pro tip if you're planning to tweet out The Screenshot one day
So at the beginning of this year, I got a subscription to Publishers Marketplace just to see what it was like to possess the sacred knowledge (i.e. access to the all-knowing database of agents, writers, and most importantly, the deals deals deals), and my conclusion is that while there aren’t as many publicly listed exact $$ amounts as a gossip-monger would hope, it’s got the goods overall.
Moreover, it is a downright thrill to see familiar names pop up lately on the daily “new deals” email, which is where those book deal screenshot announcements on Twitter come from (also known as “the lit shot”). I guess it’s a little dorky to read through the emails for fun, but as your average Media Jane dreaming of the moment I’ll have a screenshot to call my own, it is a nice peek at how the literary sausage gets made, kind of like finally seeing where pineapples come from.
Anyway, the publishing pros all know this already, BUT if you are not with it on PM intricacies and plan on being in a position to tweet out The Screenshot sometime in the future, too, I do have a small insider tip for you: don’t take your screenshot from the email. Instead, have your agent (or get a PM subscription) and go into the actual site and navigate to the Deals page (It’s basically the web version of the daily email) where you can see all the listings. There, you’ll find an option to click “screenshot view” under each listing — which generates the perfect little PNG in Twitter-optimized specs with some nice PM branding at the top.
This is the part where I would include screenshots for you, but the Deez Links legal team has not figured out if it’s Gucci to do that with paywalled content……..so I created an ARTIST’S RENDITION of what I’m talking about:
^^This is what you’d screenshot (as illustrated in slightly dry pink highlighter) if you are Edgar Allan (/Allen) Poe wanting to tweet about your sci-fi book deal and you’re just scrolling through the email announcement…
^^And this is what you get as a neat lil PNG if you go into the website and click on “screenshot view” for your listing. Much cleaner and better for tweeting, eh?
Anyway please pardon my 11 p.m. illustration skills, but that’s your very small pro tip for today! FWIW, it’s a semi-new thing; according to the PM moderator I emailed about this, they quietly added the feature last June. (Plus, people are getting The Screenshot printed on mugs? Personally, I love it. Put that PNG to work!)
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(Gonna sift through the Meghan & Harry interview takes later today and send you my faves tomorrow — feel free to forward me ones you think are worth reading!)