How does an author of memoir or personal narrative transform a naked self into a compelling voice that tells a story readers can’t put down?

This question arises frequently in my work as a developmental editor.

One of best books on this technique is The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick, author of the memoir Fierce Attachments about her struggle to be independent of her mother.

In The Situation, Gornick shows how to pull from the raw material of a writer’s life and create a “truth-speaking narrator” to tell the story.

I underlined my own copy so much that some of the pages are covered in red ink.

Get an attitude

The trick is to create a fictional “I” narrator with an attitude. This new character sets out on a journey of self-discovery that’s informed by the hindsight of a current understanding of what happened. “This narrator becomes a persona. Its tone of voice, its angle of vision, the rhythm of its sentences, what it selects to observe and what to ignore are chosen to serve the subject,” Gornick says.

She analyzes how writers like Edmund Gosse, Geoffrey Wolff, Joan Didion and others succeed in telling their stories so well. “In each case the writer was possessed of an insight that organized the writing, and in each case a persona had been created to serve the insight.”

In Joan Didion’s essay “In Bed” from her book The White Album, Gornick shows us how the author uses her own “depressed, quivering persona” and personal experience with debilitating migraines to create a narrative voice uniquely qualified to expel the conventional view of these chronic headaches as malingering or imaginary. But then Didion’s insights go much further, discovering the painful migraine’s “usefulness” as a distraction from something even worse: the mundane “guerrilla war” of her daily life. The headache becomes a purge of sorts, followed at last by a grateful peace. Didion’s skill as a writer elevates the personal to a universal truth with which many can identify.

It’s not easy to construct a narrative persona. Gornick describes it as a character we can trust to “bring us out into a clearing where the sense of things is larger than it was before.”

This reminded me of Toni Morrison’s first book The Bluest Eye, which I acquired and edited. A young woman’s distinct and yearning voice begins with a deep melancholy that takes us through 200 pages of shocking drama and leaves us ultimately with an impossible but utterly credible resolution. Only a voice with that kind of power could achieve this tour de force. Read it, if you haven’t, and see what you think.

How to do it

Here are some of Gornick’s insights and her advice for authors.

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Creating a compelling narrative persona

• Lie down on the couch but never treat the reader as your analyst. Weed out the defensive, embarrassed, self-pitying, insecure, self-aggrandizing, or complaining. Then bring us your conclusions about what were once mixed feelings and are now clear insights.

• Weave a story of discovery and definition. Remember that your memoir or personal narrative should relate a journey from an unfinished self to a purposeful being, warts and all.

• Think about your voyage in terms that Gornick calls “involuntary truth telling”. You didn’t realize at the outset what you are able to tell us now. The reader moves with you from ignorance to truth.

• Illuminate the small moments and telling details that illustrate the deeper meaning of what are otherwise random events.

• Welcome the dramatic buildup of uncertain outcomes and unresolved conflict. Readers will empathize and identify with this kind of reality, regardless of how the curtain falls.

Not confession but self-investigation

When writing a memoir or personal narrative you’re involved “not in confession but in this kind of self-investigation,” Gornick says. “Be honest about your own part in the situation, your fear, whining or self-hatred.”

As an example, she cites George Orwell’s personal essay “Shooting an Elephant” in which he describes his duties during the early 1920s as an English colonial police officer in Lower Burma. Called upon to deal with a rogue elephant’s lethal rampage, he kills the beast. The event becomes a bloody metaphor for both the decline of the British Empire and the terror young Orwell feels before his senior officers who consider the elephant more valuable than any dead Indian.

Orwell’s narrator becomes in Gornick’s words “the one who implicates himself not because he wants to but because he has no choice.”

More tips for writers

Memoir and personal narrative are very popular among authors and readers. Here are some more useful tips from other writers and memoirists.

• The most important character of all in nonfiction is the narrator, especially in memoir. The narrator, of course, is you. But you as a character.” –Richard Goodman (The Writer’s Chronicle, V. 40, #2)

• The more deeply one reflects about one’s own life, the more one realizes one’s connections to other people, other species, other times. Such reflection is in fact an antidote to self-absorption. – Scott Russell Sanders (The Writer’s Chronicle, V. 41. #1)

• The crucial distinction for me is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth. Because facts can exist without human intelligence but truth cannot. – Toni Morrison (Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir)

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What about you?

Are you developing a persona for a memoir or other work of personal narrative?  If you’re not already familiar with The Situation and the Story, check it out.  It’s a book that has helped many writers.

I’ve worked with quite a few authors of memoirs and I know there are different approaches that work. Tell me about your experience. I welcome your comments and will watch for any questions.

Do you have a short story work-in-progress that just doesn’t want to fit into 10,000 words or 25 pages?

Is it bursting at the seams? Does it feel incomplete and frustrating to read?

Then you may have a recalcitrant short story that could be transformed into a successful novel.

A case in point

A writer client of mine, a young author who had already published a collection of short stories, came to me with a new work of about 12,000 words that was giving her a hard time.

“I can’t fold in the backstory, and every new scene seems to require more characters and relationships.”

Our editorial process became a slow march through the pages, during which we identified many spots where more explanation seemed necessary. We struggled to confine ourselves to the original tightly compressed narrative arc fraught with ambiguity and deliberate incompletion, but both of us found the next draft hard to understand and ultimately unsatisfying.

So after some major discussion to consider the goals and potential structure of the piece, we went the other way: expansion, amplification, fleshing out, going back and going forward with more story and character development. The manuscript grew and grew like Alice in Wonderland after swallowing the cake marked “eat me”, until it became a novel of 85,000 words.

Getting from short to long

Expanding an incomplete short story into a novel involves a variety of tools and techniques according to the specific needs of the original piece. Here are some suggestions and guidelines that may help you along your way.  And if you’d like to work with a developmental editor on this project, check out my advice for finding a good one.

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Guidelines For Growing a Novel from a Short Story

• Deconstruct the original draft

Take apart what you have so far, and look for the holes. Study the characters. Are they alive, three dimensional, speaking and behaving in a credible and compelling manner?

Analyze the sequence of events. How can you expand on the existing scenes so they have more meaning and power? Where can you add detail, space, and time?

• Create a new outline

It’s essential to make a plan for the structure of a book, particularly when expanding from a short story to a novel.

An outline provides an opportunity to step back and see where you can flesh out the original incomplete material with more linked events.

Each chapter gives you the opportunity to add and subtract elements, move them around, and to insert more dialogue and visual description at key points.

Remember that outlines are never carved in stone, since they’re usually polished and revised once you start writing again and the book takes on a life of its own.

• Conceptualize anew

When you create a longer work from a short story, you’re not just filling in the holes. You’re painting the picture on a larger canvas.

The rhythm of a novel is different, the pacing more ample. You have the luxury of spending extended time with the characters so we know more about their history, where they’re coming from, the deeper complexity of their motivation and actions. What was originally subconscious can leak out a bit more, without of course revealing more than you want to

What you thought had to be a brief and sketchy backstory may in fact become where the book actually begins.

