UPDATE: We now hear that NYT Mag story editor LUKE MITCHELL had this brilliant idea and conducted the commissioning and the approval of his boss Jake Silverstein. So bravo, the brilliant assignment editor LUKE MITCHELL. Who knew? That's GREAT ASSIGNMENT EDITING, sir!
UPDATE 2: A NYT staffer informs this blog that the fee for the K piece was NOT $1 million as some pundits had put forward as a ballpark figure. His one word tweet to this blog when asked if the fee was 1 mil was "no". So what was the FEE? $25,000?
KEY WORDS: Jake Silverstein,
LUKE MITCHELL (story editor, whose brilliant idea this was to assign the story to K), Matt Purdy, Hugo Lindgren, Adam Moss, Jim Romensko, Dean Baquet, William Safire, P.T. Barnum
PRELUDE - BUT SCROLL DOWN FOR FULL BACKSTORY: We asked a few people in the book business their POV on all this. Let's call them:
''Lars, Mars and Bars.'' This is what they told us. Or maybe we made this all up. You decide. All in fun. This blog loves K, so it's all in fun and good cheer.
LARS: Dear My New York Times blog, I gotta tell you that I am Norwegian by birth and just read all of Part 1 of "My Saga" in a copy of the magazine. To be honest, I am sort of conflicted. It sure was a gamble o the part of the NYT, to assign this kind of piece to K. Who was the editor who picked up the phone and handed the gig to K on a silver platter? I dunno. But whoever he or she is, they deserve some kind of PR prize for savvy editing.. Did it pay off? I'm not sure. I couldn't tell if it was a genius at work, or a jet-lagged hack typing. Parts were brilliant, others were yuck and much of it seemed pointless. Did you read that WC toilet scene? What was K thinking? What was K drinking? What was K smoking?
MARS: K's quasi-stream of consciousness thing: it's been done many time before, and better, no? Think James Joyce from Ireland and "Ulysses". And what was with all the obsessive-compulsiveness with minutiae? The writer Nicholson Baker is much funnier in "The Mezzanine," about some bloke buying shoe-laces on a lunch break, no?
BARS: Not that anyone asked me in my Brooklyn neighborhood, but from my POV, the K saga was ''soitainly'' was a bold move by the Magazine. Great way to relaunch the mag. How much the pay? Whatever they paid, it was worth it. The Magazine will never be the same. The K coverage was priceless and don't forget to factor in the social media added value PR bonus. It was a win win for both parties. Punch has deep pockets. The Times never loses.
LARS: My verdict: undecided. I'll wait until part 2, online on March 15. In the print edition. I am print guy, Mr. Paper. I hate screens. I hate screening. But I do want to see part 2
MARS: You guys can say what you want to here. But one thing: I'm have no intention of reading K's loooooooong multi-voluminous six book thing, whatever they call it: novel, monologue, fiction. Life is too short. Then again, maybe I am missing something?
BARS: IMHO, K is a hack prose writer but I like his pose. He is not a genius. Just verbose. The mag piece was fun for me as an installment. But I too have no intention to.read his six pack volumes. Life is too short.
MARS: I am curious. How much budget money did the mag editor have to set up this deal? Airfare hotels and payment? 10k dollars? As a pr giimmick it worked for the nyt brand to bring in readers for mag eyeballs. But did it pay off? From a pr strategy pov I gotta salute the editor. But was it wise idea in the long term? K will.probably publish the two mag pieces as a new book, too. Watch!
BARS: Maybe the total mag budget pr package and writing fee was $100,000 dollars? Did the Gamble pay off as a branding effort? What will Punch say? Off with da editor's head?
LARS: I'm sure the Times marketing and PR departments paid a lot and are satisfied with themselves for doing so. Great gimmick for the first issue of the relaunch. That's the NYT for you! Smart savvy people.
MARS: Yes. Launch PR. It worked. Punch's pockets deep. Could it have been as high as 100,000 dollars? As tax write off?of doing business? K does not need the money so why did he accept the gig? Whatever, it was a pr triumph!A literary triumph? Umpf. People talking about it. I love the drama of it all.
BARS: It's a close call.
LARS: What are you talking about?
MARS: Look, no heads are gonna roll. The top Times people loved the way it worked out. All PR is good PR. The TIMES likes the buzz - good and bad.
LARS: Has any
outside media like the ny observer or keith kelly or lloyd grove written about the pr coup of the k deal? Anyone see anything yet in the MSM or on social media? Links, please. Drinks, please!
