Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do (50 page)

Here’s how I managed it:

G.P.PUTNAM’S SONS
200
MADISON AVENUE
•
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
10016

Dear Bookseller
,

I have never done this before, and I may not be doing it again soon. But I really believe the novel that inspires this letter is itself a special event
.

Sugar
Cage
is the first work of fiction by Connie May Fowler, a young woman who lives in St. Augustine, Florida, and it has already captivated a wide range of readers—in house (from art to design to publicity to rights to sales), at the first reprinter to see the manuscript (Pocket Books, who came up with a six-figure offer), and throughout our sales force (more than likely including your rep)
.

Still, I am convinced that nothing is as important in a book’s life as what happens when it arrives in your hands. After all, I know it was your support that was responsible for the success of a number of other books I have discovered, especially Amy Tan’s
The
Joy
Luck
Club
, of course, but also several books by Alice Hoffman and Lee Smith
.

Naturally, I hope that you will read and be pleased by
Sugar Cage
and that you will urge others to read it too
.

All good wishes. And many thanks
.

Sincerely
,

The response was heartening and convinced me that I hadn’t gone to this extra effort in vain. Booksellers from all over sent notes and—more to the point—orders. Regional book fairs asked to have Connie come to talk. Baker & Taylor, the big wholesaler, asked for special reading copies for its salespeople. Many accounts asked for the in-store promotion piece (a stand-up board with quotes and a beautiful reproduction of the jacket art, prepared with special affection by a young person in the marketing department).

Finally, it was time to apply pressure—careful pressure (the right words to the right people, and only to certain people about certain books)—on potential reviewers, book review editors, likely quote-givers, and people good for word of mouth. This is a job an editor has to grow into, meeting and courting the right people over the years; and the pressure must be applied very carefully, given the sensitive nature of authors and reviewers, the volatile nature of literary opinions. I am known for the books I have published over the last decade, and if I push a new book on someone, it is with the understanding on both sides that I have a record, that I am the same person who has published X and Y and Z that you all admire so much, and that I don’t go around lightly making recommendations. I see this as an important part of an editor’s job, but there is no shortcut to it; it comes only with the slow, not always steady, compiling of a history of (at least literary if not commercial) success; and it is a well that can be gone to only every so often, and then with care.

And so now the book is out. At this moment I am waiting for the reviews, for the first reports from the bookstores. I know I have done my part, done what an editor can do. The rest is beyond my control at this point, and all in the hands of the fates.

Connie is writing another novel. I’d like to publish it. I haven’t seen any of it yet, but I have a lot of trust in this writer. No doubt I’ll see the manuscript in a few months; no doubt the agent will want a lot of money for it. And no doubt we’ll go through the same process, modified by her first-book achievement, all over again. But that’s what an editor does. And it’s what I love to do.

Multiple Majors in a University of Subjects

Fredrica S. Friedman

Since 1988, F
REDRICA
S. F
RIEDMAN
has served as vice-president, executive editor, and associate publisher of Little, Brown. Before that she was a senior editor at Little, Brown, a senior staff editor at Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, a senior editor at Reader’s Digest Press, and a magazine editor
.

“
The editor of nonfiction needs two principle qualities, besides an optimistic personality, to maintain the dynamic between books that probe and books that elucidate: an interest in a range of subjects and expertise in several, and the ability to know which of those subjects, in today’s market, will stand out in terms of a provocative nature and/or a contribution to the field, and thus
sell,”
writes Ms. Friedman in this fascinating exploration of the risks and rewards of editing nonfiction
.

Ms. Friedman offers valuable insights not only into the intellectual equipment an editor needs to publish nonfiction but also the business sense necessary to publish it successfully. “As an editor I do not buy books because I’love’them, or even because I think they are important and should be published, although clearly these factors are significant parts of the equation. I buy books that I think will reach a market in some depth so that the author will be read, and the publishing house will make money—the goal of any business, including publishing, which admittedly is unlike other for-profit enterprises.” Ms. Friedman discusses what qualities she looks for in selecting books for her nonfiction list—an author in control of his or her material, an element of controversy, and creativity. And she illustrates her approach to editing nonfiction with illuminating and entertaining anecdotes about her editing of her authors, among them Cleveland Amory, Alan Dershowitz, Carl Rowan, and Lionel Tiger
.

When editor and author have done everything that
could
be done with the material, they await the public’s critical and financial reaction. “If the book reaches its potential, then the author’s work will be acclaimed. For no matter the extent of an editor’s backstage contributions, the book is first, foremost, and always the author’s success
.”

Editing means long, difficult, often exhausting hours of work. “Is it worth it?” Ms. Friedman asks. “Editing certainly does not make most editors rich or famous. However, when you deal with nonfiction subjects, the material is literally as broad as the world around you, and your reward as an editor is to have the opportunity to continue to learn: every day you are bombarded with stimulating ideas—the luxury of multiple majors in a university of subjects…. Above all, you are among the lucky few whose life’s work does make a difference: the books you publish will affect their readers
.”

Multiple Majors in a University of Subjects

The number of nonfiction books published in hardcover each year outweighs the number of novels by almost eight to one: 38,500 to 5,500. That tells you something important at once: nonfiction is a large and extremely varied universe. Nonfiction categories can range from political memoirs to literary biography; from true crime to cat books; from scientific frontiers to historical and contemporary issues visited and revisited. In short, everything that has happened, is happening, and may happen is a possible subject for the nonfiction writer and editor. “All books are either dreams or swords,” Amy Lowell noted, and the great challenge is to find both that inspiration and that point to publish.

