User:Cmagha/John A. Ware

John A. Ware calls New York City, home.

John A. Ware (born c. 1942) of Manhattan, New York City is the American literary agent who influenced the return to bestselling narrative non-fiction at the turn of the 21st century. Ware is a poet and the president/chief literary agent of John A. Ware Literary Agency. He is a proponent of the boutique theory of literary agency, and is known for being the first to publish Tracy Kidder and Jonathan Schwartz (while at Doubleday) and has served as Stephen E. Ambrose, Jon Krakauer, Caroline Fraser, Jack Womack and Tony Daniel's literary agent.

Career

Ware sees literary agents as typically coming from an intellectual rights background; a sales background; or a literary background, and regards himself as from the latter. He has been a guest on Writers on Writing, hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett of KUCI-FM and was featured as a subject-matter expert in Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within by the same. In the case of author Ambrose, Ware was the author's agent for most of the former's literary career. Ware's career as a literary agent is noted for his agenting Jon Krakauer in the latter's triggering of the revival of narrative non-fiction at the turn of the 21st century.

John Ware self-identifies as a Knickerbocker. In his selection of volumes to agent, his ties to New York City are evident in histories such as M.H. Dunlop’s Gilded City: Scandal and Sensation in Turn-of-the-Century New York. Ware sold the narrative non-fiction work to William Morrow and Company. The history, is a recounting of Manhattan’s greed, excess and debauchery based on the author’s reading of newspapers, especially the The New York Herald. John A. Ware edited at Doubleday for eight years (1969-7), working his way from assistant to full editor. Concurrent to the Doubleday work, he taught New York University’s course on editing (1970-7). He then spent a year as one of the literary agents at James Brown Associates/Curtis Brown, Ltd. (1978). It was Mr. Brown’s sense of humor that drew him to the new position at the small literary agency in New York City’s Alliance Française building, with its closer ambiance. The decision work with James Brown was also informed by a desire to focus on the boutique aspect of literary agency; deciding to aligned himself with small organizations. This allowed him the concentrated needed to fight for books he thinks are worth publishing. He founded John A. Ware Literary Agency in 1978. In the past, Ware wrote poetry and had a poem about an aging baseball pitcher accepted for publication in The New Yorker.

One of John A. Ware’s first significant literary promotions in New York City occurred while he was an editor at Doubleday. Jonathan Schwartz was working as a disc jockey in the 1970 at New York’s WNEW-FM, a pioneering progressive rock station. Schwartz’ loose format allowed for the expression of personality, on air. John Ware was listening, thought he might be a writer, and asked if Schwartz had anything to send Doubleday. Schwartz gave Ware a sheaf of stories previously published in Redbook, the Paris Review and other magazines. Schwartz’ first book, Almost Home was published in 1970. Almost Home’s reviews and commercial reception aided Schwartz in persuading his station manager George Duncan to assign him a Sunday-morning slot on WNEW-AM dedicated to the new notion that there was an audience to target for high-quality American music, Sinatra to Sondheim. Schwartz used the resulting platform to engage in a defining narrative, including topics on books, baseball and other matters.

Ware prefers working the relations between writers and editors, rather than focusing on the broader set of relations guiding the publishing process. He believes the prudent author will, “[w]ork hard at your craft to make your work just as good as it can be. Then, with, the comfort that you’ve done this, you can approach agents with real confidence.” With respect to the work of literary agents, Ware believes that all agents bring their private interests and tastes to their work, effectively creating a “boutique” model for all literary agents whether self-employed or employed in a larger concern.

Methodology

“ Writing is a gift honed by putting one’s butt in the chair and working. ”

John Ware formerly “trolled” for authors, early in his career at Doubleday. He stopped the practice as he transitioned from ‘editor’ to ‘literary agent,’ notably when he went to work with James Brown. Ware handles fiction and non-fiction manuscripts, with noticeably more non-fiction reviewed recently. To catch his interest, Ware has to regard the material as ‘big game’. With respect to genres, he does not handle sub-genres following familiar patterns, but rather looks for general works of high quality concerning nature, history, current affairs, popular culture, social commentary, international espionage, thrilling suspense, folklore, Americana, investigative journalism, biography, literary and suspense fiction, and the offbeat.The hard copy needs to need near perfect. Editors formerly would take a manuscript that was great, but needed editing. Increasingly, editors want it proof-ready for publishing.Ware thinks the author’s query letter provides an immense amount of information to the literary agent about the writer; it provides the entre. A query letter for fiction can simply be a synopsis, accompanied by fifty pages of text.

