Transcripts For CSPAN3 About 20240704

On about books we delve into the latest news about the Publishing Industry with interesting insider interviews with Publishing Industry experts. Well also give you updates on current nonfiction authors and books. The latest book reviews, and well talk about the current nonfiction books featured on cspan book tv. And welcome to about books on booktv. In a few minutes, well talk about the sometimes invisible world of ghostwriters as well as a recent gathering of the ghosts in new york city. But first, heres some of the latest news from the publishing world. Well, the early months of 2024 have brought several major book announcements. The supreme courts newest justice, clayton g. Brown, jackson, announced that her memoir will be released in september. The book will be entitled lovely one. The publisher, Penguin Random house, which describes vibes Justice Jacksons book as an inspiring, revelatory autobiography from the first black woman ever to serve on the United States supreme court. Also in the news, semaphore reported that Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman is writing a book about his life and his struggles with mental health. The report noted that senator fetterman is working with best selling author Buzz Bissinger on the book. Another book thats coming out, wnba star and olympic Gold Medalist brittney griner, is publishing a book about the ten month she spent in russias prison system. Ms. Griner was arrested, of course, at a moscow airport for possession of cannabis oil just days before russia invaded ukraine. That was in february of 2022. She was released in december of that year in a prisoner swap with the us for a russian arms dealer. Ms. Grinders book is entitled coming home coming out in may. And one more news item. Publishers weekly reports that Skyhorse Publishing is expanding today with the acquisition of the Publishing House all seasons press. Last year, skyhorse acquired regnery press, which is known for its conservative voices, including dennis prager, ann colter and senators josh hawley and ted cruz. The Publishing House being acquired all seasons published. Journalist Tucker Carlsons tucker and former donald trump chief of staff. Mark meadows, the chiefs chief. And now a look into the world of ghostwriting. So Daniel Paisner, i think we all have a basic understanding of what a ghostwriter is, but how do you define it . You know, i think we are really collaborators of a kind. The other day i was having a conversation with a prospective client, and i use the analogy of of of a lyricist. When youre writing songs, you know, i help supply the words, but the person im sitting across from the table with is, is writing the song. And were very much working on this piece of music together, just happens to be a book. So i help people write their stories. The ghostwriter term, i think, is a little bit of a throwback to when we were anonymous. Thats no longer really the case. And does your name ever appear on these socalled ghostwritten books . It does often. And i find its usually a function of the nature of the personality im collaborating with. Sometimes if im working with an artist like a comedian and whos familiar to his audience, is someone who writes his own material, theres a perception that maybe it might dilute that relationship with his audience. If he advertises or she advertises says that theyve had a helping hand. So in those cases, im happy to take a step back and and work as a true ghost. But in most cases, in my career, i have gotten credit either on the cover or on the inside, and an acknowledgment somewhere. How did you get started in this business . A happier accident. I cant imagine that there are too many third grade kids out there in the heartland raising their hand when teacher, if they want to be a ghostwriter. I was a writer. I was a freelancer writer. And actually, i was a kid. I was in my midtwenties and i was covering the entertainment beat and i was having a hard time as you can imagine, sort of cobbling together and hustling, living between freelance assignments. I found out i was chasing work more than i was actually working, and i was able to get a gig writing a book for Willard Scott when he was at the today show. This was in the mideighties. Thats how old i am. And i thought of it as a one off gig. I never thought id be doing this for for the rest of my career. But it turned out i had an affinity for it. I had the right personality for it. I had the right tool box in order. In order to do the job. And i kept at it. And according to the wall street journal, you have more bestsellers than all but the very biggest names in publishing, including. Nobody has heard of him necessary, including most of his readers. Do the Publishing Houses know who you are . Is that how youre employed . They do. I mean, publishers that i worked with successfully are happy to work with me again. I also work with a number of literary agents that im very often attached to a project before it reaches the Publishing House. So i think if you build a good body of work and if you are doing and about making sure that your client is satisfied, when i do these projects, i really think of of