Publishers and Editors

At first, we thought, wow, 2005. That’s, like, way in the future. Then it struck us…2005 was way in the future when we were uch younger. Now we’re older and it’s, pretty much next year. Like, a few months from now. We need to get a New Year’s dress soon. But our problems are nothing compared to the massive task in front of the Pocket editorial and marketing staff. They’ve gone and decided to relaunch their hardcover fiction program. Maggie Crawford will oversee the program. Simon Says Love (no really, we wish we were making this stuff up)

No, really, we are. What is a “new business program,” and do we want to get us some of that? If you want to pursue this, Ben Loehnen is joining Little Random (please, no jokes, we have a delicate constitution). There will be books and such happening. Don’t you hate it when no information is released? We have to speculate and make stuff up. By the way, can we just once get a publisher website that makes sense? Please? Random House

We imagine there are lots of arguments over balancing the checkbook and lavish parties with nobody wanting to clean up. Oh, and the blissful “we’re finally together” period — no matter how long the relationship, you simply cannot know someone until you’ve lived with them for a while. Still we wish publishing’s newest happy couple the best. Australia’s Text Publishing has entered into a joint venture with the UK’s Canongate Books. As always we are amused and bemused by the high falutin’ words of corporate press releases. In this case, we (and, we hope, Text’s authors) are reassured that the

We have a friend (she shall remain nameless) who collects pictures of girls with guns. She thinks Uma Thurman should do more movies like Kill Bill (so does our husband; perhaps we should set aside our aversion to violence and check this movie out). She likes tough, strong women. She’s not alone — and for readers who like their women assertive, Silhouette Books is unleashing Bombshell, a line dedicated to strong heroines and lots of action. In this article, Associate Senior Editor Natashya Wilson describes the line’s vision and what she’s looking for in a submission. Bombshell: Writing action-adventure that

Did we mention the highly commercial nature of children’s books? Not, of course, that we’re suggesting anything of the sort is the reason behind the new partnership between LEGO and Scholastic. That would be cynical. After all, it’s easier on the kids of they already have pre-written stories about their LEGO characters rather than making them up themselves. Scholastic and LEGO Company Announce Major Publishing Partnership Scholastic and LEGO Company Announce Major Publishing Partnership Scholastic LEGO

We once attended a conference where, in separate sessions, Allison Dickens of Ballantine and Stacey Creamer of Doubleday suggested the publishing industry looks to other media for trends. This, by the way, should not be news, and they were talking about “hot” topics for fiction. But that’s another posting. Now it appears publishers (and agents — though we’ve found agents to be more modern in this respect) are seeing electronic submissions as desirable. Okay, not desirable, but maybe practical. It’s so much easier to skim queries on your Blackberry versus hauling reams of paper on the train.

Once upon a time, all novels were essentially self-published. It could be argued (we won’t — it’s a gorgeous Friday afternoon) that Sir Walter Scott was, in a way, self-published. These works were considered highly respectable. Then came the huge corporate publishers and self-published works became the hallmark of, well, less-than-quality. But we’ve noticed an interesting trend in the past several years: lots of self-published works are being snapped up by the big houses. Something about a proven track record, that sort of thing. And self-published works are winning awards. We’re not recommending this route for everyone, but have revised

Dorchester Publishing is actively seeking maunscripts for its new chicklit line Making It. Kate Seaver is editing. Address is: 200 Madison Avenue, Suite 2000, New York, NY 10016. We’ve linked to the Dorchester submission guidelines; we’re sure they’re going to update them with information about the new line any moment now. Dorchester Submission Guidelines

First, we need to throw out some shocking news: Harlequin Enterprises publishes Westerns. Lots of them. They apparently sell quite well. Whew! Now that we’ve spun your world view around, we have a slightly less titillating announcement to make. Harlequin is developing an imprint (currently known as Spice) which will feature quality erotica. As always, we don’t have a clue as to what that means. Note: these are not romances. 100,000 words, contemporary, agented submissions only. No word on the editorial team, but with a gossip mill as efficient as ours, we’re sure it will almost no time before we

Berkley is looking for young adult “chicklit” stories for the Berkley Jam imprint. Cindy Hwang is the senior editor. We wish we knew what this concept meant, but our imagination is either too exhausted or too wild for this particular story type. Though our source indicates queries with synopsis and sample chapters can be submitted, the publisher doesn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts; visit the “Contact Us” page for more information. About Penguin Putnam