Where you once had only one character you can have two or even three, each representing different aspects of the same theme but with a variety of temperaments and behaviors.

And there’s more room to write about the setting, the way things look, the colors, the smell and grit of the ashes as that train struggles over the mountain.

• Consider the composite novel

Collections of short stories may be carefully organized as a group that can also be read as chapters in an episodic sequence that portrays a common theme, with a focused group of characters in place and time.

In this way, a collection of short stories may be read as a full-length work which can be greater than its parts. I’ve worked with authors writing excellent composite novels, so I know how well it can work.

Examples of major critical successes of composite novels include Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and Natasha by David Bezmozgis.

• Hang on to the original

The process of converting your short story to a novel can reveal a great deal about the weaknesses and strengths of the shorter first draft. In some cases, you may be inspired to go back and revise the old story to the point where it works on its own.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote what he thought at first was a false start and deleted from the opening pages of The Great Gatsby. He saved and published that story, however, calling it Absolution, which is now acknowledged as a revealing dress-rehearsal for his classic novel.

A successful short story is an elegant form of fiction that readers love and publishers respect as popular commercially. So many characters, feelings, ideas and meaningful action in such a limited economy of words! It’s like an austerity budget that results in a new abundance of creative capital. And short stories are currently enjoying even more success with the proliferation of new ways to sell them online.

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The bottom line

If your current short story draft has energy, intimacy and punch, leave it alone!

But if not, and you’ve identified some of the issues above, you may want to take the plunge and go for the long form.

What about you?

Have you wondered about converting a short story to a novel? Or assembling a collection of stories that work together in some important way?

We’d love to hear about your own experiences and ideas about this process.

Literary agents are still the gatekeepers for authors seeking traditional book deals.

That’s the bottom line, despite all the big changes in publishing, says Candice Fuhrman, an agent with many New York Times bestselling authors in her corner.

“As long as publishers are buying books and paying advances, agents have a role.”

It’s still true

Most traditional publishers will only consider a submission that comes from an agent they know and trust. That’s the way it’s worked for decades and it’s still true.

But the downturn in big advances and the explosion of self-publishing has challenged and shaken up the role of agents. As with everything else in the turbulent book business today, smart agents have had to adjust, experiment, and evolve to keep up with the times.

A special breed

Literary agents are a special breed: they love books and they know how to sell them. Sure, it’s not easy to get an agent. Who said writing a great book or getting published was easy? Agents are always on the prowl, however, to find the next big thing, especially that spectacular debut author who comes out of nowhere and makes a big splash.

But that doesn’t mean all agents agree about the changing marketplace and how their roles are changing with it. No no. I found quite a range in points of view from these four veteran VIPs in the business, whose opinions and insights you’ll find below.  First, their credentials:

Candice Fuhrman has had many #1 New York Times bestsellers ranging from nonfiction to quality literary fiction, including the series YOU: Staying Young, YOU: On a Diet and YOU: The Owner’s Manual, an Insider’s Guide to the Body, by Drs. Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, all #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. Also The Rapture of Canaan, a novel by Sheri Reynolds, a selection of the Oprah book club and #1 on The New York Times paperback fiction list, and many others which you can see at the link.

Andrea Brown was an editor at Knopf, Random and Dell before opening her own agency in 1981. She has sold more than 2,000 titles, from toddler board books to serious, award-winning young adult works, including the bestselling titles Mama Do You Love Me, The Beanie Baby Handbook, Fire on Ice, Dark Fusion, Everlost and Unwind.

Andrea Hurst is a 25 year veteran of the book business whose authors include emerging new writers as well as New York Times bestselling authors. As a literary agent she handles high profile fiction and nonfiction. Her consulting division offers skilled developmental and copy-editing. A frequent keynote speaker and educator, she has written several books herself, including The Lazy Dog’s Guide to Enlightenment and Everybody’s Natural Food Cookbook.

Bonnie Solow was a journalist and film and publishing executive before establishing her own agency in 1997. Since then her agency has celebrated 22 New York Times bestsellers, including Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith, Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff, and many others.

Are you finding that acquiring editors and their management are more risk averse than in the past?

Candice Fuhrman: Most definitely.  Since the economic crisis began in 2008 we’ve seen a decline in advances.   This is true even for the “high-platform” authors.

Andrea Brown: We don’t see our end of the business (children and YA) as risk-averse. Maybe some of the advances have been lower in 2011, but publishers still want books and are willing to pay for them.

Andrea Hurst: They absolutely seem to be. What used to be a sure deal for us is often rejected.  A writer can have a great platform, polished manuscript, a compelling story, and still not receive an offer.  It can be hard to judge just what publishers want now.

Bonnie Solow: In our experience, if you represent books that promise powerful content along with strong marketing platforms, publishers and editors will compete to acquire them.

Given this climate, how has business been for you?

Candice Fuhrman: We’ve been fortunate to have a string of very good years. But I would say that our clients’ backlist sales were lower in 2011.  The collapse of Borders certainly contributed to that.

Andrea Brown: We had our best year ever in 2011, selling to all the publishers we have in previous years but now also selling to places like Amazon—both ebook and print deals. Perhaps because we specialize in children’s books, have many New York Times bestsellers and award winners, we are slightly immune to many of the upheavals my adult book colleagues are facing.

Andrea Hurst: In 2010, we did see far more sales with higher advances than in 2011. The changes happening at the publishing houses are affecting our productivity as well.  Publishers appear to be taking fewer risks, offering lower advances, and taking longer to payout on a deal.

Bonnie Solow: Last year was a stellar year for our agency. After the financial contraction of 2009 and 2010, in 2011 we found publishers to be highly receptive toward new projects and aggressive in their acquisition strategies. The majority of our projects were acquired via preemptive bids and competitive multi-house auctions.

What’s your prognosis for the future of agents?

Candice Fuhrman: It is closely tied to the future of the major publishers.  As long as they are buying books and paying advances, agents have a role.   We will have to fight harder, however, for a bigger share of electronic rights for our clients.

Andrea Brown: I have been an agent for 30 years and expect to be one representing the best in children’s literature for the next 30 years. Most writers we know still want their book published by the big houses and want those advances. They also still prefer the traditional book deals and paper. Ask me these questions again in 2 years and the answers may be different! But for now, nothing much has changed except we have some new doors that have opened, see increases in royalties now that e-books sales are increasing and have more options for our clients.

Andrea Hurst: Agents have always been the gatekeepers and in many ways will probably continue to be in one form or another.  Those that resist the current changes will miss out on the wonderful opportunities that are available.  Change is happening so fast in this industry, as I see it, you can be a part of creating this new world of publishing or ultimately be left behind.

Bonnie Solow: I wish I had a crystal ball. I certainly believe that certain agents will thrive with the evolution of the book industry. To do so requires staying current on digital developments, expanding one’s network of contacts in the digital publishing arena, and continuing to provide indispensable editorial, legal and marketing support to clients. Authors will need guidance in navigating their writing futures, and experienced, forward-thinking, savvy agents are in the best position to provide that direction.

