Building a reputation, one nail at a time

Once again, the clock is bearing down on writer Tim Johnston’s fun, the way it does for a sixth-grader in the waning days of summer, for a Little League player in the bottom of the ninth. In his apartment above Jerry’s Garage in Hollywood, just when the writing is sweet, Johnston has to put away his book manuscript and head to work.

In the hills above Los Angeles, Johnston, 40, arrives on time at a house with an ocean view. He twirls a hammer as if he were a gunslinger and consults with his boss, a contractor, on the remodeling project. Johnston is a lanky carpenter with an organized tool belt, an easy grin -- and all the makings of a breakthrough writer.

Two weeks ago, Johnston got word that one of his short stories, “Irish Girl,” was selected for a top literary award (winners have not been announced publicly yet). His first book, a young-adult novel called “Never So Green,” was released late last year by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and got great reviews in publications including Publishers Weekly. Film rights have been optioned for the story of a sensitive 12-year-old baseball player who stumbles onto a wrenching family secret one summer.

But Johnston isn’t quite leading the Writer’s Life, the path on which he expected to land after getting a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1989. This is a tough town in which to be an unknown novelist, even a promising one, when the culture is so weighted toward Hollywood. Here, when he tells someone he’s a writer, the question shoots back: TV or film? Johnston doesn’t even know any other local fiction writers, except for his ex-girlfriend.

He has yet to get much public attention for “Never So Green.” He has not given any readings, other than the one he did at the “Never So Green” release party he threw for himself in October, serving cheese cubes and wine in a friend’s art gallery. (But just in case he is asked to read, Johnston practices in front of his 10-month-old dog, Sophie.)

And so far, no bookstore has asked Johnston to do a book signing, except for one in his hometown, Iowa City. (You could also count the time he walked into Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore, and the staff said, sure, he could sign his own books.) No book club has invited him to drop by, except for one run by his brother’s friends in Iowa. Back home, as an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, Johnston was part of the vibrant literary scene propelled by the university’s famous graduate program, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Now, Johnston and Sophie, a shepherd-hound mix adopted from the local pound, live in a funky apartment in the shadow of the Hollywood sign, a two-bedroom place that features black-and-white-checkered linoleum and a wood-framed poster of a John Deere tractor. Within arm’s reach of his computer, he keeps his favorite books, including a paperback copy of “A Moveable Feast,” Ernest Hemingway’s take on what it was like to be a young writer in Paris in the 1920s.

Johnston moved to L.A. eight years ago at the invitation of a friend who needed a roommate. At the time, after a long Iowa winter, Southern California seemed as good a place as any to try to make it as a writer after graduate school. These days, Johnston’s Midwestern accent and sensibilities still occasionally kick in. “Golll-y,” he says with chagrin, when Sophie tries to kiss his visitors.

In his stone-colored khakis, tucked-in T-shirt and baseball cap, Johnston is upbeat about his future Writer’s Life. “I hope I don’t come off as disappointed or bitter in any way because I’ve had nothing but a great experience,” he says. “I just count my blessings” that the book was published. “It’s a great thing, and it’s a start.”

For now, five days a week, Johnston straps on a tool belt that holds, among other essentials, a goblin-decorated pencil his mother sent him one Halloween. He doesn’t mind the manual work, which, he says, frees his mind for the creative. And his boss, a guitarist and film score composer, cuts him slack on his hours.

On most weekday mornings, Johnston gets in about 1 1/2 hours of work on his next novel, which is aimed at adults (“Never So Green” was written as an adult novel but ended up, at the suggestion of his agent and others, being sold as a book for young readers). But he vows that this year will be his last as a carpenter, a trade he picked up in Iowa to pay the bills while writing “Never So Green.” “It has worked up until the last two months, where I’m starting to just want to write,” Johnston say. “With [‘Never So Green’] coming out and another book almost done, I want to be just a writer and it’s hard. There’s no monetary correlation yet to whatever hubbub there’s been in the press and everything, so I’m trying to figure out how to do that.”