Here.... is
a media story worth following, if following media stories is your thing. If not, skip this page as fast as you can. It's about America's favorite Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard and his recent foray into the Sunday magazine at the Times, set up by a savvy editor for the MAGAZINE's relaunch. JAKE SILVERSTEIN,
working in tandem with Story Editor Luke Mictchell, and yes Jake, the Mag's newish chief editor with a wonderful Texas swagger, and who orchestrated the entire deal --lock, stock and barrel (and toilet bowl) -- did a very savvy Texas swagger PR thing, with an apparently unlimited budget, and it went down like this (see below), and
this is how K himself tells the story to readers of the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/magazine/karl-ove-knausgaard-travels-through-america.html?_r=0
Apparently, Jake Silverstein, the very PR savvy and Wesleyan-trained storyteller and
"I won't take NO for an answer" top editor at the Magazine,
OR alt theory is that it was brilliant story editor Luke Mitchell who thought up the cockamamie idea and brought it to Jake, contacted
K by telephone/email/twitter last December 2014, really just a few months ago, and laid out a cool ''big budget'' ''take no prisoners''
gig for K,
if he was interested.
Fly to Canada, drive down to the USA, travel across the USA and write about his
trip
exclusively as a PR coup for the NYT Sunday Magazine.
The payment offered? Well, nobody is saying but let's say that since this PR gig was for the ReLaunch of the flagship Sunday magazine, there were
unlimited funds available from Punch's deep pockets. Do they still call him Punch? Some say the offer was $1 million dollars. Other say more like $500,000. Others say it was a paltry $75,000, plus airfaire. You figure it out. It was NOT peanuts!
Whatever, it could have been as high as
$100,000 for the ten day gig, plus airfare and hotels and food, all taken care of. And all K had to do was write about the trip for the TIMES. Some say the fee was
A MILLION DOLLARS, all greenbacks, but who knows?
Others say it was a $75,000 fee for a two part series that would run exclusively in the Magazine, a week or two apart. The first part already ran, and PART TWO is set to appear in print on March 15. The Ides of March? But let
K tell it himself
in his own words. Here he explains to NYT readers how the two part series came to be:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/magazine/karl-ove-knausgaard-travels-through-america.html?_r=0
''When [Luke Mitchell, the story editor at the mag or Jake Silverstein the top editor, I cannot remember which one it was, they all sound alike, at] The New York Times Magazine contacted me in December to ask whether I would travel across the United States and write about my trip for them, at first I didn’t think of my missing license.''
[Luke Mitchell the brilliant Mag story ideaor maybe it was the savvy and oh so generous with the money Jake] [who contacted me via my agent and publisher in NYC] proposed that I travel to Newfoundland and visit the place
where the Vikings had settled, then rent a car and drive south, into
the U.S. and westward to Minnesota, where a large majority of
Norwegian-American immigrants had settled, and then write about it, at first I didn’t think of my missing license. ''
“A
tongue-in-cheek Tocqueville,” as [LUKE / JAKE] put it. [THE SAVVY AND VERY GENEROUS WITH A PAYCHECK EDITOR IN QUESTION] also suggested that I
should see the disputed Kensington Runestone while I was in Minnesota.
It was on display in a little town called Alexandria, near where a
farmer had claimed to discover it in 1898, and it could be proof — if
authentic — that the Vikings had not only settled Newfoundland but
made it all the way to the center of the continent. It probably was a
hoax, he said, but seeing it would be a nice way to round out the
story.''
'
''I accepted the offer at once. I had just read and written about the
Icelandic sagas, and the chance to see the actual place where two of
them were partly set, in the area they called Vinland, was impossible
to turn down.''
''A few weeks later, I was on a plane flying from London to Toronto. I
was running a temperature, and after battling my way through all the
lines and security checks at Heathrow that morning with an aching
body, I wished I could keep flying. I just wanted to sit and watch
movies and doze, far from everything. Now and then I would pause the
movie and switch to the map to see where we were. We flew over
Iceland, then toward Greenland and then over the North American
continent. It was more or less the same route the Vikings sailed a
thousand years ago.''
==========================
BACK TO THE BLOG STORY: So
K flew to the USA, did the trip as planned and wrote the piece for the Times. Maybe 50,000 words, maybe 500,000 words, who knows how many words but it was long piece and the editors split into two pieces and most likely the piece will soon be published also as a stand-alone BOOK under K's name, a new entry in the K sweeptakes in English speaking countries. It will be a good book, too and
[dwight] garner great reviews, too.
