Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Considering that January is about to exit our lives, I figure today is my last chance to let you know the word that Dictionary.com selected as depicting 2011: tergiversate.
Just in case that announcement didn’t seem especially enlightening to you, tergiversate (pronounced “ter-JIV-er-sate” means “to change repeatedly one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; to equivocate.”
Now do you get why the word was so appropriate for 2011? The stock market couldn’t make up its mind how it felt about the world’s events; so the market looked like a kid on a trampoline–way up, way down, way up…And then we had Occupy Wall Street (and several other “Occupies”). Not only couldn’t the public decide how it felt about Occupy, but also the movement couldn’t decide why it existed or even what to occupy. In my hometown, Occupy moved from the plaza where the city government buildings were located to banks to the mall to the local junior college. And then there’s publishing…
eReaders continued to wreak havoc on the industry as it had been known for hundreds of years, and social media added so many ways to connect with each other that just keeping up with options was exhausting.
Yup, we saw plenty of tergiversation. But here’s the thing: tergiversate encompasses a sense of flip-flopping combined with intentionality. Changes are afoot not by happenstance but by necessity. And the word originates from Latin for “to turn one’s back.”
What does that mean for us in publishing? The importance of embracing change, not just enduring it.
The sea change we’re experiencing isn’t going to abate in 2012. We need to be adaptive, to turn our back on what formerly was. That means, what was new in 2011 can seem outdated by the end of 2012.
One of the goals I’ve set for our agency is to find–or develop–three new revenue streams for our clients. As publishing pays smaller advances and remains convinced that 25% is an adequate royalty rate for e-publishing, authors are feeling the pinch. I believe our agency’s job is to tergiversate our view of publishing and the ways writers can make a living. The ideas we decide on in 2012 might remain relevant for only a year or so, but this isn’t a moment to worry about how long an idea with float but if it will float now.
What tergiversating events occurred in 2011 that I didn’t mention? What do you need to tergiversate in 2012?
Is it even legal to terjiggerminate in public?
You are right on that not only is change happening, inversion is. The balance of power is shifting to authors who increasingly feel they don’t need the publisher to accomplish their goals. This is new. And I love the goal of coming up with 3 new revenue streams for authors — your clients.
You also say, “The ideas we decide on in 2012 might remain relevant for only a year or so, but this isn’t a moment to worry about how long an idea with float but if it will float now.”
Right on. One of the biggest inversions has to be how fast a book can be brought to market. The fact that this now takes at least a year with traditional publishing no longer makes sense; not when authors can have a book on Kindle or Nook in a matter of days. And not when the world around us changes as rapidly as it is today. Traditional publishing feels STODGY because it is.
Thanks for pressing these buttons…
Bill
In 2011 there was a lot of tergiversating over the Republican front runner. And it looks like that might continue for a while longer!
Bill, it’s an odd time to be involved in publishing because each week traditional publishing is looking less relevant, but like the king marching down the street sans clothing, publishing seems unaware of how dire its predicament is.
I’m still busily placing certain projects with publishers because it still makes sense for those authors and those projects, but other avenues make *more* sense for some of my clients. I repeat: tergiversate!
Peter, you’re so right! I also thought of the Arab Spring as a tergiversating world event that turned the Mideast upside down–quite intentionally–but the results are murky.
Today I am writing about escaping my burning house which was set on fire in a random act of arson. From my desk in our new home I see the spot where my family stood and watched our house burn. I’ve been given a wonderful opportunity to write about it (platform! platform! ugh.) but I don’t feel ready to tell the story, of losing everything and rebuilding, at least not cogently and well.
As I write I will be tergiversating between despair and hope, between sorrow and joy.