March 12, 2024 • 41 mins
In this episode of How Books Work, Executive Editor at Crown, Libby Burton joins co-hosts Julie Satow and Alice Robb for an enlightening conversation about gatekeeping in the publishing industry, her passion for poetry, and important ways editors and writers can improve the system.
Libby, who has edited award-winning authors like Stacey Abrams, Katie Porter, Mariah Carey, and others, talks about her personal journey into publishing, and how being a poet influences her editorial role. She also discusses what types of writers appeal to her, and her mission to create a more inclusive industry. The conversation also delves into the importance of authors' platforms, the relevance of publicity, marketing, and sales in corporate publishing, and the influence of public opinion on platforms like Goodreads.
Libby also advises Julie and Alice about how authors need to balance their careers and writing, the importance of choosing the right agent, understanding the market for their work, and the critical role of meeting deadlines in the publishing process. It’s a comprehensive dive into the changing landscape of the publishing industry that will provide invaluable insight for aspiring writers, industry enthusiasts, and avid readers alike.
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
How Books Work, Real Talk with Editors, Agents, and Publishing Insiders,
hosted by writers Julie Sejau and Alice Robb.
In this conversation, Libby Burton discusses her role as an editor,
the intersection of art and commerce, changing the dynamics of publishing,
and creating a more inclusive industry.
Libby Burton is an executive editor at Crown. She publishes both practical and
(00:30):
narrative nonfiction with an eye for stories and insight from traditionally
underrepresented voices.
She has edited a wide range of award-winning and best-selling authors,
including Stacey Abrams, Katie Porter, Mariah Carey, Melissa Broder,
Jessica Valenti, and Liz Lenz.
She is also the author of the poetry collection, Soft Volcano.
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Hi, Libby. Welcome to the show. How is your poetry going, by the way?
Are you still writing? I am still writing.
I actually saw some poetry friends last night, which was delightful.
We met for a holiday poets dinner and we traded poems.
So yeah, it's still happening. It still keeps me sane and grounded and paying
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attention to what really matters.
Yeah. So it's a great practice. Sure.
It was so interesting. I did this like residency and there was a bunch of poets
and it was so interesting to like see them work and be so specific about each
word they're using. You know what I mean?
Like we're, we just kind of like, I feel like it's like diarrhea of the mouth
or whatever, like when you're doing more, you know, versus anyway.
(01:36):
Anyway, this is how poets are like, I know people are like, Oh,
you wrote a whole book. I'm like, I wrote a whole book of poetry.
Like, it's not a lot of words. But it is true that each word is definitely given a lot of consideration.
So much consideration. It is so fascinating.
How do you I mean, do you feel like your poetry like, or your work with the
poet informs your editing?
(01:56):
Yeah, or the other way around? The poetry definitely informs the editing.
And I will say the editing informs the poetry as well, too.
The poetry informs the editing because I was literally taught to examine each
word and like sort of ask the question,
like, does it do the job that it needs to on like multiple levels?
(02:17):
I studied poetry as an undergraduate.
I studied it as a graduate student as well, too. And that just really helps
you respect words and like how they're used. I...
I love line editing. I love sort of bringing language to the level that it wants to be.
And I mean that sort of like, I actually learned that from workshopping with
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other writers, which is to say that not every poem, not every book,
not every chapter needs to be a very specific way.
It needs to be the best possible iteration of itself.
And finding the best words in the best order to do that is, it's a joy.
I wish I had more time to do it because it is is my favorite part of the whole entire job.
But I do like other jobs of other aspects of being an editor as well, too.
(03:02):
But that's definitely when I'm doing that, when I'm editing word by word,
I'm like, that's my happy place.
That's so cool. You know, obviously, like there's such a kind of a,
I don't know if it's really true, but like a reputation that editors don't edit anymore.
You know what I mean? I know there's that cliche, which is true in my experience
and my colleagues. I can't speak of all my colleagues, but I would say many
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of them, it's completely not true.
It is not only are we often, especially in nonfiction, building books with writers
for the first time, which is to say many people, Julie, maybe you know this
experience of like, you've written a lot of articles,
you've written sort of a lot of like things, maybe up to like 10,000 or even
20,000 words, but that sort of leap to the next level of 75,000 to 100,000 words is a process.