these books as being written for an audience of one. If i can satisfy my celebrity, im working with a politician, the actor, the athlete. Then i feel that my job is done. But usually in satisfying that person, that means the editor is on board and the rest of the Publishing House as well. And if you leave enough happy customers in your wake, its a good chance theyll call you back and invite you to the dance again. Some of the people that Daniel Paisner has worked with include Serena Williams, john kasich, Whoopi Goldberg, denzel washington, ed koch, ray lewis, anthony quinn. Thats quite a variety of people. Do you have a favorite genre or are you do you have a specialization . You know, i do like to mix it up. I think one of the reasons ive been able to work so long at this is because ive become a little bit of a generalist. My favorite, though, are the books that ive done with anonymous people, ordinary people whove done or maybe seen something extraordinary, or people who arent used to sharing their stories or facing a camera or a microphone. I worked on a book with a holocaust survivor thats one of the most meaningful projects that has crossed my desk. I worked on a book with a survivor of new york city, a Battalion Commander from fdny who survived the collapse of the World Trade Center on 911. Those stories to me are more vibrant and immediate and more raw than some of the books ive written with people who are comfortable in the limelight. So lets take two of your coal authors, shall we say, Serena Williams and john kasich. What was the process like with each of them . With each one, its a little bit different with each one as it happens, which isnt always the case. I spent time with them in their homes. I had dinner and breakfast in their homes. They stayed in their homes. And thats a very important foundational piece of the process. Very often ill start in on a project and ill spend, you know, the first few sessions without a notepad, without a recorder, without my phone. These days, capturing an interview and governor kasich at one point said to me, are we working . What are you doing here . You flew all the way out to see me in ohio. Lets get to work. And i said, look, were working. I think you need to sort of walk in their shoes a little bit, see how they live, interact with them as they as they move back and forth in their lives with their family. With serena, i went and watched her practice. I went and watched her work. How we went for a run. And there was no tape running. There was no notepad at my side. But all of this stuff was was important. It goes to how they look at the world so that i can help them speak into that world in a way that honors their voice and their vision. And how do you get their voice . By listening to them talk in conversation. Yeah, i guess im a mimic. I mean, for your older viewers, im rich little. For younger viewers, im a dana carvey. I find that if i can parrot somebody and sort of mimic the rhythms and the tone in a paragraph or two, im able to sustain that over the course of 300 pages. And that comes from just being with them and absorbing in the ways they speak, in the way they interact with with others of people in their lives, not just in their in their household, but the people i work with. In the governors case, i was with him when he was on the campaign trail, so i soaked in all all of that as well. And then, of course, once you have that foundation, you do sit down and you run tape and you do a comprehensive interview. But always we do so with an agenda. I dont like to surprise people. I dont have a set list of questions that i ask, but they know that were going to cover a certain territory so that they can get their heads around that. And maybe refresh your memory a little bit before we sit down. Daniel paisner from start to finish from getting the contract to a published book, how long is that . You know, it varies each time out. The book i did with Whoopi Goldberg, i was called in late in the process in that book we had to turn around in two weeks. Anthony quinn and i worked with him on a big sweeping comprehend of life story. A great hollywood memoir. He lived a big, full life that took two years. So i think it varies typically, i like to give myself 6 to 9 months to work on a book and then publishers usually take another 6 to 9 months to sit with it and turn it around and do their copyediting and design and and to presell into bookstores before it actually lands on the shelves. Does the primary person in this relationship edit your work . Im not sure what you mean by the primary person. What do you mean . Does Serena Williams, after you submit a manuscript or john kasich, do they look at it and do they go through it and edit it . Absolutely. Although you know what . I wouldnt call that editing. To me, thats part of of the process. Its almost like a game of hot potato. So when if i present a draft to to my subject, i expect them to mark it up and roll up their sleeves and really make it their own. Its a little bit like that game we all used to play as kids. Mad libs, you know, all these little blanks in the in the pages just if im not quite sure what they were thinking at that point, i find it it slows