I know people that have been with big publishers that have been award-winning New York Times bestsellers that said they’re getting older. They don’t want to go through a publisher because it takes two years and the editing I know enough good people I’ll just do it myself. I just don’t want to do that.
When I was a journalist, I mean I would be so lucky. I must have the face that people want to tell their secrets to. Maybe they feel sorry for me? People would tell me secrets, send me documents, whisper things in my ear. Sometimes it was unbelievable. I did work hard but a lot of that luck stopped when I transitioned to being an author. Maybe I didn’t do all my homework. I thought I had a deal for the book about my uncle with a new big time New York publisher. She got fired and there went interest in the types of subjects in my book. That’s happened repeatedly to me.
I sometimes say If you see me in your profession, you better look for a new job. My smog book [Smogtown] came out during the middle of the Great Recession and though the book got really good reviews, nobody cared. I don’t blame them. They cared about if their 401[K] is going to exist. Are they going to be broke? A number of people thought we’d go into a depression. It does create a little narrative in your head thinking Oh my God, my next book comes out. Are missiles going to be flying? Is it going to be bird flu this time? What’s the world got in store for me? It creates a bit of a little syndrome in your head.
I love writing and I will never stop.
Film Courage: How realistic is it for most writers to land a traditional publishing deal?
Chip: I don’t know. It is hard to get published traditionally the way it used to be. Smogtown, my first real book, came out in 2008. It’s really changed a lot (the industry). There’s been consolidation among the big publishing houses. A whole generation of older, talented editors that had developed some of the best writers in the world, they’re gone. They’re replaced by…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
Chip Jacobs is a bestselling author and journalist. His latest book is the Kafka-esque, true-crime caper The Darkest Glare: A True Story of Murder, Blackmail and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles, which Kirkus Review praised as “engrossingly bizarre” and “entertaining.” Jacobs’ previous book was his debut novel, Arroyo, historical fiction set around construction of Pasadena’s mysterious Colorado Street Bridge in 1913. It was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, a CrimeReads most anticipated book, and a medalist at the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Before them were the biography Strange As It Seems: the Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler (an Indies Book of the Year finalist) and the environmental social histories The People’s Republic of Chemicals and the international bestselling Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (the latter two with William J. Kelly). He has also contributed pieces to anthologies, among them the bestselling Los Angeles in the 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine and Go Further: More Literary Appreciation of Power Pop. His prize-winning reporting has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Daily News, CNN, The New York Times, Bloomberg, L.A Weekly, among others.
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