"I Like the Idea"

At 12:00 sharp I got a call from Charisse Kiino, the Chief Acquisitions Editor for College Publishing at CQ Press.

She again apologized about missing yesterday's phone appointment and explained how executives from SAGE Press, which had bought CQ Press in May, were having a series of meetings that she was involved in (without her Blackberry).

She told me a little about both CQ and SAGE and why she was happy about the acquisition. She has been with the publishing house for 10 years.

She sounded like a "high energy -- think of the possibilities!" person on the phone and I liked that.

We got right into the idea of a book to help journalists navigate numbers. She asked about me my thoughts about the books that were already out there and I told her most of what I have written here in earlier posts. I even went so far as to suggest that if I were in her shoes I would consider working up a distribution agreement with the IRE and try to get Sarah Cohen's, Numbers in the Newsroom, a wider readership.

I suppose I was more excited about talking to Charisse than she was to me, so I did too much of the talking. But, on the other hand, it is my idea we were talking about and I am excited about it. And she probably talks to college professors every day and I've only spoken with one other publishing house acquisitions editor.

I told her that I want my "Navigating Numbers for Journalists" book to be fun to read, not just be a boring reference book that people buy because they think they ought to, but never open after the first day because they fall asleep during the second paragraph, or in this case, equation.
People actually read for enjoyment, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation , by Lynne Truss.

Bill Walsh did exactly what I want to do with his two books. After a long career as one of the country's top newspaper copy editors, Bill took a way too boring topic and made it fun. Not once, but twice.

He wrote The Elephants of Style : A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English and followed it up with the even more cleverly titled, Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them ..

Both were full of great information. But they were funny and quotable and well written at the same time.

Another really fun book is a new illustrated version of The Elements of Style. Maria Kalman brought the book back to life with happy illustrations.

So, the (fantasy?) vision is, If I can do for numbers and news what those guys did for words, that would be too cool.

Back to the talk with Charisse and business. I had several questions that she was nice enough to answer for me.

CQ Press is highly respected and very serious. Check their list. I asked Charisse whether a light, fun to read, but accurate and credible math guide for journalists is consistent with their mission. (I learned to use words like mission when I got my MBA in the late 80s).

She said, sure.

Taking Tom Miller's advice, I asked her whether the press or she individually would be comfortable working with an agent. This is when I really started to like her. Instead of just laughing or saying something like, "gimme a break," and then laughing, she gently explained that the main reason that authors are represented by agents is to negotiate big advances with big publishers in case the book doesn't make it. CQ Press doesn't market books that "make it" in the big seller sense. Their books "make it" because they are useful to people who need them and they sell for years and years and authors slowly and consistently collect royalties.

I told her how I might have taken in $500 or so in royalties from my book, Race and Class on Campus: Conversations with Ricardo's Daughter, published in 1997.

I didn't tell her how yesterday at lunch (that I got to join thanks to her not calling) Ted Robbins, Tom, and I had a good laugh as Ted joked about the whole idea of still us believing that you can make money as a result of creating intellectual property.

She said, if I was more comfortable working through an agent, she is fine with that.

Next steps

Charisse said the next step would be for me to work on a chapter and run it by her. I said, I'd do that. (O.K., now what do I do?)

She didn't ask me to prepare a formal proposal. I might anyway. I know how to do that.

Then she asked me when I'd like for her to give me a call "to nudge me along. In a couple of months?"

That struck me. Months? I've been telling my students that in today's Internet news world, there are no weekly or even daily deadlines. The deadline is every ten minutes.

I suggested that she let me get back to her. Is next Thursday too anxious? I'll at least email her tomorrow about how much I enjoyed talking to her.

After we finished talking about the book, I wanted to ask her a ton of questions about herself --my reporter's curiosity kicking in. I had googled her and there were plenty of interesting things I wanted to ask about, but it seemed too stalky. One cool thing though, a big deal for a small town Arizonan, is that she is the second person I now know who had their wedding written up in the N.Y. Times. The first was Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords.

We finished our conversation and in moments I transformed back from a potential big time writer through a moment or two as a low ranking university professor, to being a student in a remedial math class at Pima Community College. It was back to section 2.2, graphing functions.