Secret agent man

The NYT today has two funny yet depressing takes on the struggle of unknown writers to get published. A Hip-Hop Author in Search of a Publisher Found One on the A-Train. This schmoe was going car to car hawking his book about the rap world when he happened upon a man who is the "publishing director of MTV Books."

That night he read the 350-page novel, a fable of the music industry involving two battling rappers named Hannibal and Flawless, a corrupt record label, sex, violence and ambition. At 3:30 a.m., Mr. Hoye left a message on the answering machine at his boss's office: MTV had to buy it.

Oh, so he's the "publishing director" but he still has to ask his boss to OK a project. A clear case of title inflation.

Then in the regular NYC column, Clyde Haberman suggests new reality shows:

The success of "Queer Eye" raises a question of how far television may go with blatant stereotyping that passes as entertainment. If it is O.K. to have fun with the hoary cliché of stylish gays and slovenly straights, why not expand the premise to other groups? A city as diverse as New York provides no shortage of potential programs based on stereotypes long recognized as crude.

You could have "Black Rhythm for the White Klutz," with five talented African-Americans teaching an uncoordinated Caucasian how to dance. In "Yiddishe Brains for the Goyishe Guy," five Jewish financial advisers provide a gentile man with investment tips... "The Novel" would be a series focused on a dozen talented young writers. Their challenge would be to squeeze advances greater than four digits from book publishers who have poured nearly all their money into the latest political screed denouncing liberals as traitors or conservatives as fatheads. (Emphasis mine.)

Why, we're just full of cheer today, aren't we? The story of a writer who has to hawk his book on the subway to get attention is supposed to be "inspiring," I believe. Haberman's column, on the other hand, is pure satire -- but the subway story sounds exactly like the kind of humiliations people suffer on reality shows. It just goes to show what a joke publishing in general has become -- and what I'm up against with my just-finished novel.