What’s the most important thing an unpublished writer should do to get an agent?

Candice Fuhrman: Write well! Then seek referrals to agents from other writers who are pleased with their representation.   I would submit to a number of agents simultaneously (even though many agents say they don’t “allow” this).  If you’re good, you’ll have several agents to choose from and you can decide who is the best fit for you.

Andrea Brown: Above all, writers must write fabulous books that are also commercial.

Andrea Hurst: Research the publishing business and present a polished and professional query package.  Also, make sure you are pitching an agent that represents what you write and follow directions on the agent’s website.

Bonnie Solow: Unpublished writers should thoroughly do their homework. Identify agents who represent books that are kindred spirits to yours. Writers should present compelling reasons to a prospective agent why you think he or she would be right for your project. Also, a query should be lean and persuasive and succinctly answer three questions: 1. what is the book about, 2. why does it have to be written, and 3. why are you the perfect person to write this book.

What do you say to writers who are considering self-publishing?

Candice Fuhrman: In many cases I say GO FOR IT!   It’s never been a better time for self- publishing; there are so many options for sell your own e-book.  With most major publishers still only paying 25 percent of net for e-book sales, most writers can do better on their own.  Of course they have to be marketing demons — but that’s the case no matter who publishes you. Although many agents are becoming “jacks of all trades” with self-publishing authors, we could be called something else — such as a publisher or a production person or a marketer.

Andrea Brown: Some authors we’ve worked with have also done indie self-published e-books but don’t seem to make any money with them. The market is overwhelmed with titles — many badly written or edited — and writers find it’s tough to market. We do tell writers that if their book will be difficult to sell the traditional way (or we do not think we can place it), to go ahead and self-publish — but they must do it well and plan to spend lots of time to market.

Andrea Hurst: For many authors, this is a very viable option today.  Indie publishing, especially with e-books, offers a way to get your book directly in the reader’s hands.  It is still important to have a high quality product and market your work. Many agents I know are diversifying what services they offer and how they will work with authors seeking nontraditional publishing options.  Our agency consults with self-publishing authors through the whole process, offering professional editorial, design and evaluation services.

Bonnie Solow: Self-publishing is a viable option for many writers. There is no barrier to entry and authors can enjoy the satisfaction of maintaining full creative control with an accelerated release schedule. For authors who are entrepreneurial and who can access their readers through online marketing, speaking engagements, and so on, self-publishing can be the right route to take. In the long-term I do think agents will be more and more involved in helping clients self-publish… At this stage, however, authors who come to me are not interested in self-publishing. Instead, they want to enjoy the myriad benefits that come with being published by a major house.

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What about you?

Are you represented by an agent?  Can you share something about how you found your agent, and the impact representation has had on your writing career?

If you’re an author seeking representation now, how is that going?  Any advice for fellow writers?

And if you’re an author who’s decided to go forward without an agent, we’d love to hear about that decision too.

I’ll watch for your questions here in comments.

Q: Is it ok to write a book that crosses genre lines, like a mystery with time travel, or a romance with extraterrestrials?

A: The short answer is “Yes, absolutely!”

That’s the truth, despite the fear that agents and publishers will avoid a book that falls into more than one genre.

But since this question comes up so often, let’s take a close look at the importance of genre in the book business today.

Scroll down for suggestions on how to cross genre boundaries successfully

A long-standing practice

“What’s your genre?” is a question every author gets, right? Authors in classes I’ve taught recently and others who have consulted me as a developmental editor have been seriously concerned about crossing forbidden boundaries that might offend the gatekeepers who stand in their way.

Categorizing a book by genre is a long-standing practice in the book business. It’s a convenient label for agents to slap on a book ahead of pitching the project to an acquisitions editor. It’s also the way bookstore clerks decide where merchandise goes in the store. And it’s how buyers browse and find books.

Categories are breaking down

The hegemony of genre categories, however, is gradually eroding. A book may well wind up on more than one shelf. Popular young adult books, for example, may also be shelved in adult fiction. And now that so many buyers research and purchase books online, they may not know or care about what genre the publisher labeled the book.

Not only that, many very successful bestselling books clearly cross the boundary from one genre to another, with terrific results.

Bestselling cross-genre books

From the New York Times bestseller lists, Stephen King’s 11/22/63 is a science-fiction political thriller that takes its hero back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. Also on the list is Death Comes to Penderley by P.D. James, which merges a murder mystery with a sequel to Jane Austen’s literary masterpiece Pride and Prejudice. A classic example is the Fahrenheit 451, one of Ray Bradbury’s most famous and bestselling works that crosses from science fiction to a political diatribe on literary censorship.

Similarly, Judy Blume has been crossing highly literary fiction with young adult books about serious stuff from racism (Iggie’s House) to teen sex (Forever) since 1970. She paved the way for many other current cross-genre YA writers like Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic future with romance, violence and politics.

And of course there’s the humungous success of Harry Potter, which includes several genres, including fantasy, YA coming of age, mystery, thriller, adventure and romance. Not to mention Stephanie Meyer’s vampire romance Twilight Saga and Amanda Hocking’s My Blood Approves paranormal romance series.

So why not write a literary coming-of-age novel about a young girl who just happens to be a wood fairy? Or a mystery where the killer is found through past life regression. It’s been done and if this is where you’re headed, you can do it, too, no matter what you’ve heard.

How to cross genre boundaries successfully

Here are some suggestions that I recommend to my author clients who are intending to mix genres.

Pick the alpha element as a tag

When you’re starting out, choose a label that’s easy to understand and sell. Pick the alpha element in your story — romance, mystery, paranormal — and give your book that tag to provide the marketplace with an initial perspective on where you’re coming from. The other elements in the story, whatever they may be, will remain evident and eventually create the context of your brand identity.

After you’ve established a successful track record your brand will be you, your name. That’s one of the reasons Suzanne Collins, Stephen King or Amanda Hocking can combine and meander through more than one genre at a time with impunity.

Build your own bandwagon

Any mixed genre story needs to come from your heart rather than from strategic calculation. Avoid the distraction of trendy fashions like Micro, the posthumous cross-genre technoscience adventure bestseller by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, where the half-inch tall grad students get carried off by sadistic beetles. Shades of Gulliver’s Travels and Fantastic Voyage.

Be consistent

Sustain the integrity of the world you’ve created, however unique and unusual it may be, without jumping into any off-the-wall devices. Don’t pile one genre on another for the sake of cliff-hanging thrills or bravura embellishment. If your romance has elements of the supernatural, don’t unnecessarily slip in a murder just for good measure. Use the style and elements of more than one genre only in service of the story and its authentic characters.

Never take no for an answer

Don’t quit if the door is slammed in your face. Try another way to get that agent’s attention, like in a blind date or pitch session at a writers conference, or through a mutual friend. Be sympathetic to the agent, publisher, or retailer’s plight. From their perspective, genre purity makes a book faster and easier to sell.  Be persistant and convince them that you’ve got a great story.  That’s your best ammunition.