First, he’s trying to get the word out about “Never So Green.” New writers in the young-adult market typically don’t get much publicity; in fact, debut novelists in general typically don’t get big TV and print ads or national book tours. But even something as simple as a single key endorsement can catapult a novel out of obscurity.

After Oprah Winfrey tapped “White Oleander” (Little, Brown, 1999) as a selection for her then-on-air Book Club, for instance, the debut novel by Los Angeles writer Janet Fitch shot to the top of bestseller lists nationwide. And Alice Sebold’s first novel, “The Lovely Bones” (Little, Brown), was one of the most talked about books of 2002.

After an early buzz, including a plug by Anna Quindlen on the “Today” show, Little, Brown sent Sebold on a 20-city national tour and promoted the book with TV and major print ads. The advertising budget for Sebold’s book started at $50,000 and then doubled many times over, a Little, Brown spokeswoman says.

But Sebold, who lives in Long Beach, didn’t have anywhere near the marketing support for her first book, “Lucky” (Scribner, 1999), a memoir. For “Lucky,” Sebold picked up part of the expenses for her book-signing engagements, including the tab for a flight to New York, where a friend put her up and another friend was host of a reading for her.

From the outset, Johnston was told gently by his publisher that, as a first-time author of a young adult book, he shouldn’t expect a big marketing campaign. His agent also warned him, Johnston says, that there is only so much that the publicists can do.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux releases about 80 hardcover books for young readers each year and works with each writer on promotion possibilities, spokeswoman Sabeth Ryan Albert says. Albert, publicity manager for the publisher’s Books for Young Readers, declined to reveal the division’s marketing budget. “In the case of a first-time author, what’s really essential is building that author’s reputation,” she says.

“Never So Green,” for instance, was sent to reviewers across the country. The good reviews prompted the publisher to take out ads in School Library Journal and Booklist magazine. Albert also called Los Angeles-area bookstores to try to line up signing engagements but hasn’t had much luck. “It’s a great book ... and we’re proud of it, but if you ask any bookseller, I think they will say that selling a young-adult hardcover novel is their hardest sell,” Albert says. “Or they say, ‘Let’s wait and see’ if there’s a buzz.” The book’s sales figures are on target, she says.

The Dutton’s staff tries to encourage local writers by stocking their books, says Lise Friedman, the store’s events coordinator. She doesn’t want to be discouraging to unknown writers who ask if they might hold a book-signing event at the store. But in Los Angeles, where there is so much to do, crowds tend to turn out at book signings only for “a real famous writer or a friend,” and “there’s nothing worse for a new author than to have no one show up for a book event,” she says.

Novice writers instead should try to talk up their work to local booksellers and book other speaking engagements at places such as schools, Friedman recommends.

Johnston says he doesn’t feel comfortable pitching himself to schools, but hopes teachers and others will contact him through a Web site he paid friends to set up, www.neversogreen.com. So far, without much promotion, “Never So Green” has sold more than 3,000 copies, Johnston says. (By comparison, “The Lovely Bones” is in its 20th printing, with 2.4 million copies in print.) The way Johnston sees it, it’s not too late for “Never So Green,” which originally was written as a short story, to get a Hollywood-esque break.

The book had a promising start when it was listed as a distinguished short story, though not featured, in “Best American Short Stories,” by co-editor Tobias Wolff in 1994. “I’ve always had the idea that it was going to be a slow-build type of thing,” Johnston says. “That it would take time. I like to think there’s still time, that there’s still a lot of good to come.”

He was thrilled, for instance, when an online book club called Chapter-a-Day featured excerpts from “Never So Green.” More than 50 readers at Chapteraday.com e-mailed him with their reactions. “Just to have people respond to it -- it’s just amazing,” he says. “It’s just so cool. You get your thrills where you can.... It doesn’t have to be a big, big deal. Sure, it would be cool to be sent around and given the red carpet thing. Someday.”

As a start, he is thinking about finding a teaching job that would give him more time to write. “I never thought I’d be doing [carpentering] at 40,” he says. “Now my goal is to not be doing it at 41. This is the year of hanging up the hammer. This is the year of getting out of Jerry’s Garage.”