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And so So a lot of first-time writers, I know editors work really closely with
them to do that. And I work really closely with my writers to do that.
And I will say, in the actual sort of line by line, my most sort of illustrious
colleagues and smartest colleagues, they're in the trenches with writers.
And yeah, so that cliche is not true. Or maybe there are some,
(04:14):
I don't know, some lazy editors in the 80s and 90s that gave publishing that bad reputation.
How much of your day is taken up with
meetings and reading proposals and what whatever
else editors do i know i know editors like
editors at their core are project
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managers managers who are real good at reading and that's what i think of it
as but also it's and i never i never thought the job of editing was when i was
a grad student when i was an undergrad like what it actually is is so much different
than what I anticipated,
which is I believe it's a very, and if you're effective at it,
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it's a very social job, honestly.
And it's also like you have to understand markets in a lot of ways.
But then it all also boils down to understanding the experience of reading and
what actually can motivate someone to pay $30 for a new book.
But all that comes into play with the,
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reading, understanding markets, and also then the relationships.
And the relationships are with agents, they're with writers,
they're with teams within a corporate structure.
So that is a roundabout way of saying not always a huge percentage of my day
is spent editing, but a chunk, I try to do a chunk every day.
I am a morning person. So I wake up early and I did this this morning.
(05:37):
I woke up at 6am and I edited one chapter from a writer who is writing her first book.
She's an expert in her field, but she's never written anything longer than like an academic article.
So I'm helping her with that process, you know, eight to 10 hours spent on actual
work and maybe like 10 to 20% of that editing and the rest is meetings and research
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and a million other things.
So that's the kind of nature of corporate publishing these days.
I just want to say I can can attest to the fact that you are an amazing editor
because I had never written a book before and you did like, I gave you chapter
by chapter, which I mean, now that I think about that, I'm like, wow,
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I can't believe you let me do that.
But also like you really did.
That was huge. So, so that's great.
I wonder like if you could talk about, I think from a writer's perspective,
Part of what motivated us to want to do this podcast was that it feels so much like a black box.
What you're actually doing at Penguin Meeting House works in those meetings,
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how it works, what the dynamics are, you know, what I don't know,
maybe you could talk a little bit about that. that. Totally, totally.
And I'm glad that you guys are doing this because I, for a long time,
publishing has been this sort of very opaque black box, like culturally and
also from like a power perspective.
And still, I think this is true. Book publishers are like cultural gatekeepers.
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And for a long time, that was shaped by sexism and racism and classism.
And a big goal of mine while working within a corporate structure is to sort
of change that dynamic in a lot of ways with both the content of my books and
then also the work that I do within this corporate behemoth that allows me to have my job.
(07:32):
So yeah, where to start with sort of like what goes on in the inside? I would say...
I don't know. Like, I, like, okay, so, so what, what, what do you think would
be helpful for writers to know about what goes on in the inside?
Like, are there certain, like, you know, marketing and publicity,
for instance, between, you know, the editor and then the marketing teams and
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the sales team publicity, like that is very unclear to many of us. Yes, totally.
Okay. So I will say, starting from, say, you want to publish a book and you're
maybe in any sort of place in a writing career from a nonfiction perspective.
And sort of that's what I can speak to. That's where I've like honed my expertise for the last decade.
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Market is a critical element to this, which is to say, I do believe that we
exist at the intersection of art and commerce,
which is like, I believe that I'm helping put art into the world,
but I'm also putting art into the world that needs to sell and needs to sort
of appeal to a wide audience.
So the question is, how can I sort of hedge my bets as much as possible to say
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that this book will appeal to a massive amount of people?
And honestly, while we have sort of opened up the idea of who can write a book
and who should write a book, there's still a question of who then will get that
book to as many readers as possible.
So we were looking at writers with a platform a lot of times,
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which is not to say that you can't just write Go Away in a cabin and write a
phenomenal book and then sell it to a publisher and have it sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
That can still happen, but it's getting harder and harder.
And we are often looking for authors who can bring their own audience and have
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built a platform in the form of social media or publishing journalism or have
certain connections in journalism.
