William Curatolo

In my previous blog “From Science to Fiction” (

, I discussed the trials and tribulations of unlearning the scientific writing style, in order to jump into the world of writing fiction.  Today I want to discuss the seismic shift that has occurred in the mechanics of the process of book publishing. 

Two technical advances have occurred which have shaken traditional publishing to its core.  The first is the advent of e-books, well-known to all by now.  It seems that virtually everyone owns a Kindle or similar device, and these devices definitely bring convenience (particularly to the clinical trial scientist frequently stuck in airports).  The second advance is not as well-known, and this is just-in-time printing.  A single copy of a paperback book (with its cover) can now be printed, at low cost.   In addition, a significant business-process advancement (which bookstore lovers, including myself, decry) is internet book sales, and we might as well be honest about it and call it what it really is:  the success of the company Amazon.

In the old days, there were two publishing worlds, traditional publishing and “vanity” publishing.  Virtually all publishing occurred via traditional publishers, and these were the gatekeepers who held the printing presses, the warehouses, and the distribution channels.  It was very difficult (and still is) to get a publishing contract because these large publishers need manuscripts which can justify large printing runs and the expense of advertising and distribution.  “Vanity” publishers produced books for authors who were willing to pay, and such books were generally looked down upon as of low quality (although there were exceptions such as Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and Audubon’s “The Birds of America”).

I’ll cut to the chase.  Today, you do not need a large potential audience to publish a book, as long as your goal is not large financial gain.  For example, if you want to publish a family history of interest to only twenty-five living people, you can now proceed without having to get through the traditional publishing company gatekeepers.  You can format your book online and create a cover using a free service such as Createspace (createspace.com), owned by Amazon.  Alternatively, there are other relatively inexpensive companies (including Createspace) that will more actively help you for a fee.  If you go the Createspace route, you can have your book seamlessly listed on Amazon, where you set your price and royalty for both paperback and e-versions.  While I am sure that Amazon would like to sell lots of books to make lots of money, their efficient on-line sales model permits the listing and sale of books with small, even miniscule, markets.  The twenty-five people interested in your family history can buy your nicely produced paperback book on the subject.    If only one copy is ordered in a particular month, it doesn’t matter – that copy will be prepared using just-in-time printing.

To bring this closer to home, if you have a desire to publish a book on some aspect of clinical trial design or execution, even an unusually short book, the mechanism exists to accomplish it.  For more detailed information on how to self-publish, I strongly recommend the book “APE – Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur” by Guy Kawasaki, formerly Chief Evangelist at Apple Inc.  Kawasaki says to forget about “vanity” publishing and to call it “artisinal” publishing instead.

” is set against the background of international biotech, and involves broken clinical studies, illegal internet pharmacies, and New Jersey hoods.  A biophysicist by training, Dr. Curatolo served for six years on the staff at MIT, and for 27 years in the R&D Division at Pfizer.  He is the author of numerous scientific publications, and holds thirty-two US Patents.  “

http://www.amazon.com/Campanilismo-Crime-Intrigue-International-Biotech/dp/0989656608/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398972428&sr=1-1&keywords=curatolo

Articles

In my previous blog "From Science to Fiction" (ACTO, April 15, 2014), I discussed the trials and tribulations of unlearning the scientific writing style...

Artisanal Publishing

Almost all of us have said over the years, “With the things I’ve seen, I should write a book.”  Well, after a brief academic career and 27 years in the Pharmaceutical Development Division of a Big Pharma company, I decided to give it a try.  As a scientist who traveled quite a bit, I always kept a small notebook with me to record offbeat observations—hotel problems, strange airport experiences, overheard bizarre conversations, serious statements (unintentionally hilarious) from HR consultants on how to stimulate creativity… In addition, through involvement in “due diligence” evaluations and other activities, I observed (or heard about) some bizarre things concerning clinical trials and drug purity.  I was sure that I had more than enough fodder for an exciting novel about scientists and physicians behaving badly in the international drug industry.

An immediate problem was that I had spent a lifetime honing my scientific writing skills.  Writing a good scientific research article has to be learned, like all other skills.  With time you learn to separate the things which should be said in Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. You learn how to decide, for the particular journal, how much detail should be provided for the technical methods used.  You learn by experience the best way to clearly present certain kinds of data—by table or by figure, and what kind of figure.  Perhaps most importantly, you learn to delineate appropriate and inappropriate conclusions, and the degree to which speculation is appropriate, particularly for the journal chosen.  I wrote many review articles over my scientific tenure, which required additional learned skills, e.g. how to draw useful general conclusions from other scientists’ aggregated work, some appropriately controlled and interpreted and some not.  Review writing also requires skill at the art of criticizing work without unduly criticizing the scientists who produced it.  I also wrote the scientific background and examples of numerous patent applications, requiring different learned semantic skills.

With the exception of my obsession with proofreading, all this scientific writing did not prepare me for writing fiction.  I was like a classical guitarist trying to play jazz!

Writing fiction is all about action and dialogue.  My first big mistake was to start my first novel with two relatively long chapters describing basic (or “pure”) biological research, preclinical research in drug companies, and the design and execution and pitfalls of clinical trials.  I logically reasoned that to truly understand the nuances of the exciting story I was writing, the reader would first need to undergo a brief didactic education.   Every reader of my first draft said the same thing loudly – take that didactic crap out!  Start your novel with something exciting or mysterious – draw the reader in!  My two beautiful didactic chapters now sit in an electronic file on my computer, waiting for use somewhere – the Journal of Chemical Education?

A second big jump in going from scientific writing to fiction is concern for scientific accuracy.  As a science writer, I was meticulous about accuracy and about stating uncertainties where they existed.   I had to learn that when you use scientific information as a background for suspenseful fiction, you can throw all concern about accuracy out the window!   Scientific and technical background in a novel merely has to be plausible to provide the world in which the characters act.  It certainly does not have to be correct or even currently feasible.  Think Michael Crichton’s 

A third issue for a former science writer is style.  In writing science, I strove to write “The King’s English”.  In my elementary school education at St. Teresa School in Queens, N.Y., the Dominican Sisters drummed proper grammar into me until it was part of my DNA (perhaps via histone methylation, but a discussion of this would be too technical for this piece).   To write good fiction, I had to shake off some of this training (via demethylation?).    I learned about writing dialogue through trial and error, and the advice of readers.  I learned to use contractions – lots of them.   And if a character would naturally say “gonna” rather than “going to”, I learned to use “gonna”!   Most fictional characters “aren’t gonna” talk like a scientific paper.

My space here is limited, so I will stop for now.  In future blogs, I will talk more about writing style for fiction, and discuss the mechanics of traditional- and self-publishing and the most difficult part of all,  marketing.

Bill Curatolo’s novel  “Campanilismo” is set against the background of international biotech, and involves broken clinical studies, illegal internet pharmacies, and New Jersey hoods.  A biophysicist by training, Dr. Curatolo served for six years on the staff at MIT, and for 27 years in the R&D Division at Pfizer.  He is the author of numerous scientific publications, and holds thirty-two US Patents. 

“Campanilismo” is available at Amazon

Almost all of us have said over the years, "With the things I?ve seen, I should write a book."