Don’t worry

Genre is a convenience, a traditional device that the conventional process of commercial publication has been using awkwardly for centuries.  But it didn’t stop cross-genre authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Dickens all the way up to Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones) and Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife).

We all have to live with this outdated artifact.  At least for now.

What about you?

Are you working on a book that crosses genre lines? Are you concerned about it? Have you met up with opposition from agents or editors? Has it been resolved? We welcome hearing about your experience, and I’ll watch for any questions here in comments.

Authors today need a whole new attitude toward the all-important pitch.

Until now, the author pitch was defined as a hard-sell verbal punch to persuade agents and editors to take on their book. It was typically brief, high-concept, often hyperbolic and was designed to convince the agent standing there that the book was fabulous and so was the author.

But as with everything else in the book business, pitching too has changed, evolving with the times into something different and actually much more interesting.

Choosing the right pitch for the job

Like all good pitchers on the mound, authors today need a few tricks up their sleeves. They need to choose the right pitch for the job, taking aim directly at readers, retailers, social networks and media. Unlike the old arm-twisting approach, the new pitch doesn’t try to persuade these folks they’re going to love your book.

Instead you let them know what you’ve written in a way that makes them want to read it. Your goal is to hear back: “Sounds interesting. How do I get a copy?”

The new approach

The new pitch isn’t a hard sell or painful duty, but rather an extension of your creative process. This is a very different approach. It’s all about using the right words to represent your work. The oldest adage about good writing also applies here: Show, don’t tell. And by extension: Show, don’t sell.

Three new developments — the etiquette of the softer sell, online connectivity and independent self-publishing — have revolutionized pitching. These have opened up a whole new world of alternative ways to craft different types of pitches, depending on your specific book and what it needs. The new pitch may be delivered or written directly to potential readers, reviewers, book bloggers, feature writers, interviewers – and it may be in person or online.

In many cases, the author has no intention of seeking either an agent or a conventional publisher. For those writers seeking a traditional book deal, however, pitches may still be directed at an agent or acquisitions editor, either in writing or at face-to-face writers conferences with blind-date or ask-the-pro sessions.

The new author pitch in action

Pitching directly to readers

Feature a short description of your book on your website. In this case, I recommend a one-paragraph straightforward description. No excessive adjectives or adverbs. Just very well-crafted essential information about the book’s story and characters, whether it’s a novel, romance, mystery, YA, memoir or nonfiction how-to book.

You can also pitch on your blog, but in a different manner. The interactive features built into blogs provide the opportunity to discuss the process of your writing, offer sample chunks or chapters, and invite feedback. You can establish a dialogue with your readers to captivate their interest and increases the potential for ultimate sales.

In both cases the reader gets to know you without your having to deliver a rapid-fire biography, including credits, education, track record, and other forms of visibility, media and otherwise. That traditional platform pitch can appear elsewhere on your website under an “author” tab, and it can be as long as necessary.

Pitching to a social network

This kind of pitch involves reaching out to comment on other websites and blogs where you can be helpful and offer a contribution. It can include tweeting, with either links or referrals, or by distilling selections of your content into 140-character haikus.

Social networking is like entering a cafe or front-porch conversation, and adding your two cents about the topic under discussion. This is the most subtle form of pitching and requires a keen sense of online etiquette. Don’t begin by saying you’re an expert, and expect everyone to sit up and listen. Be altruistic, service- oriented, and keep yourself out of it on a personal level until you’ve established some ongoing connections.

A variation on this approach is a pitch to book bloggers who build powerful websites with dialogue that usually focuses on a particular genre. They discuss, review, interview and generally chat up a storm about a book or author they like. These days traditional publishers are courting book bloggers who have tremendous influence in a particular field. We’ve known for years, for example, that Mommy bloggers are well organized and have created many bestsellers in parenting and baby care categories. And the legendary self-publishing phenom Amanda Hocking reached her multimillion sales level only after going viral with book bloggers who specialized in YA vampire romances.

Pitching to retailers

It takes courage to walk into a bookstore and talk about your book. Reading or memorizing isn’t natural and can appear canned, so the best technique is old-fashioned sincerity. This means telling the truth – you’ve worked hard, you care about this book, you want them to read it and give it a chance on their shelves, or better yet on the front table if they will agree to a reading and author signing. It can help if it’s your neighborhood bookstore, where you browse and shop regularly. But ultimately the proof will be in the pudding: will the buyer believe in you enough to sample the content and will they like it. Bookstores will be especially interested if you can guarantee crowd of local friends who’ll fill seats and buy a stack of copies.

Pitching to the media

Local print and broadcast media are always looking for material about local authors and their work. They have space to fill with material to attract advertisers. Offering them a sample of your book or interview may be done with a carefully written press release, or, if their internal process is more informal and easily accessed, you can call them up or go into their offices. In either case, they’ll want to hear a short description of who you are, since there may be a strong local personality hook, and also what you’ve written, particularly if you’re known in the community or the content has a local angle.

Pitching to the virtual media takes less dressing up. There are many websites that feature book reviews, interviews, and samples of new books, usually self-published but occasionally from traditional houses. Here, as always, the drill is to be authentic, brief, and provide either content or service that fits their purpose.

The video pitch

In the YouTube era, your visually delivered pitch doesn’t have to be slick, heavily scripted, or shot with fancy cameras and lights. Put your digital camera on a tripod or ask a member of your family to shoot you at your desk or walking outside. Again, don’t read, just be yourself. Tell us the story, how and why you wrote the book, and why it’s important to you. Enough said. This variety of pitch can be directed at your readers, or as a link when approaching busy retailers, book bloggers, and media professionals.

What about you?

Have a few tricks up your sleeve?  We look forward to hearing about your experiences in the age of the new author pitch.

Writing a great ending for your book is just as important as a dynamite opening that rivets our attention and compels us to keep turning those pages.

A well-written book requires some kind of symphonic climax that resonates in our heads and hearts like the famous 40-second E major chord at the end of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Our response may be filled with joy, hope, and happiness, or it may lead us to feel uncomfortable, to frown, scratch our heads, and worry about the unknown mysteries of life.

I’ve worked with many fiction and narrative nonfiction authors to achieve such closure for plot-driven thrillers, mysteries, romances, literary novels, memoirs, and young adult books, but also histories, biographies, travel books, and other stories. I don’t believe there’s a predictable formula for every ending, far from it. But nevertheless, it’s essential to provide an emotional landing place, so the reader can put down the book with a sense that “Yes, it may not have happened to me actually, but my life is richer for having read this. I know more about the world, people, relationships, the way things happen.”

This kind of emotionally satisfying ending is by no means easy to write. Here are some tips to remember.

Endings are about change

It’s disappointing for a reader to reach the end of the book only to realize that the characters and continuing events are basically at the same point as the beginning. I’ve seen this with many early drafts: not enough has happened.

Endings are about change. Fiction and narrative nonfiction stories are about overcoming major obstacles, quests, and transformations. The changes may not be all good. The story may be upsetting or depressing. But if none of the book’s characters has learned anything and the challenges faced at the outset remain static and identical to those at the end, the story can seem pointless, unsatisfying, and without universal significance.