the train a little bit. If i would stop at each point and say, hey, serena, what were you thinking here . Id rather write my way through that anecdote that beat in the story and that let her fill in the blanks later. So i dont really call that or look at that as part of the editing process. I look at that as part of the drafting process at the other end of it, theyre able to stand behind this work and feel a real pride of authorship and claim it as their own. Daniel paisner how does the compensation work on a ghostwriting project . Again, it varies each time out. Sometimes we work for a flat fee and sometimes we work for a piece of the project. So it varies. It depends on how long youve been doing this and how much in demand you are. Obviously my fees have changed over the years. I love it when i have a horse in the race. If i know that i can expect participate in the back end. I think i work a little bit differently. There is im incentivized in a different way. However, you know, if theres a big flat fee, im also happy to accept that, too. But but it does very, very often when im working with someone anonymous, when im in at the ground floor before we have a book deal, ill seek a partnership of some kind because then i feel i never want to feel like i have my hand in my clients pocket. Id love it to work out so that the money that flows to them also flows in some way to me. So even though i am working for them, i dont want them necessarily to think that theyre paying me because i think that infects the relationship in a way thats not helpful to the book. Are there books out there that have Daniel Paisner author on them, even ghostwritten books that ive done uncredited on or books of my own . Books of your own. Ive written five, four novels of my own. My most recent book was a book called balloon dog. It came out last year. Its about the bungled theft of a jeff koons balloon dog sculpture. When i started out doing this back in my Willard Scott days, i made a little bit of a bargain with myself that i would write one of theirs and one of my, you know, my vision back then was to be the Great American novelist. And when i realized that i wasnt going to sell enough books to put my kids through college or to put braces on their teeth, i had to make this little bargain with myself and help others write their stories. The balance has shifted over the years. It hasnt really been one of my and one of the heirs. Its hard to turn away work when you work as a freelancer. But i written about five books of my own and then some nonfiction books of my own as well. 17 New York Times best sellers. Are there any projects that youve turned down . There are some, and the more experience ive had and the more sort of hand i have in this business, the more likely i am to step away from something that just doesnt interest me. Ive worked with people whose politics i dont agree with, whose worldview doesnt necessarily align with mine, and certainly whose experience is dont align with mine. I think i would draw the line at somebody who was putting some negative energy out into the world or who was standing for something that i found truly vile and i couldnt get behind at all. I dont want to work in support of a mission that i dont embrace myself, but that doesnt mean im a nice liberal from new york. That doesnt mean i cant work with somebody with a more conservative background. So there are books i turn down for scheduling reasons more often than books that i turn down for philosophical or ideological reasons. Mr. Painter, you published an article saying basically that your parents really didnt understand what you did for a living. They didnt, you know, because i think that and i understand that now that im a parent, you know, because we tend to look at our kids as, you know, the little pitchers they were when we first held them in our in our arms. So i dont really think that got how the sausage was made. But again, this was back in the eighties and 90, and it wasnt really clear to a lot of people what a ghostwriter is and how these books find their way onto the show. The conceit of this transaction. You know, when you see a copy goldberg book on the front table at barnes and noble, the expectation is that Whoopi Goldberg did that thing entirely on her own. In my mind, she did. I was really there to help her. My role was not that much different than the guy who designed the pages or the person who who came up with the cover concept or who took the cover photo. It takes many hands to put a book out into the world. And i think my parents, who are lifelong readers and they they were plugged in to the world around, just didnt get how all these ingredients come together on a book. They knew i was a writer, but that was kind of where their experience left them. Have you ever had your feelings hurt, in a sense by not having your name on the book or being acknowledged . No, because i dont think you can have that kind of an ego if you do this kind of work repeatedly. There are a lot of people who do this in a one off way. And then never come back, never come back to it, or they only come back to it when they need the money, or if they have a gap between projects of their own. To me, that