Those worlds that will help us then get that book to a lot of readers?
It's empowering in a lot of ways, because if you are an author with something
to say and a powerful platform, we will help you and we will help you hone that
message in the best way possible. And I've done that with lots of writers.
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But also to say that the bar is very high for both the content of the books
and then also the audience that an author may bring to the table.
So those are the questions that we are are talking about within sort of publicity
and marketing meetings as well?
Sort of how do we leverage an audience that an author has?
And how do we find additional audiences for a specific book?
(10:10):
That is what we're thinking about all the time.
So do you think that the like that it maybe used to be more editor driven,
and now it's more sales and marketing driven, like that they have more more
say in the process now. They have a lot of say.
And I think they have to have a say because we don't have a lot of choices.
The book buying market grew over the pandemic. It's shrunk a little bit.
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And we are just finding, in order to find an audience for a book,
we need to pull all those marketing and publicity levers as much as possible.
At the end of the day, though, The content of the book, generally,
there are obviously exceptions, still needs to be phenomenal and also serve
people and readers where they are.
(10:58):
And an example of this that is really sort of heartening for me is that My Imprint
Crown published a book called Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond this year, which was a tremendous,
huge bestseller, really well-reviewed, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies already.
It is not an easy book to read.
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And a lot of those book buyers, I believe, may feel implicated by that book.
And that's the point, which is to say that poverty exists in America because of our actions.
But that book was named the number one Goodreads nonfiction book for the whole entire year.
Goodreads is a very democratic sort of way of rating books because anyone can
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put any book on there and score it anyway. There's no gatekeeping like at the New York Times.
So that's really affirming to me that this book that's not an easy read but
is a very rigorous and important read is still reaching a lot of people and
getting them to think and changing their minds. So things like that keep me going.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one person that we interviewed was an agent who was talking
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about how the nonfiction market has been, the sales have been down this year, definitely.
Is that what you're inferring? Yeah, exactly.
I think that's something that we have seen. Yeah, people are often trying to
escape into fiction, which I think is tremendous.
I am among those people who like loves reading fiction for escapist reasons.
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And nonfiction, like it's harder if it's not sort of giving people very practical,
pragmatic ways to improve their lives,
or sort of meeting them in a very specific place or celebrity driven,
it is hard to get people to buy those books. But that's, that's our challenge.
You mentioned Goodreads and how democratic it is.
(12:43):
I'm curious how much publishers I guess how much weight publishers give to things
like Goodreads reviews.
And I mean, I don't know, I was just reading about the like review bombing campaign,
The review bombing. I know exactly.
I would say any one review, like not a lot, but an aggregate, a lot of it.
But that's the interesting thing
too about review bombing, which is to say that like it's social media.
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So it can be sort of like controlled and also, you know, exploited in ways by non-reviewers.
By bad actors in certain ways, right? Like it wasn't intended to be used that way.
I was supposed to say like, you read a book and you tell other people how you
feel about it. Like one-to-one, easy peasy.
But you know, it's imperfect as anything is.
So we do, it's like a tool. It's like one other tool that we have to use.
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And I think it's not a bad thing that it is more democratic than some.
But again, like any social media tool, it can be sort of exploited and used
in, in different ways. That's really interesting.
I wonder what, like, well, I mean, I guess, okay, so if, if it's challenging
and if publicity and marketing and platform and all those things we all hear
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about are so important, what, when you're, you're an acquiring editor,
obviously, what, are there certain things you're looking for topic wise or that,
you know, hit those marks that you feel like are,
you know, obviously there's certain trends that happen.
I don't know. Is Is there a trend you're trying to get?
Like what's appealing to you right now, I guess? Totally. I would say what's
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appealing to me and the markets in a lot of places are practical.
Pragmatic, sort of prescriptive is like kind of going far in that direction,
but sort of books that give people tangible tools for living in a better way in a changing world.
And that can take many forms.
(14:38):
Like I have been, as mentioned, I have a two-year-old. So I've been reading
in the parenting space a lot.
And I've also been acquiring and adding books in the parenting space because
I understand that at this moment, I understand the sort of...
Challenges it takes to be a parent in 2023, even with all the privilege that
I've been to the experience.
