A labor of love, or just labor?
Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Thomas P.M. Barnett is a wee bit nervous about the impending release of his book: I am not feeling very optimistic about the book’s reception. I just don’t sense any buzz. Maybe that’s because I’m living in Indiana under a foot and a half of snow, but it does ...
Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Thomas P.M. Barnett is a wee bit nervous about the impending release of his book:
Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Thomas P.M. Barnett is a wee bit nervous about the impending release of his book:
I am not feeling very optimistic about the book’s reception. I just don’t sense any buzz. Maybe that’s because I’m living in Indiana under a foot and a half of snow, but it does haunt me. Far more than passing kidney stones, I feel like waiting on a book release is like a woman waiting for labor–mostly it’s dread and regret and the inability to get a decent night’s sleep.
I know that’s being self-absorbed, but–again–that’s why it’s like heading toward labor: there is this all-consuming sense of an onrush of something either very good or very bad and you have a hard time sensing the possibility of anything in between those two extremes.
As someone who is also waiting on a book to come out, I sympathize with Barnett’s pain. I suspect, however, that his agita is actually worse than a garden-variety book author.
This has to do with the nature of book publishing and the state of the world. When publishing a book, all international relations authors not named Bob Woodward must endure a 3-12 month window during which the book is copyedited, typeset, and then published. During this period, an author can make limited changes to the text — but nothing significant.
This gap doesn’t matter all that much — unless, of course, one is writing about world politics in a time of flux. In that case, authors feel like a hostage to current events. And because of the financial crisis, I’ve read an awful lot of first chapters recently that seemed out of date the moment they were published.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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