I got an urgent email from my marketing manager this week: “We need your sales tip sheets for spring 2006 books by July 1.” Then came another from the cover designer: “I'm confirming our meeting on July 5 to talk about covers for spring 2006 books.”

I was not exactly surprised; I know well that marketing and sales start working on upcoming books a LONG time in advance — 6 to 9 months, in fact. And I know the designer has to have covers ready for the spring catalog early, too. But it’s always a slight shock to the system. The books that will be published between March and July of 2006 are not even finished manuscripts yet. We don't have final titles for some of them. How in the world will I give all the other departments what they need to market and sell these unfinished masterpieces?

Welcome to another part of the trade editor's life.

Early marketing and sales information is just one of the balls that I have to keep aloft. At the same time I'm trying to acquire new books, I'm coaching authors who are just beginning their manuscripts, editing and commenting on half-finished manuscripts, looking at cover prototypes, reviewing jacket copy, helping authors secure endorsements from more famous people, sitting in on titling meetings (where we actually do try to come up with clever and catchy titles for our books), AND I'm feeding the marketing and sales people what they need to support the current crop of books.

I must admit to being a little addicted to the brisk pace, the variety, and the great feeling I get when the balls do stay aloft, authors and colleagues are all happy, and the books are selling. Other days it just feels overwhelming — as a colleague of mine said, like shoveling snow in a blizzard. No matter how fast you shovel, there's always much more to do than you can keep up with.

But that's the life, the one I signed on for. Just yesterday, I was describing what I do to someone who had come in for an informational interview about publishing. The more I talked, the more I realized I still love this job. It may be a blizzard, but it's my blizzard, flakes and all. — Sheryl Fullerton




One morning I started reading a new manuscript. And reading and reading and reading. The writing was good, and the author seemed intelligent and funny. She made some interesting points. But what was she really talking about? What was the book about? It didn't seem to add up to anything. A normal reader would have tossed it aside after two or three pages. But because it was my job and I was getting paid to evaluate it, I kept reading. After two long chapters I still didn't have a clue what this writer was trying to do.

Then, there it was: the book idea. On page 64!

That’s odd, I thought. This is the second manuscript I’ve seen this month that didn’t really begin until page 64. I don’t know if the number has a mystical significance in the authorial universe, but I do know that manuscripts like these are so common that when I get to read a book where the idea is clear from page one, I am delighted.

Why does this happen? Many new nonfiction authors seem to feel that they have to spend about a chapter and a half explaining the thought process that brought them to the epiphany they want to share in the book. If this sounds ominously familiar, I have two words for you: You don’t.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't write about your epiphany – you may need to in order to clarify your purpose. But write about it in your journal, not in your manuscript. See this material for what it is: a way of boosting your spirits, of convincing yourself that writing this book really is a good idea, and of affirming the freshness of your insights. Then leave it at that. You can always draw on this material briefly in the book, but it doesn't have to be front and center.

If you are you working on a manuscript now, ask yourself whether you have clearly expressed the idea and purpose of the book in the first five pages. No? Then find that one-sentence gem that beautifully expresses what the book is REALLY about – wherever it is – and move it early into the first chapter. Now you've got a good starting place, one that will literally get readers on the same page with you right from the beginning.

– Naomi Lucks




Last night one of my long-time clients called to announce that that her acquisitions editor loved the manuscript she and I had been working on together for nearly a year. She was ecstatic, and so was I. “Thank you for being a midwife for my book,” she said.

It was an odd reversal of what she'd said to me as we began the development process: “You killed my baby!” I took it like an editor and let it wash over me: this wasn’t the first
time I’d heard this particular complaint, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. After all, “killing your darlings” — deleting your favorite parts if they don’t serve the writing as a whole — is a time-honored phrase in editing.

Editing — like authoring — is not for the fainthearted! Authors who have been through the process once are a little more ready for the give and take, the critiques, and all the rest of the work that goes into developing a manuscript the second time around. In fact, the majority of them seek out a development editor right from the start to help them shape the new book. But most first-time authors struggle with letting someone else get their hands on their prose, even a professional who clearly understands what needs to be done to make sure the end product is as good as it can be. It is their baby, but even the best babies need help as they grow.

That my client came to think of me as a midwife was a miracle that – fortunately! — happens often enough to keep me in business. What changed in the process? I think it was that she let go of the pain of change long enough to hear what her editor and I were trying to explain: her book had great promise, but it wasn't there yet. And just as it can take a village to raise a child, developing a book from “baby” manuscript to grown-up published book that compels readers to buy it, read it, learn from it, and tell their friends about it is inevitably a collaborative process. And that's a good thing. It means the author doesn't have to go it alone and suffer the consequences of not having the kind of feedback and coaching that good editing provides.

Really.

— Naomi Lucks



Last Friday, as I was sitting in my little cubicle multi-tasking through email, editing jacket copy, fielding impromptu questions, and managing the usual flood of stuff coming in and going out, the mail room guy cheerfully dropped a hefty FedEx box on my desk. Hmmm, I thought. Who’s sending me this big old thing? I looked at the return address; the scrawled name wasn’t one I knew. But somebody had a terrific case of urgency, enough to spend about $30 to send me this submission.

I got around to opening it later on. Inside I found another envelope, and inside that a piece of paper with a name, contact information, and the statement “I’m a published author.” Accompanying this was a printout of a page from Amazon.com — proof, I guessed, of this author’s claim that he was published. And then the piece de resistance: three wirebound booklet thingies that seemed to be mockups of the books this author wanted me to consider. Right.

Without hesitation I wrote “reject” on the piece of paper and sent it along to my assistant for processing. Frankly, I was too annoyed with the sender to explain any further. But here’s what I would have said, and what I’d say to any author contemplating sending a similar package — without even a cover letter! — to any editor or agent:

What in the world were you thinking?

First, you didn’t answer the $64 million question: Who are you as an author? Nothing I received told me anything about who he was, why he was qualified to write this book, how well his previous book had sold, etc.

Second, the Amazon.com ranking for his book was in the hundreds of thousands. That didn’t sound like success to me, at least not success that a publisher could build on.

Third, there was no proposal, so I didn’t get answers to my usual questions: What is the market/audience for these works? What are competitors or comparable titles? In what category or part of the bookstore would they be placed? For adults or children? And so on. Without a proposal, these unknowns remain unknowns.

Finally, even if I wanted to figure out what these books were and who would buy them, the publisher I work for doesn’t do little illustrated four-color books! The person who sent them to me hadn’t done his homework enough to even know what we publish or what my editorial tastes might be.

In all my years of publishing, I've never been happy to reject aspiring writers — I just wish they wouldn't make it so easy! — Sheryl Fullerton

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