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As I tell my friends and future expecting parents, I didn't think America hated me until I had a kid.
And like, which is like hilarious, but also sad. Like it's, it's tough.
Like childcare is really expensive. Talent, like balancing having a full-time
demanding intellectually and emotionally engaging job plus raising a child is really, really hard.
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So giving people tools to do that in the most in the best way and the most thoughtful
way i'm really invested in that too as well like as julie knows because i like
you know we work together i'm always interested in untold histories and histories that sort of like.
Change how we view something that we
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thought that we knew be that sort of like the intersection
of of history architecture and power
in New York City in the form of Plaza Hotel or
say I have a book coming from like the about the history
of ballroom and drag and sort of how the origins of that whole practice in you
know the mid-20th century evolved into RuPaul's Drag Race and I'm always interested
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in histories that are not written by white cishet privileged men because because
they wrote our histories for a very long time.
And those things will always appeal to me.
Also, you know, tools that give sort of anyone who's been an outsider,
be that a woman, person of color, non-binary, or sort of like non-straight individual
tools to, you know, have access and make their lives better.
(16:26):
I'm always interested in that. The flip side though, and as your question sort
of alluded to, I also need to ensure that even if this book is incredibly written,
that we can get it to a wide audience.
So that comes in the the form of writers with Instagram followings,
or YouTube subscribers, or.
Sub stack subscribers and or sort of like a plethora of like bylines and various
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like respectful, respected, quote unquote, like journalistic venues.
So those things, it's like, I'm constantly thinking of both those things together,
the content, and then also how do I get this content to an audience?
That's interesting. When you're I assume your inboxes,
you know flooded with proposals how do you like sift through them is it what
(17:14):
agent it's coming to coming through or you know i mean it's an interesting thing
because like the agent system which i don't know if you guys are like getting
into that much on this podcast but.
It's it's a traditional system that's like worked really well for a long time
but i'm not convinced It's the system that is the best for writers and publishers.
(17:37):
And basically, it's sort of as like for listeners, a major publisher like Penguin
Random House, we won't necessarily consider a publication or a submission that
comes straight from a writer. It usually needs to come through a publisher.
I mean, through an agent that we know and trust.
And listen, that's not absolute. It's just sort of the general rule.
(17:57):
And often I form relationships with writers outside of agents and then move
towards publication. But often...
An agent works as another sort of gatekeeper in a lot of ways, and that is good and bad.
But so having worked in publishing for over 10 years, I have extensive relationships
with almost all of the agents in the industry.
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Therefore, they know what I'm interested in, they know what I'm good at,
and they know what I can publish well, Crown, which is where I work now.
So given that, they sort of gauge their submissions and will pick certain editors
at certain houses to to submit to.
So as you sort of alluded to Alice, I do generally go to emails from agents
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I know first because they know what I like.
We have a relationship and I know they won't waste my time because it is my
inbox is very, very full.
So I start there and I will read.
Sometimes I read the cover letter first and sometimes I just dive into the proposal.
It's actually not. I worked for an editor who did a lot of fiction and memoir,
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and she never read the cover letter.
She was like, I just want to be, I just want to like, pretend I am picking up
a book in a bookstore and just start reading it, which I think could work with
fiction and works with fiction really well.
With nonfiction, a lot of the things I'm concerned in are like the thesis of
the book, the platform again, and sort of like the credentials of the writer.
So like, I need to take that into consideration, because readers will take that
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into consideration when deciding deciding whether or not to buy a book.
And but then also then at the end of the day, it's in the read.
Like, I don't know, I rarely bought a book that I thought the proposal was like terribly written.
I still have to I have, you know, and granted, then, you know,
there have been considerations that maybe it was something by a celebrity or
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an expert, and they are bringing something to the table that's beyond the actual writing.
And that's something that we then fix in in the process.
But the proposal has to be engaging and compelling in the same way that when
you open a book at the bookstore, you're probably only going to buy it if you
want to keep turning the pages.
I'm so interested that you said that you're not sure if the agent process makes a lot of sense.
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What do you mean? Because your inbox is so flooded and don't you need those
gatekeepers? Otherwise, you could be really overwhelmed.
