A Rule Breaker On Capitalizing Book Titles

"Everyone who I talked to felt passionate about what they're doing," Jim Bildner says. "Everyone who I talked to felt despair over the economic world around them and what was happening to literature."

Bildner, the chairman and founder of LVF, is also the source, so far, of 100 percent of its cash. Over sandwiches at his office on Boston's Rowes Wharf, he recalled the conversations he had with people in publishing as he was doing his "due diligence" before launching his new enterprise.

The idea for LVF, he says, grew out of a midlife shift fueled by tragedy.

Bildner grew up in a family that owned a New Jersey-based chain of supermarkets and went on to build a couple of businesses of his own. A few years ago, he discovered that his college-age son, Peter, had a heroin addiction that eventually would kill him.

Shaken, Bildner decided that "the last thing the world needs is another person who's spending all their time and energy creating new widgets." He enrolled in a creative writing program at Cambridge's Lesley University, where he was told: "Write from your heart." Out poured the story of Peter and his family's failed efforts to help him.

It was a difficult time, obviously, yet Bildner found himself moved by the talent and passion of the writers he was meeting. Then Lesley convened a publishing panel to offer words of industry wisdom -- and he found himself listening to "five of the most arrogant folks I'd ever met" explain to him and his fellow students that they'd be lucky if an editor at a major publishing house ever so much as looked at their stuff.

Appalled, he began talking about starting an independent publishing company that would treat writers differently. A little research convinced him that the world had too many struggling independents already. He'd be better off investing in individual projects, he decided, catalyzing literary efforts without replicating the infrastructure that was already in place.

The goal would be to "help more things faster, with lower dollars." But the venture-capital model was important to him for another reason as well. If the fund worked, it would be "sustainable." Not every investment would pay off, but enough would so that its pool of capital would replenish itself -- and LVF wouldn't have to deal with "donor fatigue."

One of the first people Bildner talked to was Lependorf, who headed the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, a nonprofit that offers technical assistance to independent publishers. Lependorf was excited enough that eventually his organization merged with Bildner's. Ande Zellman, a magazine editor turned consultant, came aboard as editorial director to complete the LVF team.

As the due-diligence phase continued, Bildner and company went to see Amanda Urban of International Creative Management, one of the best-known agents in publishing. Zellman saw this as a reality check: If someone like Urban thought LVF's plan was silly, they'd know they were in trouble.

Urban didn't. "Promotional dollars are really tight," she says, and for many books, $10,000 or $20,000 in additional marketing money can make a significant difference. So "anybody who wants to come along and amplify dollars is fine by me."

Not everyone jumped at the LVF scheme. Some publishers told Bildner in essence: Nice idea, but we won't be doing deals with you. Enough responded positively, however, for him to recruit a varied list of publishing names to the LVF board. Among them were Karp, National Book Foundation Executive Director Harold Augenbraum and novelist Heidi Julavits, who edits the literary magazine the Believer. Others, including authors Susan Orlean and Tobias Wolff, signed on less formally as advisers.