...This book follows the creation, production, and reception of Cornelia Nixon's 2009 historical fiction, Jarrettsville, from start to finish. Jarrettsville tells the story of one of Nixon's ancestors, Martha Jane Cairnes, who shot and killed her newborn baby's father...

...This chapter examines why Counterpoint Press eventually accepted the manuscript for Jarrettsville after initially rejecting it. As a precondition for representing Cornelia Nixon, Wendy Weil asked her to write and send one chapter per month of the novel that would eventually become...

...This chapter examines how readers read their lives into Jarrettsville as the novel transitioned from the field of production to the field of reception. To read one's life into a novel means to make sense of it using the tools that one possesses. For different readers the same novel...

...This chapter examines how readers read Jarrettsville into their lives. To read a novel into one's life is to treat the novel as the raw materials through which one turns over, reconsiders, or shares with others one's own experiences. While some book groups found...

... Jarrettsville had not been a mistake, but it had not earned enough to cover many losses on what would be inevitable future mistakes. For some of the readers of Jarrettsville, the book became an occasional reference point in their future reading and socializing. This conclusion...

...This book follows the life trajectory of a single work of fiction from its initial inspiration to its reception by reviewers and readers. The subject is Jarrettsville, a historical novel by Cornelia Nixon, which was published in 2009 and based on an actual murder committed...

...This chapter examines how Jarrettsville came to be, and how even its title was eventually derived, by tracing the social life of artistic creation within it. Between 1998 and 2004, Cornelia Nixon was working on a novel titled Martha's Version, the story...

...This chapter examines how Cornelia Nixon turned a $6,000 advance for Jarrettsville into a stable and middle-class income. Nixon's writing ritual is a story not only about her creative process, but also about money. She lives in a handsome condo in Berkeley Hills, California. She...

...This chapter examines Counterpoint Press editor Adam Krefman's proposal for changing Jarrettsville by focusing on the field of production and how different book publishers fit and operate within it. Krefman had been full of praise for Jarrettsville, but he wondered...

...This chapter examines how a one-sentence email from Kim Wylie, the VP of sales at Publishers Group West, almost led to a doubling of Counterpoint Press's print run for Jarrettsville. Cornelia Nixon enacted Adam Krefman's suggestion to move part of the end of Jarrettsville...

...This chapter examines Counterpoint Press's marketing for Jarrettsville, focusing on how it increased awareness for Cornelia Nixon's novel at BookExpo America (BEA). It first provides an overview of BEA, a trade conference held in May or early June each year for publishers...