Listen, listen, I don't have a better system, but I'm really interested in further
equity within the publishing industry.
And the publishing industry has been very white and very rich for
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a very long time and it's worked in a traditional way
for a very long time so i think if we are we collectively as
people in the media industry are interested in changing it then we have to change
the way in which we do things i don't have a better system in mind but as i
think just the fact that you guys are producing this podcast which i mentioned
is like seeking to reach writers right and sort of like pull the veil back from how how it all works,
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that to me is an indicator that the system is not equitable and fair and transparent
in the way that maybe it should be.
So I actually think that conversations like this are a good step in that process.
Yeah, I don't know what the alternative is.
I will say I do make an effort, and not as much as I should,
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but to reach out to sort of younger agents, agents of color,
and also just people who might not be so established in the industry and make connections with them.
I think that's something all editors should do.
Because the way in which sort of the agency model works is that success begets more success.
You sell a giant book, it's a bestseller, you then more authors come to you,
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you sell another book, it's a bestseller, and you become sort of very powerful.
But it's really hard to sort of break in and penetrate that system.
And again, I don't have an alternative, but I'd love to entertain and imagine
a world and an industry where success doesn't always have to be get success,
but there's just a bit more of a meritocracy.
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Yeah. I mean, you yourself did that with your career in a way, right?
Because you started out, I mean, you've worked your way up through,
I don't know, maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
You're working at all these different houses and also maybe consolidation a
little bit, how that's affected things.
Yeah, totally. So yeah, I would say I'm very privileged in a lot of ways.
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And I recognize that privilege.
I am from Virginia, but I was able to attend grad school at Columbia University
for my MFA in poetry writing.
And I made that decision because one, I wanted to go into publishing as opposed
to academia, which was the right choice.
And two, they did offer me a scholarship, but my family was able to help defray
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the cost of going to Columbia University, which is tremendously expensive,
and also living in New York City. So without the help of my family...
I don't know if I would be here. And that's point blank true.
And I want to tell everyone that I did make a very concerted effort to network
and to get into the sort of publishing conversation.
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But honestly, my first job came about because I had a friend whose sister's
partner was looking for an editorial assistant.
And she sort of sent out an email to our cohort at Columbia.
And I I said, I want that job. Who do I email?
And I went after her, my friend. And then also I went after my friend's sister,
whom I never met. And I was like, why is she looking for an assistant?
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And I sort of like deranged, like wrote a deranged email that,
you know, got me an interview and then got me in the door at WW Norton.
And that was both fortunate. I mean, very fortunate because like who got those
emails, like only the people at Columbia.
So that already is like gatekeeping that is frustrating, but also a system that I exploited and used.
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And yeah, I started there at WW Norton, I went to Hachette.
So I'll say WW Norton is a sort of an outlier to the big five publishing.
And I don't know if you guys want me to like sort of talk about that.
Yeah, which is an interesting sort of phenomenon in the world in in in New York publishing.
And I'd say in the world of US publishing, there's the big five,
which are the big corporate entities.
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And then right under the big five in terms of market share.
But they culturally are very different because they are employee owned,
which allows them a lot of flexibility.
And they're not beholden to shareholders. And they can therefore publish,
I think, books that maybe they don't have to necessarily perform so highly,
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but are more culturally relevant.
And it's a beautiful place and a beautiful publisher for that reason.
But when I was there, I was not working on books that I was personally invested in.
So I knew I had to sort of move on and go someplace where I could really work
on books that I cared about.
So I went to Hachette, which is another one of the big five.
And it is owned by a French media company, but you don't see a lot of the sort
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of impact of the Frenchness in the culture of it.
And from there, I went to Macmillan, which is German owned, and then to PRH.
And I've been at PRH for almost, which is Penguin right now.
And PRH is the biggest in market share and you feel it. You feel the power and sort of the.
The caliber of my colleagues, which is tremendous and unparalleled within the industry.
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And also our ability to do things like print, you know, beautiful four color
books overseas and also do so in a very quick timeline and ship books anywhere in the world.
So all of those things make my job a lot easier and also makes my job of attracting
editor or attracting writers a lot easier.
It's such a big book, such a big imprint was, I mean, such a big publishing
(25:52):
house with so so many imprints.