The editor of nonfiction needs two principle qualities, besides an optimistic personality, to maintain the dynamic between books that probe and books that elucidate: an interest in a range of subjects and expertise in several, and the ability to know which of those subjects, in today’s market, will stand out in terms of a provocative nature and/or a contribution to the field, and thus
sell
. No editor can afford not to understand what were, in decades past, the business functions of publishing: sales, marketing, accounting. Contrary to romantic notions, an editor does not spend the day in a quiet office reading manuscripts, interrupted only by meeting with authors over a luxurious lunch in a glamorous restaurant (however, more
on that later). What an editor does relates first and foremost to the business of book publishing—and that business is, again, to
sell
books. Thus when I acquire nonfiction books, it is always with the understanding that each will sell into a segmented market—buyers interested in presidential memoirs, buyers interested in feminist issues, buyers interested in Hollywood stories. Today’s successful editor not only has the basic responsibility to help an author shape and develop his subject to realize his best book; the editor must also understand how to position and market that book to reach the widest audience. As an editor I do not buy books because I “love” them, or even because I think they are important and should be published, although clearly these factors are significant parts of the equation. I buy books that I think will reach a market in some depth so that the author will be read, and the publishing house will make money—the goal of any business, including publishing, which admittedly is unlike other for-profit enterprises.

For each product is distinct, and each must be developed and marketed individually. An editor launching twelve titles a year, the usual base number, is like a twelve-sided figure opening twelve different shops in that period, hoping to find enough customers to make a bottom-line profit despite the substantial start-up costs involved in creating a wholly unique item. Every book is a singular, detached consumer product, yet each must be published with the intention that it will create a continuing demand—for a sequel, for a series, for another book on one segment, at the very least for its subsequent editions in trade paperback and/or mass market if first published in a hardcover edition. In other businesses, the shoe business for example, or even an allied media business such as newspapers or magazines, each article, issue, or shoe manufactured is only part of a collective enterprise, frequently stamped out on the same mold or in the same mode to duplicate success. Each book published is a separate product that sells or not largely on its own merits. That’s where optimism comes in, as does the individual editor’s motivation, the recognition that a book, always distinctive, is a more interesting product than a shoe. Book editing at its best is intellectually stimulating, and the product connects its purveyor—the editor—to the power, durability, and, yes, even the immortality of the printed word: it is in the Library of Congress forever. Few other products have the power to shape our minds and our lives, and to
last
. Or to drive us as mad. One shoe may be like another shoe. If it sells, you produce more exactly that style—millions perhaps. Now look back at the number I cited of nonfiction books published each year: of that number, perhaps three hundred hit one best-seller list or another; perhaps several thousand sell substantially—that is, in excess of their initial printings and to produce a profit for the author and the house.

An editor to be successful must have more than one specialty—or design—to penetrate the marketplace that season, or the next. In my case, to be quite specific, there is no attempt to be the generalist: I cannot learn enough about the multiplicity of nonfiction topics to make informed judgments about a large range of subjects. Because of my academic training, as a historian and political scientist, and because of my interests in contemporary society, my focus is fivefold. I publish biography and autobiography (of Washington political figures and media people—Robert McNamara, Patrick Buchanan, Richard Goodwin, Larry King, Dan Rather); I publish social and cultural history (the great real-estate dynasties, the R. J. Reynolds family, the Sakowitz-Wyatt feud, Paris in the 1930s); I publish contemporary issue books (on Jerusalem, the failure of feminism, the rivalry between the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post)
. I also publish the occasional quirky book that does not fit a defined area but has a crossover market: animal biography became a subspecialty of mine when I was fortunate enough to work with Cleveland Amory on his last two books,
The Cat Who Came for Christmas
and
The Cat and the Curmudgeon
. With over 1.5 million copies sold, those titles are a phenomenon in book publishing. Since they also have nine lives, in hardcover, in trade paperback, in seven foreign languages, they are almost their own mini-publishing line—a continuation every publisher looks for as a way, as noted before, of one discrete product leading to the multiple product. I also publish books on minorities that are controversial arguments. When Carl Rowan decided to do his autobiography, what excited me was that as a black man in America who had achieved establishment success (as a syndicated national columnist and a former ambassador and cabinet officer), he was still as angry at the white majority as an inner-city black kid today. The result,
Breaking Barriers
, is a provocative book on what remains to be done in America for a more equitable life for all citizens of color, and its pronouncements excited enough people to make it a local and a national best-seller. When Alan Dershowitz decided to write
Chutzpah
, what interested me about this book by the Harvard Law School professor and famous appellate lawyer was not so much his account of his legal challenges as his evaluation of the status of Jews in America. Contrary to popular opinion, Jews are not first-class citizens, he claimed, but actually second-class. That controversial thesis, buttressed by exciting and relevant examples, would, I thought, tap into what I call the “Holocaust mentality” market, one driven by the fear that lurks beneath every assimilated Jew: anti-Semitism may rise again, at any moment, with potentially deadly results. The book has sold over 200,000 copies in hardcover, and was the No. 1 nonfiction best-seller on the
New York Times
list this summer.