Category: Views

On Publishing, Views

“So you…acquire things?”

Kit10

When I tell people I am an acquisitions editor, I get a variety of amusing responses. Perfunctory Joe nods along knowingly but his eyes give him away: he doesn’t understand or care to. Average Joe asks a misguided but expected question: Do I edit books? Finally, Opportunist Joe launches into a breathless sales pitch about his groundbreaking space circus novel, a fusion of sci-fi and memoir—despite the fact that this hybrid genre is galaxies outside my niche. In each case, I sigh and wonder if its worth it to try to explain my job.

So what does it mean to be an acquisitions editor? In traditional publishing companies, acquisitions editors search for the manuscripts that best fit a company’s niche, whether working with agents and other professional contacts or browsing through the “slush” pile of unsolicited manuscripts and proposals. Their knowledge of their market and of what works well for their company coupled with the ability to envision how a book can be turned from straw to gold allows acquisitions editors to narrow down the enormous pool of project ideas into one or two dozen projects.  When a potential winner is found, they promote the project within the company, seeking support from sales, marketing, and other editors before finally negotiating a writing contract.

That doesn’t sound too confusing.  However, it gets more complicated for me because my experience is with a publishing model functioning a bit in reverse.

A book idea traditionally originates with a writer who finds a publisher who finds stores who ideally find readers. Basically the reverse model starts with stores who’ve found reader demand  and who then find publishers who then find writers.

A model like this, which builds on what’s already out there, is not likely to be cutting-edge, but it can still produce quality books that satisfy reader demands. Depending on my mood, I vacillate between calling this the No Guts, No Glory and the Better Safe Than Sorry approach. Does this mean I have no unique book ideas to pitch of my own? Certainly not! But the struggle to get them approved is like trying to get a claustrophobic to go spelunking. It’s similar to the struggle writers under the traditional model face regularly–essentially asking a gambler to bet on you—but in this case I’m asking someone who’s risk-averse.

What this means for Acquisitions is that my “slush” pile is made of people instead of paper. Instead of looking for a good manuscript, I look for a good man or woman–a roster of writers ready and able to meet the needs of preconceived projects. With subjects ranging from crafts to sports to health, history, education, and religion, I work with a big pool of talent of not only writers but also photographers, illustrators, fact checkers, consultants, and stock photo companies –anyone who has what is needed to produce a title. The talent pool is so wide-ranging that even auctioneers and cartographers have taken a dip.

With the talent in place, my role turns back towards the conventional—developing the concept, managing budgets and schedules, negotiating rights and rates, compiling credits and copyright permission, and finally promoting the product. Based on the length of this description though, it’s understandable why I hesitate to explain.

On Publishing, On Writing, Views

Books Without Borders

Kit10

Don’t believe it when they say you need to live in New York to work in publishing.

Last year I lived in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness, enrolled at Hogwarts, and lead a barnyard coup. I saw Boo Radley and spurned the richest landed gentleman in Derbyshire. This was not merely a hobby. I was following the career advice I received from young adult author Norma Fox Mazer: “Read, read, read. Reading and writing go hand-in-hand.” Books are my passport and therapist, flooding my apartment and keeping me up past my bedtime. Jon Krakauer may have little in common with Jane Austen, but the one constant I find in books is the power of their words to incite change. My goal is simple: tap into this power and leave the world better than I found it.

Unfortunately establishing clear goals doesn’t necessarily create an open path towards accomplishment. During New York University’s Summer Publishing Institute, for example, everyone warned me that New York City was the only place to work in publishing. On behalf of my beloved Midwest, I felt a little indignant. I set out to prove them wrong, first in Milwaukee at Hal Leonard, the world’s largest publisher of songbooks and music texts and now by working in Lincolnwood for Publications International, which produces over 500 titles annually.

Although I’ve been writing since before I could form letters (when my patient mother would transcribe my story “The Monster at the End of the Book”), being published seemed an unattainable dream. Sure there were minor victories along the way: literary magazines, pitching and acquiring my first books for a publisher, even meeting the president of Costa Rica after winning a political essay contest held in his honor. Still, I couldn’t ignore the odds.

My expectations changed in April of 2006 when Publisher’s Weekly announced a new novel by A. Manette Ansay with a premise strikingly similar to one I had been plotting for years. I was beginning to think like a published writer. Perhaps it isn’t unrealistic then to expect that I can become that author instructing young fans to “read, read, read.”

I’d like the opportunity to try the roles of writer, editor, and teacher. I firmly believe that working as a writer makes a better editor and as an editor, a better writer. My participation in publishing from brainstorming to bookstore expelled that fantastical notion of the lone writer spinning gold from straw, and the fact that I was able to participate from the Midwest further dispelled the New York myth. Where else can books take me, and where would I be without them?