All writers can look to the Young Adult category for great examples of overcoming difficult problems with courageous changes that lead to fully evolved endings. Judy Blume pioneered realistic stories about sex, racism, and divorce in a teenager’s life with such books as Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret and It’s Not the End of the World. New generations of YA authors have continued this gritty approach to the real lives of preteens, teens, and young adults, from S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders) to Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games).

Find the right moment to end

It’s crucial to realize when it’s time to stop. Authors often send me a draft ending that repeats and churns over previous action, or goes off on a new and irrelevant digression. This kind of treading water can indicate the fear of not having demonstrated or explained everything enough.

I worked recently on an ambitious and complex novel that took four or five drafts to produce an ending that tied up a painful family relationship which had been interrupted for thirty years by historical disasters and personal wrong turns. The trick was to acknowledge mistakes and calamities without reiteration or blame, while at the same time avoiding any saccharine projections into the future. Ultimately the author succeeded in writing just a few short paragraphs with words chosen as carefully as a haiku or sonnet. It’s not always easy to write such a good ending, but in this case the end was exceptionally well crafted.

But don’t end prematurely!

Sometimes the curtain falls with a surprising thud. Beware of premature endings that leave too many threads still unraveled. Most mystery and thriller readers will agree that crimes should be solved and the world saved from political or corporate terrorists and other heinous villains. I’ve worked with several writers to develop mysteries with a strong suspect that turns out to be innocent, or a cumulative gathering of clues leading to one of many potential suspects. Similarly I’ve edited global thrillers (i.e. Robert Ludlum’s The Scarlatti Inheritance) that leave the reader nervous and uncomfortable, but with a sense of some hope for the future. John le Carre is the master of such ambiguous endings, as in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Constant Gardener.

Another frequent cause of a premature ending is the hope this book will launch a series. I’ve learned first hand while working with authors like Clive Cussler on his Dirk Pitt thriller Night Probe, and Ernest Tidyman’s Shaft that a continuing hero or heroine may age and develop in new ways over several titles, but each story needs to be complete on its own. It isn’t fair to demand the reader buy a second or third book to find out what happens.

Romances demand the same respect when avoiding a premature ending. The curtain can descend on either a happy or unhappy couple, but it can’t just fall out of the blue. Even after Rhett said he didn’t “give a damn” about what happened to Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell kept going until her plucky heroine declared with signature fortitude: After all, tomorrow is another day.

Similarly, a successful memoir can’t either go on unnecessarily or stop precipitously. Memoirs focus on a discreet thread of the author’s life that makes a point, has a theme, and therefore requires an enlightened ending, even though the life itself isn’t over. Again, it doesn’t have to be happy, successful or inspiring, though that can help. What’s more important is a coming-of-age or the resolution of obstacles overcome, with experience and wisdom for anything that might follow.

In The Glass Castle, for example, Jeanette Walls takes pains to tell the story of her profoundly dysfunctional family in a sober and straightforward manner. Walls keeps her focus steadily, without judgment but rather compassion for her parents and siblings, and ends the story with a message of survival and redemption, leavened with affection and good humor.

Outlier endings

Not all endings are neat or tidy.

I’ve also worked with several writers whose last page leaves various threads of the story still tangled. The inimitable Tom Robbins comes to mind, since Jitterbug Perfume can hardly be described as having a tidy ending but rather drifts off into thin air: The lesson of the beet, then, is this: hold on to your divine blush, your innate rosy magic, or end up brown. Once you’re brown, you’ll find that you’re blue. As blue as indigo. And you know what that means: Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.”

Or the late Hunter S. Thompson, whose Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ended in a frustrated rant, brought up short in order to make our overdue deadline: I hung up and drank some more gin. Then I put a Dolly Parton album on the tape machine and watched the trees outside my balcony getting lashed around in the wind. Around midnight, when the rain stopped, I put on my special Miami Beach nightshirt and walked several blocks down La Cienga Boulevard to the Losers Club.

The last pages of Toni Morrison’s first book The Bluest Eye are also disturbing and uncomfortable to say the least, and I remember when Toni first brought me her manuscript, how shaken I was by the ending: The soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late. At least on the edge of my town, among the garbage and the sunflowers of my town, it’s much, much, much too late.

Dozens of conservative school and community libraries disapproved of the book and it was banned in many places. But it launched a career that led ultimately to the Nobel Prize for Literature.

What about you?

Are you working on the ending of a book?  I’ll watch for any questions here in comments.

Are you a writer who worries about working with a developmental editor for fear of losing control over the project?

You’re not alone

If so, you’re not the only one. One writer put it this way recently on an online forum: “I worry that an editor will erase my voice.” Another said, “I fear I’ll end up with a book I no longer recognize as my own.”

At the same time, authors are discovering that agents and publishers now insist on a polished manuscript that’s ready for production, and won’t accept a draft that still needs work. And since most big-company acquisition editors don’t edit these days, that leaves the author without any editor at all, whether going the traditional route or self-publishing.

So it’s vital for authors to have realistic expectations about hiring and working one-on-one with their own professional book editor.

How a good editor-author relationship works

I’d like to address some of these concerns and perceptions, and what I see as the reality of the editor-author relationship from my point of view as a book editor who has worked closely with writers for many decades.  And later, if there are any questions about all this, I’ll be very happy to answer them in comments.

Perception: I’ll lose control of my own creation.

Reality: The writer is always the boss. Good editors subsume their own egos and enter the consciousness of the author. Any editor who insists on big changes that compromise your core intentions, who demands deletions, additions and new material – or else – isn’t doing a good job. A good editor can’t be a frustrated writer or have a didactic professorial approach to the work.

Perception: I’ll be intimidated, and won’t be able to resist making changes that I think are wrong.  I worry that the book will lose my voice.

Reality: Good editors are sensitive to an author’s literary style, basic story, and core motivation. They appreciate that an author’s voice is essential and precious to preserve, for both the writer’s artistic integrity and unique point of view. They know how vulnerable an author may feel when exposing their unfinished work to an outside reader.

Perception: I can’t tell if an editor is any good or not since there’s no rating system, license, or industry standard.

Reality: An editor’s track record is the best way to judge competence. Have they edited successful books you recognize or may have read? If a prospective editor can’t produce such a list of prior work, either on their own website or by request, you should probably seek elsewhere.

Perception: Agents won’t take on my book if I’ve worked with a private editor.

Reality: Most agents are happy to hear that you’ve worked with a good developmental editor. It means you’ve cared enough to make the investment in making the book as good as it can be, and have had the benefit of professional feedback. They know that virtually every successful writer, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Kathryn Stockett, has worked with an editor.  Agents do, however, worry about freelance editors who are not accomplished or have a negative impact, and rightly so.  So once again, choose carefully.

Perception: If I do get an agent or publisher, I won’t be able to produce another book as good as the first one without help.

Reality: Authors are usually pleased to establish a long-term relationship with an editor they like. Agents, publishers and ultimately readers are also happy about the results.

Perception: An editor will produce a new manuscript and I won’t be able to restore the original if that’s what I decide to do.