never really bothered me. What i really care about is being able to add each book to my resume if if, if i cant use it as a calling card, if it can advance me to the next book in some way, whether im credited on the cover or just gifted with the freedom to tell publishers that i work on this or that project, then that book doesnt really serve me beyond the paycheck. So if youre looking to build a body of work, i think you need to be able to stand in front of that body of work. Daniel paisner there was recently a ghostwriter conference the first time ever. What was discussed . You know. One of the great things about that conference was called the gathering, the ghost rooms held in manhattan in january was the sense of community, you know, so many of us work alone, as all writers really do. Its a very solitary profession. So i think there was great value and great takeaway value in being able to just sit and swap stories and share, you know, share stories from the trenches and compare trade secrets. So more than any one topic that was discussed and of course, there were Panel Discussions throughout the day and there the organizers are already planning next years event with with more panels. To me, the most meaningful takeaway was, was the fact that there are others like me out there and that we can find strength and safety in numbers. So to me, that was a great benefit and just a collegial party of that event. How has your profession changed since you worked with Willard Scott in the mid eighties . I think whats changed . Social media i think has changed the transaction a little bit. You know, if you think about how people read, how you read a lot of people, its very intimate exchange, right . We read in bed, we read in the bathtub, we read on the toilet, you know, and and the ways celebrities now interac act with their fan base through social media there theres an expectation that they be completely open and completely candid and completely honest. So i think if you look at the andre agassi book, which came out the same season as my Serena Williams book did, and very often those books were reviewed together because there were the two big tennis titles that year. That book was famously raw. And, you know, agassi kind of threw his own father under the bus through the sport of tennis. On the bus, he bled on the page and opened a little bit of a vein here. And he wrote this searing and honest portrait of what his life was like as a professional athlete, a life he didnt always embrace. And i think that was kind of a turning point in the sports memoir that you now see another celebrity memoirs as well. Readers have been conditioned to expect their celebrity subjects to lay bare the stuff of their lives. So i think that transaction is different. Back in my willard days, it was a little bit more benign. It was jolly, it was happy, it was an extension of whatever that celebrity brand was going into the project. Now, i think people want to look behind the scene, behind that book, behind the screen a little bit and see something new and something fresh and something thats more intimate. Is there an ethical standard for ghostwriters, in your view . Well, you know, im not sure what you mean by that, peter. You know, were not really journalists who are sort of journalism adjacent. My ethical standard is that everything that we include in the pages of our books need to be true. 100 accurate. But that also doesnt mean that my celebrity clients are required to tell all theyre entitled to keep something close to their best if they dont want to go there, they dont need to go there. So the ethical standard i bring to the table and someone works with me is, look, if youre going to tell a story, we need to make sure and put every effort into making sure that that is as accurate it as possible. And if youre unsure of how events unfolded, there are people in your world, people adjacent to your world that we can talk to, to corroborate your recollection of events. Mr. Pasztor, whats your podcast . My podcast is called as told to the ghostwriting podcast. Its available forever. Podcasts happen. And i had this idea that it was interesting to talk to other idiots like me about about ghostwriting. There are there are sort of universal truths, i think, that apply to storytellers of all kind. And what i found about sort of your 50 episodes into this season is that there are so to be told, that are also interesting by all artists and creatives who work on behalf of someone elses voice or someone elses vision. So that would include songwriter or speechwriters or late night comedy writers, people who sling jokes for six bucks a pop to fill a stiller. So a lot of us struggling writers never get beyond that struggling writer phase. And we need to hustle and we need to find to find ways to cobble together a living that allow us to write the books that we want to write. Like my like my four novels. So its a great conversation. Its an ongoing conversation. And im looking forward to another few seasons of new York Magazine called him the worlds most prolific ghost Daniel Paisner. He is a ghostwriter and an author. We appreciate your being on book tv. Thanks for having me out here. And youre