bookpublishing

I had a fascinating conversation with my colleague, Meredith, who is the Submissions Editor and Editorial Coordinator at my company, regarding what to expect from submissions from authors. (But first, thank you Whitfields for a great lunch, and for having space out on the patio… really nice lunch, right Mer?)

“So what are you looking for in a submission? What do you expect to find?” I asked.

“Some sample chapters, a synopsis, and hopefully some market research.”

I hadn’t really thought about this aspect of a book proposal/submission. The author does market research? But it sure makes a lot of sense. The author does need to know what other similar and competing titles are out there. If there’s a dialogue happening out there in bookland, the author will want to be part of it–and then he* can show the editor how his book fits into a current and ongoing discussion or trend.

I asked, “So what’s better for an author–being able to show that there are other books out there on the same title? or showing that what the author is writing is something new and different that isn’t duplicated elsewhere?”

Of course there’s no easy answer to that question. “It depends. If an author tells me the topic he writes about was really popular and sold well 10-20 years ago, then that trend is over–forget it. But if they have an idea that fits in with a growing trend, then that’s really interesting and marketable.”

So I’m not telling any of you writers out there to change your topic… Don’t throw out the novel you’re writing to write about a young man who shocked the world by winning eight gold medals in the Olympics. (Of course, that will be old news by the time you write and pub the book… And don’t worry, my ego isn’t big enough to assume anyone would throw out their writing because of this silly blog post!) But when you’re marketing what you’ve already written, consider what sort of dialogue it fits into. Another colleague was telling me that she reads a blog written by a thirty-year-old woman with twin children whose husband passed away from cancer just after the children were born. If this were your topic, there are tons of ways to market this idea: What are the newest medical discoveries surrounding the type of cancer he died from? How do other busy moms with twins (think celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez) manage their everyday life? How does one woman work from home, care for two newborns, and change the world via the blogosphere at the same time?

It is, of course, part of the editor’s job to do market research on her own. In our company, they must create “comp grids” (or maybe Meredith does it all for them…), which explain other competing and similar titles on the market. But if an author begins this process, that can help the editor immeasurably when trying to pitch the project to the editorial team (or the Pub Board, as it’s called at my company). Give them more to brag about and a better knowledge of your topic, and you might have a success story on your hands.

*Please forgive the masculine pronoun. But see, when I talk about editors, they’re feminine. I like to balance them out.

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