Reality: Editors today work with Tracked Changes in Word documents which allow an author to see what’s recommended to be deleted, added or revised and permits them to accept or reject each edit, one by one.

Perception: I’m already in a writer’s critique group and don’t need any other help.

Reality: Members of writers groups are unlikely to have the experience or objectivity you need for professional and candid feedback. Developmental editing is not usually a good job for friends or family.

Perception: I won’t be able to have a close working relationship with an editor since I haven’t found one who lives nearby.

Reality: Most developmental editing is done through email and phone calls. Skype is also a very effective way to communicate these days. Many long-standing editorial relationships – examples like Hemingway with Maxwell Perkins, Raymond Carver with Gordon Lish – weren’t based on close proximity, but on other forms of continuing communication.

Perception: Developmental editing is expensive. Is it really worth the investment?

Reality: The cost of editing varies depending on what you need and who’s doing it. The decision on your best choice and what you can afford is a personal judgment based on your own priorities. But there’s no doubt that the better your book is, the more successful you’ll be in the long run.

What about you?

Have you worked with a developmental editor?  What were your concerns?  Were you able to resolve them to your satisfaction?  Were you pleased with the outcome?  Any suggestions for fellow writers?

For more detail on how to evaluate an editor’s professional status, track record, compatibility and accessibility, take a look at this earlier post, Choosing a freelance editor: What you need to know

Writers often ask me when they should consult a developmental editor.  The concerns go something like this:

I’ve heard that literary agents and commercial publishers don’t want to see a book until it’s already edited and ready for production. And if I decide to self-publish, I’m out on a limb by myself. So when during the process of writing a book do I need an editor?

Three phases of writing

There are three distinct phases of the writing process when a developmental editor can make a big difference in the outcome of your book: In the planning stage, while you’re writing, and once you’re done.

Professional feedback and developmental editing are important at each of these three stages.  However, when and how this collaboration occurs can vary, depending on the individual creative process and collaborative relationships. Most successful fiction and non-fiction writers work with developmental editors, with very few exceptions. Here’s how it works:

1. Before writing the first draft

Many authors consult me as they begin their creative process, at a point when there may be only a germ of an idea, a few pages of a preliminary draft, or perhaps a rough outline. We both take careful notes and authors are welcome to record the consultation. Lately, several authors have recorded our Skype video consultations.

We discuss core questions like:

• What’s this book about? In the case of fiction, like a mystery, thriller, romance, sci-fi, or YA, could this be the first of a series? In a memoir, on which part of your life do you want to focus? In nonfiction, what’s the premise, the main take-away, the point of the book?

• Who are the main characters? Who are the essential secondary characters?

• Is this book a work of passion or a deliberate attempt to craft something for the commercial market?  Or is this book intended to enhance a business, individual career, or academic position? How should that impact the focus and organization?

• Deciding on the point of view. Should the narrative voice be an “I” first person or omniscient third person?

• Where to begin, how to incorporate the backstory? Is it essential to have some strategic flashbacks?

• How should it end?

We resolve these issues and put together a working plan, a penultimate outline that usually evolves as the work progresses, but most importantly provides a useful blueprint for launching the writing.

2. While you’re writing

Authors often want and need feedback while producing the first few chapters of their book, since these pages are frequently the hardest to write and require the most revision. It’s like clearing your throat, getting into a groove, finding the right tone, pitch, and pacing. I encourage writers to take the time to be sure they’re on the right track before going any further, since these preliminary problems don’t self-correct and shouldn’t be left unresolved.

Another big reason for consulting a developmental editor while writing the book is if the writer is getting stuck. The original impulse, or even an outline, can go off the track. You may lose interest or passion for a character or element of the plot. You may wonder if more backstory is needed and if so, how and where to bring it in. The ending may no longer make sense.

Help! Call 911! This is when rapid response and a creative partnership with an editor can be invaluable.

3. When the manuscript is finished

There are two distinct circumstances when I see a finished manuscript.

An author may send me a book that we’ve been working on together from the outset for one final read through, since it may need some additional polish to make it as good as it can be.

Or, authors submit completed manuscripts which I see for the first time, seeking assistance before sending to a literary agent or in preparation for self-publishing. If I see fundamental flaws, such as a core problem in the structure, a wrong turn in the plot, characters that require a radical makeover, or the need to change the narrative voice, I’ll usually suggest a consultation rather than a developmental edit. In such a consultation, I offer specific constructive solutions to incorporate in a new draft before the manuscript can be ready for a full edit.

The good news is that it’s never too late to make a book better.

In a full developmental edit, I go through the entire manuscript several times, offering specific page-by-page recommendations, alterations in the plot, concept, character development and visual descriptions, small and large structural shifts, fine tuning the pacing and literary style. I insert tracked changes that indicate deletions within the sentence, or entire paragraphs, sections or chapters. I suggest new language for polish and clarity. And in cases of historical fiction and non-fiction, I do my own research to become more familiar with the background and context.

When completed, I return the manuscript with its tracked changes, along with a lengthy letter that both summarizes and explains the editorial work. I include a subsequent hour consultation with the author by phone or in person to go over remaining questions and brainstorm any new options that may arise. Authors may disagree with or modify the recommendations I’ve made, which usually leads to an even more creative solution.

Finding your own editor

What happens when you first send your work to a prospective developmental editor? Keeping in mind that all editors have individual styles, here’s how I handle submissions: First I request the entire manuscript, which I read start-to-finish without charge. I evaluate the complexity and level of work required, the time it would take, and whether we’re a good fit. Only then do I provide an accurate estimate of cost.

I believe this initial assessment of the whole book, rather than reading only a chapter or two, is the best way to see how the author sustains the narrative arc — creates the premise, develops the action, resolves the problem – and brings the reader to some kind of satisfying personal experience, an emotional landing place, whether it’s inspiring, happy, tragic or just plain informative. I’m essentially previewing the experience any reader will have, and that gives me valuable information about the book’s weaknesses and strengths.

A good editor brings to the relationship both literary skills and human sensitivity. An editor watches your back and anticipates when there’s trouble ahead. But the author is the boss, in the driver’s seat. It’s not the editor’s book, so my job is always to enter the creative world of the author and help fulfill this vision.

I also advise that before investing in an editor, be sure you’re working with someone experienced with a track record of producing books that have succeeded. You should also expect the editor to be available and to complete the edit within an agreed-upon schedule. For more detail, here’s an earlier post with my advice on how to evaluate the best editor for your book.

What about you?

Have you worked with a developmental editor?  Anything you’d care to share about the process?  I’ll watch for any questions, so fire away!

Every good book needs a great cover. It’s a powerful billboard for conveying the spirit and content of your book.

An eye-catching cover can persuade readers to pick up and buy a book. But a jacket that’s confusing or boring or worse, can stop a potential buyer from giving that same book a second glance. Covers also need to pop as thumbnails, for all those online shoppers.