Once it is certain the work is of high quality, Ware looks for a unique presentation of what may even be familiar facts. Literary agents, however, get to make their private tastes their public tastes. Ware states that his desires never change with the market, because they are derived from his personal tastes. He looks for the individually, beautifully written manuscript. Ware concedes that genre fiction is easier to sell than mainstream fiction. His own work focuses on non-genre general fiction which is “literate but accessible”. Working with fiction is also considered more subjective than non-fiction. Ware thinks literary agents get an “gut” instinct about a book, and then want to advance it to a publisher. The critical question is whether the writing make you want to turn the page. After the “gut grabbing” of the topic, then, the writing’s ability to make you want to turn the page is what makes the product move. Ware notes, however, that he is the type of agent that works with the material.

When reviewing submissions, Ware is sensitive to non-fiction author mistakes such as repeating material from chapter pages already covered in a proposal's overview or chapter summaries. Ware looks for readability in works, preferring to agent works which compel the reader to continue reading, not being able to stop turning pages. The writing will make both the query to agent or the story to be agented stand out. Novelty and uniqueness are also important traits. A manuscript written to high form but very similar in premise and plot existing works selling well on the market may not be easily sold. Ware has opined that in today’s publishing environment, authors stradding two different genres ought to consider more than one agent, each proficient in the area they are seeking to market.

“ You have to keep the faith and work hard. Believe in what you are doing and the choice you made.” ”

John Ware considers the role of editor and literary agents to be very similar, with the literary agent having the luxury of less institutional commitments. They both read, evaluate, decide and then negotiation. The literary agent’s job is to know the publishing houses well enough to place the author’s work, knowledge of each editor’s interests and expectation. Literary agents, however, get to make their private tastes their public tastes. Ware states that his desires never change with the market, because they are derived from his personal tastes. He looks for the individually, beautifully written manuscript. The intake process for a manuscript is fairly well standardized in the industry. There is a triage from query letters, to sample pages; and to solicited manuscripts. At each stage, the literary agent is seeking the marketable work. Novels must be finish, as a good draft may fail in its last fifty pages. A double-standard exists between fiction and non-fiction writers. A non-fiction writer may be accepted based upon a query letter and a exceptionally well-written sample chapter or two.

Selling the Book Though there has been some democratization of the publishing industry, élite reviews are still exceedingly important, especially those from the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books. Interesting, bad reviews are not considered, by Ware, to be a complete loss. They can still sell books. And given the decline in the number of book reviews being written, even the choice of ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ cover can affect marketability. Hard cover books garner more reviews. With respect to marketing, Ware regards non-fiction writers as more in demand for book promotionals. They are regarded as able to speak about more than just their writing, while novelists are usually considered as restricted to discussing just their novel. John Ware does not see a marketing need to niche writers. A good writing can transcend niche cutting by publishers and can use multiple literary agents to achieve balance. The writing needs to be the focus; not the marketing. Where successful cross-over does not occur between fiction and non-fiction, it happens because of author’s self-articulated need to niche.

General Interests

Literary fields on which Ware focuses as an agent include: the fiction genres of detective, police, crime, mystery, suspense and thriller and the nonfiction fields of biography, current affairs, health, history, language, music, nature, pop culture, psychology, science, sports, true crime, women's and investigative journalism. He describes his interests as “an odd amalgam,” handling “investigative journalism and current affairs, history, biography, and then, a whole realm of the offbeat, to include memoir that some larger purchase because it touches larger issues. In my opinion, unless you are a big name, your memoir must sell to the broader market, that is, your life must be in touch with the issues that speak to the larger society. I like offbeat books that have some broader grab – I guess you could say pop culture of a kind. I do a small elite health and medicine corner. And a small corner of fiction, which I do for my soul.” Ware chooses non-fiction authors based on the quality of the work and the ability to market the final product. Subject matter experts seeking to publish, such as university professors, can be partnered with publishing house publicity executives to use the professor’s acknowledged expertise as part of the marketing effort. His work has included furthering the ‘outdoors’ genre launched by author Jon Krakauer.

Krakauer's Triggering of the Narrative Non-Fiction Revival.

Through John Ware’s agency, the screen rights to Krakauer’s Into the Wild were negotiated into film by Martin Shapiro at the Shapiro-Lichtman Talent. The film Into the Wild (film) was directed by Sean Penn. Ware’s work on behalf Krakauer was part of a general publishing trend which Krakauer’s work triggered, the market’s return to bestselling narrative non-fiction in the first years of the 21st century. This trend continued with Jon Krakuer’s work on religious extremism entitled Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith and concerning a Utah double murder committed by Mormon religious fanatics. John Ware negotiated with Vintage Books Vintage/Anchor to get the work published.

