Working with your editor

How can you better best?

We’re always keen to know, particularly when an author is new to us, how well that author can react and respond to editorial comment. Any professional will make any text they send to us the best it can be. That can be part of the problem: how do you make your best even better. Do not fear; there are two mitigating circumstances here:

Why authors and book covers often don’t mix

New authors frequently have a very good idea of what they would like their cover to look like. More often than not, however, they have very little say in it and even if they are invited to make suggestions much of what they suggest is impractical.

When we think about covers we have to think about the following:

The final 20%

Decisions about whether to publish or not can be very difficult. A text can have everything going for it:

·         It tells a good story

·         It is well written

·         It suits what we’re currently aiming at

·         It’s written by someone we’ve published before and we know:

o   We can work with that person

o   They sell well

·         The text doesn’t need all that much editing.

Cherish your editor

The relationship between a writer and her editor can be complex. The writer often fears the editor and some editors may fear higher profile writers – they have a track-record so they must be doing something right. Who is the mere editor to say that this time they are wrong? 

Yet the editor performs several services for the writer:

A Publisher’s Mailbox

How much our lives are ruled by our inbox! Email is at once a blessing and a curse. As a publisher, editor, academic, writer, creative practitioner and human being I receive about 200 emails a day. Who says we’re not communicating?

Email isn’t the only task

Though sometimes it can feel like it. So, should we cut it down? It would seem sensible to BUT I’m inclined not to. Everything I receive in my email box is welcome in fact – even the bad and irritating news. Sometimes I can’t action it straight away – so I put it into a “To Do” folder. Sometimes I’m never going to action it in time and it’s not important.  I’ve found this wonderful little button on my computer – marked “Delete”.  I don’t unsubscribe from lists, though. Odd times when there are a few more minutes to spare, I often find something useful on these lists.

Opinion soup

There is some subjectivity, certainly. Each publisher, anyway, has its own ethos, its own style, and targeted readership. And within the company there will be differing opinions. At that point, we must have some objectivity. All of these opinions must converge and everyone must be able to get behind the book. The book must attract a consensus of positive opinion.

A book comes to life

The call

We put out the call for submissions. We watch as they come in. We don’t look yet. We’re mildly curious as to how the writers have found us. Was it social media?  Did they visit our web site? Did someone in the know recommend us to them?

We recognise some old friends and we are flattered that some very established writers turn to us now. There are some new voices too: will they bring us that smart new gobsmacking, stunning, life-changing short story?

Still we don’t look.