Publishers rely on talented jacket designers to create great covers. These specialized graphic artists are either on staff or hired as freelancers.  Staff designers frequently cross over, creating a jacket for their own publisher one week, freelancing for another house the next week and taking on an indie author client the week after that.

Attention indie authors

For self-publishing authors, the ability to hire a professional designer is a new and important development, because nothing shouts amateur louder than a lousy book jacket. “There’s no reason why a self-published book should look “self published,” says Laura Duffy, a senior art director at Random House.

Hear hear! Read on to learn how four highly successful book jacket designers create stunning, memorable covers, along with their practical advice for writers who want to understand and participate in the crucial process of getting it right.

How 4 professional designers create great covers

Laura Duffy is Senior Art Director at Crown, a division of Random House, where she has worked in the art department for 15 years.

Kimberly Glyder is principal at her own book-design firm based in the Philadelphia area.

Henry Sene Yee is the Creative Director of Picador, a leading literary trade paperback imprint of Macmillan Publishing.

David Drummond is founder and principal of Salamander Hill Design, based in Québec, Canada.

What’s the most important thing to accomplish in a jacket design?

Laura Duffy: My goal is to create a cover that stands out, gets the correct message across, and looks interesting and even exciting. In the olden days our only goal was to have a jacket standout on a crowded bookstore shelf that would inspire someone to cross the store to pick it up. Now we also have to consider how covers will look online, so we’re doing things like making fonts thicker and subtitles bigger and really paying attention to how designs look when they’re shrunk down.

Kimberly Glyder: It’s been said before, by Chip Kidd [one of the industry’s best known designers] that a successful book cover is one that gets you to pick the book up in a store. I would add to that in this day and age, if someone “clicks” on a book online I’m doing my job well. Book covers are still marketing tools and a good design is one that makes someone want to take a closer look. My fear with e-books is that a large image and big type is what ebook publishers consider successful. Clickable covers are not ideal though, I still hope people buy their books in bookstores!

Henry Sene Yee: My goal is that the reader has an emotional response and connection to the story and characters or ideas. The minimum you can do is give out info, but how you say determines how it will be received, like hey, by the way, your house is on fire.

David Drummond: To surprise the viewer – not in a gimmicky way – but hopefully by solving the visual problem in an intelligent way.

How do you begin the design of a new jacket?

Duffy: Here at Random House we have concept meetings at the beginning of every list where we sit down with the editors and listen to what they’d like to see on the cover, as well as offer ideas of our own. I try to read whatever is available in order to have as much to work with as possible. Occasionally I work directly with an author. I look at other jackets in the same genre (comp titles). I also research online to get a bigger picture of what I’m working with, perhaps looking at an author’s website.

Glyder: I do like to read the manuscript in its entirety. Typically, I’m given a pub sheet with information regarding the sales handle and competing titles. With about 90 percent of my cover jobs, my interaction is limited to working with the art director who acts as a go-between with the editor, publisher, sales, marketing, and the author. I do sometimes see email exchanges with the author, but mostly I’m kept out of that discussion. The benefit of working with a traditional publisher, rather than with an author who’s self-published, is to make use of the specialists who deal with books on a daily basis.

Yee: In my meetings, I may ask for plot summary, characters and description but what I need to know is the theme, tone, mood, point of the book, what makes this different than other similar books, the meaning of the title, etc. An author & the editor can get too personally close to the project and know and want too much on the cover. I need to reduce and suggest using symbols, metaphors, tone. Not say everything. I do not want to illustrate a scene or turning point in the book but the subtext of that scene and what it means to the overall theme.

Drummond: I read the book if it’s fiction. If it is non-fiction I try and get a really good brief. I am always looking for a hook or a way into the material. If I need more information I talk to the editor and on occasion the author although that rarely happens.

Have you taken on self-publishing authors as clients?

Duffy: Yes, many times. I love working with these authors because I can bring all my experience to the project, including marketing ideas. Many times I’ve helped them evaluate their copy and its emphasis, perhaps changing wording or including elements in the design that make information pop that they didn’t realize was important. I’ve also helped them create selling back cover copy and discussed ways to market their books. It’s a lot of fun. My advice to them, is that if they’re hiring me they’re in good hands, so let me do what I do best and not over think the design. There’s no reason why a self-published book should look “self published”.

Glyder: Up until last year, I rarely accepted self-publishing authors. However, it’s hard not to notice that the publishing environment is changing rapidly and self-publishers have many more resources available to them. Still, I’m picky–I tend only to take on self-publishing authors whose work I find very interesting. As a designer, it’s difficult to take on authors directly who may not understand the publishing process and how books are marketed, especially just how important it is to consider the audience in finding a successful tone for a design. My experience working directly with authors is that they become set on one vision, rather than being open to understanding that the way they view their book may be different than how a book needs to be marketed so it appeals to a wider audience.

Yee: I have. The best advice is to hire someone good and then trust them to do their best job. Have all your information ready for them to create.

Drummond: Lately I have been doing quite a few covers for self-published authors. The ones I have worked with have been really good about letting me do my thing with a few exceptions.

Do you have a standard contract with mutual expectations, dates and other terms? What’s the typical cost range for a jacket design?

Duffy: Some of the houses I do freelance for send me very specific contracts with design direction, due dates, and budgets. The costs vary from house to house with the smaller ones paying $500-$800 a cover, and the larger ones $1200-$1800.

Glyder: Most of my contracts come directly from the publisher. Dates and terms are included, covering all expectations, including (sometimes most importantly) the kill fee. When I hand off the initial comps and can bill for half the fee, that’s already a large amount of time spent. Typical fees range on the low end for university press clients approximately $800, all the way up to $3000 for some trade publishers.

Yee: In general, two weeks for sketches/comps for the art director and another week to refine an idea to show the editor. And then the game of a thousand cooks with their own opinions of the cover begins. The base amount is $1500. But can range as low as $1,000, and as high as $5,000

Drummond:  The process is usually quite informal. I do sign contracts for the bigger publishers. My range for cover designs runs the gamut. Average fee is about $1000.

DIY book jackets

Many authors feel strongly about having a hand in their own jacket design. The late Steve Jobs reportedly loathed the initial cover design of his own biography by Walter Isaacson. Jobs, although not the author, insisted on redoing the cover himself with the clean white aesthetic typical of Apple products.

In the case of author Bruce Spitzer, a background in advertising led him to design the jacket to his debut novel Extra Innings, a sci-fi baseball thriller about Red Sox legend Ted Williams, who is brought back to life with cryonics in the year 2092. Spitzer, experienced working with graphic print media, had a strong sense of the front cover photo and design he wanted, and a creative way of achieving his goals.

Spitzer had a limited budget, so he recruited a graphic design college intern who could translate his rough sketches into a polished jacket. He then found a photographer online who turned out to be a huge Red Sox fan. A neighbor with a young son fit the bill perfectly as the tall, lanky Ted Williams and Johnnie, a child who plays a central role in the novel. Then he located a vintage Ted Williams’ jersey with his famous number nine, bought some cleats and authentic red socks, and they were ready to go.