Advancing the Offbeat

An example of Ware’s preference for the somewhat offbeat, exceptional work that crosses over several literary genres would be his agency for journalist Elise Blackwell’s first novel based on a true story during the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War. Little, Brown and Company purchased the book from John A. Ware, at the time entitled “Life Science", the story of scientists at the Leningrad plant institute fighting to protect their precious rare seeds despite the terror and starvation all around them. Blackwell’s novel was an example of publishing “little novel” trend, the acceptance of books for printing of only a hundred pages or so. In a similar manner, Ware negotiated the sale of Ice Master, an account narrating the failed Canadian Arctic expedition of 1913, by author Jennifer Niven McJunkin. The non-fiction work was purchased by Hyperion. This led to a follow-on effort on behalf of Niven. Ware negotiated with Hyperion’s editor-in-chief to sell the North American rights to Niven’s story of an Alaskan Inuit woman, Ada Blackjack, taken on an British Arctic colonial expedition to claim islands close to the Soviet Union before they could be occupied by the Russians. They colonists died, and Blackjack, remained alone on the island for six months. Ware’s work for Niven took the author, in part, to a naming as one of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Year 2000 and a featuring in Dateline NBC and Discovery Channel Likewise, Simon & Shuster acquired a narrative from Ware, an account of the Everest expedition discovering the body of explorer George Mallory, lost on Everest for seventy-five years. Expedition leader Conrad Anker collaborated with author David Roberts. It was entitled The Lost Explorer. Ware’s promotion of the offbeat underscores his theory of memoir. According to Ware, the memoir has to have a worldly connection for it to succeed. No one is really interested in just your specific life. They want to see a connection to a theme or subject matter of interest in the world. And example of this is the novel Spent published by Little, Brown and Company for Ware’s client, Avis Cardella. It is the story of America’s shopaholic phenomenon written by a shopaholic. Another example is Travis Culley’s The Immortal Class.

Other Work

Cornell's Hemlock Gorge, at Ware's Alma mater

At times, John Ware’s selection of texts to advance borders on the countercultural, as in Eric Brende’s Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology and Travis Hugh Culley's The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power. An example of Ware’s interest in agenting Americana in fiction would be his work on behalf of Nancy E. Turner’s Sarah’s Quilt, a straightforward narrative, “gritty and persistent as the woman who inspires it and as memorable as the landscape where she carves out her life,” which John Ware sold to St. Martin’s Press.

A new insight in well-trod areas of literary agency, Ware sold a new take on addictive behavior to Harper Collins in 2002. The book was The Heart of Addiction by Lances M. Dodes, which rejected commonly held beliefs about eating disorders, alcoholism, compulsive gambling, drug addiction, and sexual addictions. Dodes explained the errors of conventional beliefs and contended that "one size fits all" treatment methods ignored the key element of addiction. He showed that the underlying psychological issue prompting addiction is an overwhelming helplessness. The addictive act is a substitute, for another, more constructive act that is for some reason prohibited.

Ware’s long interest in philosophy surfaces in projects such as Tony Daniel’s Metaplanetary sold to Eos in 2001. Metaplanetary falls within the category of books with special insights, even though they are part of a clear genre (science fiction). The novel explores, “. . . two centers of power. On one side are the inner planets, knit together by massive cables and ruled by a monomaniacal dictator who is sure he knows what's best for everyone. On the other are the inhabitants of the outer planets and the massive spaceships/beings that are beginning to visit the stars. This latter group values diversity and freedom, but decentralization puts it at a disadvantage when the dictator plots to gain total control. As the preparations toward a system-wide civil war gather momentum, the vocabulary and relationships that at first seemed confusing suddenly become simply part of the onrushing action . . . the author seems to want to create an epic vision of humanity.” John Ware’s client was a Hugo Award nominee. Publisher’s Weekly noted strong marketability in the strategy of selling the first serial rights to Asimov's Magazine and a Greg Bear promotional.

