Matt's Barnes and Noble Reaction

In order to be honest I’d have to admit right away that I didn’t have very high expectations for the class trip to the Deptford Barnes and Noble. I couldn’t have been more wrong though. I thought that both presentations were very interesting and insightful in their own rights. I especially enjoyed the content of Jonathan Mayberry’s lecture. As a prospective writer (I’m interested in sports journalism which is like novel writing on a much, much smaller scale) I was very surprised by the core notion of Mr. Mayberry’s presentation: writing may be an art, but being a writer requires business savvy and the ability to treat one’s art like a commodity. I definitely was intrigued by this drastically different, insider’s perspective of the writing industry, especially coming from an author with a laundry list of works and many years of experience. I also was fascinated when Mr. Mayberry told us about the arduous, kicking and screaming process behind the scenes of getting a book to the shelves. I was shocked by some of the quirks and eccentricities of the business, like how editors and publishers are most often responsible for picking the title of a book, or how the end cap position in the book store is purchased by the publisher with the aim to boost book sales. The point about being able to revise work on an editor’s whim was one that hit home for me. When I become invested in something I’m writing I find it incredibly difficult to have to make changes, so I can’t even imagine having to rewrite an entire plot line or ending like Mr. Mayberry talked about.