Spitzer’s garage became a photo studio using the photographer’s lights, a white backdrop, reflectors, shades, power cords and cameras on tripods. He found a model release online, always a good idea. A few days after the photo shoot, Spitzer and his designer sorted through the shots to pick a favorite, choose the jacket’s colors, the type, and to organize the copy Spitzer had written.

Costs so far for his jacket, still a work in progress: Art Direction/Graphic Design: $300. Photography: $300. Props:$200. Models: $1. Collaboration: “Priceless!” Spitzer says.

What about you?

As authors, what’s your take on all this?  Have you been satisfied with your jacket designs?  Did your publisher involve you in the process?  If not, do you wish you’d had the opportunity?  And if you’re self-publishing, what are your plans for your cover design?

Any thoughts on the jackets pictured in this post?  Which stand out for you?

Despite all the excitement about self-publishing these days – and I’m a big proponent –many writers still dream of being published by a big house like St. Martin’s Press or a prestigious literary publisher like Algonquin or Bloomsbury.

“I want the pride of making a major-league team with superstars on the roster,” a writer client told me recently.

“I want a big advance and that distinctive imprint on the spine. I want to tell my family and friends that I’ve finally made it, that I’ll have that beautiful jacket, that gorgeous type design, and a whole staff of first-class editors, sales and marketing people who think I’m just great.”

It’s a goal worth pursuing for authors who have good connections or the patience to keep pursuing that key gatekeeper, the literary agent; for those who may have already self-published their book and achieved sales numbers that can make an agent or publisher sit up and take notice (10K or more); and for those who are building or already have a solid online platform.

Three top editors tell all

Acquisition editors at major publishing houses are hot to find the next big thing, especially that elusive debut author whose manuscript both inspires their personal devotion and appears to have the necessary commercial appeal. Forward looking editors also see exciting new opportunities for authors coming down the pike, books that are interactive, “books that are more than books.”

That’s some of the scoop from these three savvy, successful acquiring editors I surveyed recently, all VIPs in the field.  Read on for more:

Jennifer Enderlin, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at St. Martin’s Press, one of the largest publishers in America, with 700 titles per year under eight imprints. Enderlin is a top dealmaker, recently signing a six-book deal for a family saga by Kieran Kramer called The House of Brady and another with New York Times bestselling author Sandra Dallas for a historical novel called The Deliverance.

Chuck Adams, Executive Editor at Algonquin Books, a literary press publishing quality fiction and nonfiction books, often by young up-and-coming authors. Adams signed Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen, a publishing phenomenon on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year with 2 million copies sold.

George Gibson, Publisher of Bloomsbury USA, which published two recent hits: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson and My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler.

Do you sign up many books from “debut” authors?

Enderlin: Signing up books from debut authors is what I live for!

Adams: We publish a lot of debut authors, preferring to take promising but unproven writers and attempt to launch their careers, rather than getting into a bidding war for the next bestseller from an already established author.

Gibson: We publish quite a few debut authors, both fiction and nonfiction

Will you consider authors who originally self-publish?

Enderlin: Absolutely

Adams: Yes, one of my favorite buys in the past year was a self-published memoir by Julia Pandl called Memoir of the Sunday Brunch and prior to that I purchased a self-published novel by Stanley Gordon West, Blind Your Ponies. I think publishers are increasingly open to considering books that have proven themselves, albeit in a fairly limited market, and that’s especially true today, since self publishing has become so much easier, and more writers are taking that route without even attempting to find an agent or publisher first.

Gibson: Yes

What can a traditional publisher offer authors that they can’t get with self-publishing?

Enderlin: The entire business end of it:  everything from designing the cover, to selling it into accounts, to publicizing it, to marketing it online and through traditional methods. There are at least 50-75 people involved in the publishing of your book.  Could a self-published author pay 75 people to do what we do?  Not unless he or she was very rich!

Adams: An established publisher has relationships with the national network of bookstores that an individual can only dream of developing, plus the house’s professional publicity and marketing teams know which reviewers, which publications, which media outlets are most likely to respond to any given title, and they work to get attention for the book in a way that an individual could never duplicate.

Gibson: Editorial guidance, leverage with all major sellers, marketing experience, connections with the media.

Do you acquire most books from agents, from authors, or from your own initiative and ideas?

Enderlin: Mostly from agents

Adams: Most come from agents. In fact, in my entire career I’ve only purchased two titles directly from an author.

Gibson: The vast majority come from agents

What’s the most effective way you’ve found to market books today?

Enderlin: Early word-of-mouth campaigns to key booksellers, bloggers and reviewers. It’s a plus if an author feels comfortable connecting through social media online.

Adams: Marketing begins inside, as publishers work to create a “buzz” around a title. We do this through the machinations of our amazing publicity and online marketing staffs, and through the store-by-store, title-by-title pre-publication hand selling by the head of our marketing department, who focuses his efforts primarily—although not exclusively—on the independent booksellers. They tend to be true “book people,” and if they respond to a title, they will get behind it and help to make it a success.

Having a “platform” is increasingly important in marketing a writer’s work, so when we take on a new author, we always work to create an online presence if one does not already exist. Typically, this involves the creation of a website and establishing active social media accounts, especially Facebook, Twitter, and GoodReads.

Gibson: Good major publicity still is key, but increasingly we’re going direct to consumers online, and it’s working. We also push authors hard on self-marketing.

How has the role of a traditional publisher changed?

Enderlin: I’m not sure it has.  Retailers look to us for quality control.  If we as a publisher are standing behind a book saying, “This is good” then the seller has a better chance of believing it because it has had to pass through so many levels to get there.

Adams: In many ways, the role of the traditional publisher has not changed at all. We still look for talent, for a writer and a manuscript that we feel will connect with a large readership. We develop that manuscript, prepare it for publication in a way that hopefully will attract readers, market and sell it to the stores and other suitable outlets. We pay for all this, plus we warehouse the books and, sadly, still take the returns when a title fails to sell as hoped.

Traditional publishers are also insisting more and more that a manuscript be in a more or less “finished” form when it comes in, meaning that the author and/or agent may have to hire an outside editor to polish their work.

And, obviously, the increasing sales of eBooks is creating a whole new kind of “product.” There are whole new opportunities for books in this brave new world, for books to become more than books, certainly more than anything anyone of us in the business could have imagined only a few years ago.

Gibson: Much of the process is the same: Good books are the key. The big change seems to be in how we reach the marketplace. We used to rely on bookstores as the conduit. As their number has diminished and more business has gone online, we need to learn how to reach the consumer directly.

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So there you have it, the inside track on traditional publishing today, at least according to these three smart acquiring editors. The message is clear: If your dream is a traditional book deal, you’ve got to go in through an agent, it helps if you’re a fabulous unknown, and you’d better be prepared to self-market like there’s no tomorrow.

Both Jennifer Enderlin and Chuck Adams, by the way, will be appearing in person at the upcoming San Francisco Writers Conference, February 24-26, 2012.  I’ll be there too.

What About You?

Are you going for the big enchilada, and if so, what’s your strategy?  Or are you considering alternatives?  I look forward to your comments.