If you read part 1, you either liked it, loved it or hated it. And now part 2 is coming soon. Next week in fact.
We asked a few people in the book business their POV on all this. Let's call them:
''Lars, Mars and Bars.'' This is what they told us. Or maybe we made this all up. You decide. All in fun. This blog loves K, so it's all in fun and good cheer.
LARS: Dear My New York Times blog, I gotta tell you that I am Norwegian by birth and just read all of Part 1 of "My Saga" in a copy of the magazine. To be honest, I am sort of conflicted. It sure was a gamble o the part of the NYT, to assign this kind of piece to K. Who was the editor who picked up the phone and handed the gig to K on a silver platter? I dunno. But whoever he or she is, they deserve some kind of PR prize for savvy editing.. Did it pay off? I'm not sure. I couldn't tell if it was a genius at work, or a jet-lagged hack typing. Parts were brilliant, others were yuck and much of it seemed pointless. Did you read that WC toilet scene? What was K thinking? What was K drinking? What was K smoking?
MARS: K's quasi-stream of consciousness thing: it's been done many time before, and better, no? Think James Joyce from Ireland and "Ulysses". And what was with all the obsessive-compulsiveness with minutiae? The writer Nicholson Baker is much funnier in "The Mezzanine," about some bloke buying shoe-laces on a lunch break, no?
BARS: Not that anyone asked me in my Brooklyn neighborhood, but from my POV, the K saga was ''soitainly'' was a bold move by the Magazine. Great way to relaunch the mag. How much the pay? Whatever they paid, it was worth it. The Magazine will never be the same. The K coverage was priceless and don't forget to factor in the social media added value PR bonus. It was a win win for both parties. Punch has deep pockets. The Times never loses.
LARS: My verdict: undecided. I'll wait until part 2, online on March 15. In the print edition. I am print guy, Mr. Paper. I hate screens. I hate screening. But I do want to see part 2
MARS: You guys can say what you want to here. But one thing: I'm have no intention of reading K's loooooooong multi-voluminous six book thing, whatever they call it: novel, monologue, fiction. Life is too short. Then again, maybe I am missing something?
BARS: IMHO, K is a hack prose writer but I like his pose. He is not a genius. Just verbose. The mag piece was fun for me as an installment. But I too have no intention to.read his six pack volumes. Life is too short.
MARS: I am curious. How much budget money did the mag editor have to set up this deal? Airfare hotels and payment? 10k dollars? As a pr giimmick it worked for the nyt brand to bring in readers for mag eyeballs. But did it pay off? From a pr strategy pov I gotta salute the editor. But was it wise idea in the long term? K will.probably publish the two mag pieces as a new book, too. Watch!
BARS: Maybe the total mag budget pr package and writing fee was $100,000 dollars? Did the Gamble pay off as a branding effort? What will Punch say? Off with da editor's head?
LARS: I'm sure the Times marketing and PR departments paid a lot and are satisfied with themselves for doing so. Great gimmick for the first issue of the relaunch. That's the NYT for you! Smart savvy people.
MARS: Yes. Launch PR. It worked. Punch's pockets deep. Could it have been as high as 100,000 dollars? As tax write off?of doing business? K does not need the money so why did he accept the gig? Whatever, it was a pr triumph!A literary triumph? Umpf. People talking about it. I love the drama of it all.
BARS: It's a close call.
LARS: What are you talking about?
MARS: Look, no heads are gonna roll. The top Times people loved the way it worked out. All PR is good PR. The TIMES likes the buzz - good and bad.
LARS: Has any
outside media like the ny observer or keith kelly or lloyd grove written about the pr coup of the k deal? Anyone see anything yet in the MSM or on social media? Links, please. Drinks, please!
MORE================
www.slate.com/.../knausgaard_s_nytm_piece_my_saga_sh...
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2015年2月26日 - The latest issue of the relaunched New York Times Magazine has, as its ... Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard photographed at TYPE ...
www.slate.com/.../knausgaard_nyt_magazine_travel_essay...
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6 天前 - How does Karl Ove Knausgaard's new New York Time Magazine series ... by the Times to write a travelogue: “The editor proposed that I travel to ... piece was meant to run in the previous issue, for the magazine's relaunch).
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