Publishers and Editors

Given our natural modesty, we will not suggest that our brilliant plans to revamp the publishing business are seeping into the thoughts of industry professionals. We will suggest that, however they came to the fountain, it’s about time. Doug Seibold of Agate describes his conversion from a strictly-hardback kind of guy to a more flexible trade paperback original kind of guy. Seibold helpfully details the fantasy — right down to the fact that hardbacks bring in greater bucks (while also carrying greater risks, many of which negate the aforementioned bigger bucks) — before facing reality: And so the hardback format […]

This week, we guide you to an interview with Lorin Stein of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Stein discusses FSG’s approach to acquiring, editing, and marketing books while taking a stab at his approach to finding new talent: I get about a dozen manuscripts a week, plus maybe a dozen proposals and foreign books. Anything written in English, and not sent to me by mistake, I start. Unfortunately my rejection letters have been getting shorter and shorter the more stuff I get—and, especially, the more stuff I get by email. Stein also weighs in on the Sam Lipsyte story, discussing Home

It was just over a year ago that Romentics, a publisher of romances targeted toward gay men, landed on the scene. We thought, sure, the market is pretty robust, they’re going to do fine. It turns out that Scott Whittier and Scott Pomfret are meeting our expectations (for which we thank them). After all, if you’re looking for a little free publicity, there’s nothing like a long profile in the New York Times. Heck, one wonder what’s going on at the paper when the first thing on the page is a come-hither scene from one of Scott & Scott’s books

As it turns out, Los Angeles is not only teeming with writers, but it’s also teeming with small, independent presses. Sure lots of attention has been focused a certain big house packing up its red pencils and moving to the land of eternal sunshine and good cheer, but what about the publishers who already call our fair city home? The LA Weekly offers a tour of our town’s publishers. As it turns out, there are publishers outside of New York. Next: we debunk the myth that the 405 is a freeway. Small Press Is Beautiful

All manner of exciting things are happening in the world of writing and publishing*. Banned words (this may be changing soon). Editors leaving for new opportunities. And major publishers publicly acknowledging something they’ve known all along: sex sells. For those who haven’t been paying attention, major publishing houses have been adding more sexually explicit imprints/lines to their business mix. Sure, most of these are aimed at women, but that’s really not the issue. It seems to be part of the dichotomy first brought to our attention by the brilliant Jill Monroe — opposites do attract (the other burgeoning area in

Our dear friend Edward Wyatt (no really, we have built a full and unreciprocated relationship with the poor, unsuspecting man) tells us that Jonathan Karp has unexpected resigned from Random House. To pursue other opportunities. Now in any other situation, we’d equate this with being fired, but that simply doesn’t feel right. Karp is, was, a rising star. Though we hate to suggest such a thing, it is entirely possible that Karp is, indeed, seeking new challenges. How very strange. Mr. Karp, who has been at Random House for 16 years, said the decision to leave was his own. “Sometimes

The first thing we thought when we read that Denise Roy of Simon & Schuster called her area of focus “Adventures in America” was that she was interested in everything. It is a pleasure to be right about these things. Roy looks for fun, different angles on the American experience, especially from a historical perspective. To our mind, Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America’s First Lady of Food fits the bill exactly. We, the people, need to know what’s behind the Betty story. But enough about us. Denise Roy is proud to call herself an old-fashioned editor. She

As we and others suspected, BEA was hot, sweaty, and filled with far too much swag — a normal human could not hope to carry everything without a rolling suitcase. The halls were crowded, and though we’d give an honorable mention to Random House for stealth re-introducing the lad lit idea, it’s clear the best booth in the house was 2857. New York-based attendees had to cope with the knowledge that this year’s event wasn’t a chance to get away from it all, though Sam Tanenhaus pretended by refusing galleys (expensive and he gets at the office). Editors and other

Every now and then, we feel an overwhelming urge to state the obvious. We beg your indulgence for a moment because now is one of those times. It is 2005. If the publishing industry wants to remain viable (and there have always been questions on that point), it needs to think like a real business. This might mean addressing the issue of advances. It means addressing the issue of print runs. And it means addressing returns. Most of these things should be done sooner rather than later. By sooner we mean the year 1999. Returns are the dark side of