Regarding publishing trends, Ware sees the quality of writing rather than specific market trends as the best means of defining the current state of publishing in America. Clearly, he thinks, the continued growth of high quality non-fiction narrative writing is worth noting. The current affairs sub-genre has received much more attention by writers and publishers, and this may be a result of 9/11. He finds it interesting that the rise of current affairs may have triggered a decline in historical writing. Another trend in the past decade has been the robust health of the children and young adults sub-genre, perhaps as a consequence of J.K. Rowling Harry Potter series. More parents may be reading both fiction and non-fiction works to their children. And Ware concedes that young adult fiction has been getting edgier and edgier. John Ware regards the market as diminished in America. “The fiction market place is very difficult now.” Fiction writers were formerly permitted two or three books to show their evolution; now they must perform from the start. “The grooming of writers is gone.” Services like BookScan drive the market away from letting writers evolve through several works.

Education

Taking his bachelor of arts in Philosophy from Cornell University in 1964, John Ware subsequently undertook graduate studies in English and American Literature at Northwestern University and the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course. Reflecting on his Cornell studies, Ware found a link between undergraduate studies and editing as be imagined himself doing some work with ‘words’ after graduation. His studies focused on linguistic philosophy, notably the precise and economic use of language. With respect to Masters of Fine Arts programs, John Ware does not see them as a replacement for fine writing, which is the sine non quon for publishing success. So an MFA is not sufficient nor is it necessary, but it does not hurt one’s submission.

Associations

Magazines providing pleasure reading for John Ware include the The Atlantic, Harper's Monthly and the The New Yorker. Ware has shown interest in choir music (performing for seven years), the study of Italian, the watching and coaching of baseball, visiting and supporting museums and horse racing. He also is a runner, and was a summer camp counselor in the 1980s. At university, he played into a blues band and was tapped into the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity and through the organization, Cornell University’s Irving Literary Society. John A. Ware was initiated into both organizations with Martin King Whyte.

9/11

Like many in New York City, John Ware was impacted greatly by the events September 11, 2001. He has noted in his interviews the increasing trend toward publishing current affairs at the expense of history, all post 9/11. Prior to the terrorist act, he served as agent to one author attempting to understand America's place in the world. Following the attacks, Ware increased his own efforts to aid his stricken beloved City's recovery, notably through the mentoring of New York City's children, particular in the skills of reading, and in outreach efforts to the City's first response personnel. Essentially, he has stated that it was not just enough for him to donate to philanthropies following 9/11. He had to do something. Mentoring the next generation and assisting with the Police Athletic League of New York City met that need.

Samples of Ware’s Literary Agency

• Chris Ballard, Ironmen (Hyperion)(20___).
• Travis Hugh Culley, A Comedy & a Tragedy about Learning to Read & Write (Random House)(2015).
• David Hanna, Knights of the Sea (Penguin Books)(January 2012).
• Lt. Col. Will Irwin, U.S. Army (ret.), Abundance of Valor: Resistance, Survival, and Liberation: 1944-1945 (Ballantine 2010);
• Jennifer Niven, The Aqua Net Diaries (Simon Spotlight Entertainment 2010);
• Jon Krakauer, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (Doubleday 2009);
• Jennifer Niven, Velva Jean Learns to Drive (Plume 2009);
• Dorothy Ours, Man o’War: A Legend Like Lightening (St. Martin’s Press 2006);
• Lt. Col. Will Irwin, U.S. Army (ret.), The Jedburgs: The Secret History of the Allied Special Forces, France 1944 (Public Affairs 2005);
• Eric Brende, Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology (2004);
• Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (Knopf Doubleday 2004);
• Elise Blackwell, Hunger (Little Brown 2003)(Hunger was a Los Angeles Times “best book of 2003,” a Sydney Morning Herald “best read of the year,” a Book Sense pick, and a Borders Original Voices selection. Hunger was also the inspiration for “When the War Came” by the band, Decemberists);
• Stephen Ambrose, Into the Wild Blue (Simon Shuster 2001)(No. 7 on the Best Seller's List, New Year's 2002);
• Tom Paine, Scar Vegas (Harcourt 2000);
• David Colbert, Eyewitness to the American West: From the Aztec Empire to the Digital Frontier (Viking Press 1998);
• Roger Horowitz, Kosher U.S.A. (Columbia 1997);
• Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (Villard 1996);
• Louis J. Jacobs, Quest for the African Dinosaurs (Villard Books 1993);
• Donald L. Nathanson, Shame and pride: affect, sex, and the birth of the self (1992);
• Carl Vigeland, In Concert: Onstage and Offstage with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1991).
• Edward A. Charlesworth & Ronald G. Nathan, Stress Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Wellness" (Atheneum 1984).

References

Category:Cornell University alumni Category:1942 births