watching about books, a program in podcasts produced by cspans booktv. Well, each week, dozens of new books are published. Heres a few recent ones. Historian and Award Winning lincoln biographer alan kelso is out with his latest book on the 16th. President. Its entitled our ancient faith, lincoln, democracy and the american experiment. Mr. Kelso is a three time winner of the Gilder Lehrman lincoln prize, awarded for scholarly studies of abraham lincoln. And out next week, its Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Finkels look at political and cultural divisions in america. The book is titled an american dreamer life in a divided country, and it follows an army veteran across 14 years from his service in iraq through the 2020 election. Now, mr. Finkel previously has written about the iraq war. In his 2010 book, the good soldiers and 2014 book. Thank you for your service. And those are some of the new books that are coming out in the near future. Heres a few book reviews as well. The daily mails charlie spearing is out with a new book. Its a critique of Vice President kamala harris, her political career and her potential path to the white house. The book is entitled old amateur hour. George marlin reviews that book in newsmax, and he writes, quote, to understand how harris, the San Francisco socialite, turned politic fast tracked her way to the National Stage only to lose the faith of th base and her president pick up a copy of charlie springs new book. It is an unfetred look at the woman who was one heartbeat away from the president. See in another book review, the Washington Examiner is paul bedard takes a look at president ial history in craig shirleys latest book on the 40th president. Its entitl the search for reagan the appealing intellectual conservative autism of Ronald Reagan. Quote, there are few scholars and former political aides who know more about Ronald Reagan than craig shirley. Paul bedard writes he has written for wellreceived books on the 40th president and his latest is a delightful edition with something new, an epic takedown of washington. And finally, Publishers Weekly takes a look at journalist and travel writer john oconnor, his debut book. Its on the enduring american mythological create, bigfoot. The book is entitled the secret history of bigfoot. Field notes on a north american monster. In the review, quote, what does it mean that so Many Americans believe a large ape like creature roams the countrys forest . Publishers weekly writes. Journalist john oconnor attempts to answer this question in an amusing and thoughtful debut that fuses on big footers as much as on the legendary beast. Itself. And this week on book tvs afterwards program, wesley and University Professor Andrew Curran looks at how the concept of race emerged during the 18th century enlightenment period. Mr. Curran collaborated on the book with harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates jr. Heres a preview. But the notion of race, the way we understand it right now, is something that came about during the 18th century and this is actually a micro history and a macro history of that phenomenon. And you think about it because you have a contest and the contest is not simply a contest. It is a Scientific Academy or science in general, claiming the right to to determine what exactly each category of human on the planet was worth and what its significance was and what its origin was. For the longest time, first the term race didnt mean race. In the same way we understand it. If you said the word race in 1720 or 1680. Most people would say, we think that, oh, maybe that person is talking about a race of dogs or races, horses or animals or possibly a race of kings, a race of nobles. And so there is the idea of lineage and bloodlines. But you never talked about groups of people as races. The terms used for, say, the inhabitants of Subsaharan Africa might be nations and peoples, or as things became a little bit closer to Natural History and science, maybe varieties. And the word varieties is a really interesting word. Its actually kind of closer to reality in some ways because the word variety is a botanical term, which implies crossword zation and whole range of different possibilities and phenotypes, whereas the word race implies a certain limited number of groups and lineages. Its a its a zoological term. So youll notice that the the contest didnt ask for, you know, what is the source of race . Its asking about skin is asking about hair, but its really asking about something. Were called what we would call race now because its its science claiming the right to to do this to say who people are. As i just said. And a reminder that afterwards airs every sunday evening at 10 p. M. Eastern time. Well, thanks for joining us for about books, a program and podcast produced by cspan booktv booktv will continue to bring you publishing news and author programs and a reminder that you can get this podcast on the cspan now app. You can also watch online any time all of book tvs programing. Today were going to talk about the missoula free speech fight. So in the fall of, 1909, this woman pictured here, Elizabeth Gurley flynn, made her way to missoula to