How does that work? I know there's like, I'm with Doubleday,
but there's also random, there's this.
I mean, do you all come to sales meetings together and pitch things?
Or how do they decide which books to really emphasize in the publishing process?
Because it does seem like it's a bit baked in, I should say,
(26:14):
like which books end up getting a lot of push, and then those guys end up getting
more attention, and then they'll get more, you know, it kind of goes down I mean, it's funny.
It's like the imprint system and like the division system is like,
it's both ridiculous and also very effective.
So, and it's hard to learn. Again, it's very hard. It's very opaque.
And I remember when I was applying to jobs initially, and then also when I moved
(26:37):
jobs, I would study Wikipedia,
I would study the corporate websites, I would study Publishers Marketplace,
which is this sort of trade website to say like, what, like what imprint and
like who works at what imprints? and what books do they do?
It's also not even clear to the agent community because some of it is only known internally.
(26:59):
So I'll say it's ridiculous, but also important. And why do all these exist?
How do they serve the books? Great question.
They kind of started all initially as separate publishing houses.
And then as you alluded to, Julie, they sort of came together and got bought up.
Even today, there was a report that Penguin Random House bought an independent
(27:19):
publisher called Hay House, which is to say Hay House has independently been
publishing a lot of practical and sort of spiritual, non-Western oriented books
for a long time and very successfully.
Now they've been bought by Penguin Random House, which will probably change
their list, give them a lot of opportunities to distribute widely,
but also might restrict what they're doing in certain ways too,
(27:41):
which is of course the trade-off of corporate life.
I would say within in any imprint, there are always going to be books that are
given more budget and sort of like more time and energy.
That's often based on, you know, the profile of the author, but also the past
performance of the author. But all this is to say,
That sort of attention is not destiny. And right now I'm working on a book that
(28:04):
is beautifully written, debut, just sort of like a gorgeous,
ruminative book about sound underwater.
And it's called Sing Like Fish. And it's about how sound underwater actually
dictates the environments.
Underwater environments across the entire world and how shipping and boating
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and like pile driving is affecting these underwater environments.
And we actually have an opportunity to fix that at this moment and for it to
not all go wrong, like sort of the rest of climate change.
But it's her first book, beautiful writer. And this has been a book that's really
been embraced by our sales team, who's really enjoyed reading it.
And we're going to push it in a big way.
(28:47):
So it doesn't always, although for everything I said earlier in this conversation,
that platform form an audience is really important.
There's always sort of hope for those books that are just beautiful and meet
the moment in a really important way. So it's not all doom and gloom.
Do advances relate? Are advances important in terms of what you pay up front
(29:08):
in terms of how much emphasis you put at the back end, like at the publishing publicity part?
I would say every single book does get the exact in the same treatment in the
sense that like you you have your own publicist. This isn't my imprint.
You have your own publicist, you have your own marketer, you have a marketing
and publicity teams that are invested in everything that you're doing.
But as it sort of stands to reason, if a company invests millions of dollars
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into a book versus say hundreds of thousands of dollars,
there's going to be sort of like a variation in sort of how that book is sort
of treated within the company.
And like you'd be be kind of like naive not to think that but
again it doesn't always mean destiny and
what i like still find exciting about this this industry and
(29:52):
this job is that like the magic
and like and this will sound a little like schmaltzy right now but like the
magic of like a powerful book and people read it like corporately and they are
like wait a second this could be you know the next sort of even i mean take
a book like say lessons in chemistry which is like a huge huge best like like
(30:12):
international bestseller and a TV show and yada,
yada, like a debut by that woman who didn't know anybody.
And again, that's fiction and it can work a little differently,
but like, you never know.
And you never know sort of what writers are going to really touch readers in a huge way.
So that's why we keep publishing so many books because this happens and it's a beautiful thing.
(30:34):
So, but I understand what your question was, which is like, yes,
we're, you know, is Prince Harry's book going to get a certain treatment that's
maybe a little different than my debut writer?
Yes. But that isn't to say that my debut writer can't be a bestseller too.
One kind of consequence of how opaque some things sometimes feel from the writer's
(30:54):
side is you hear about like...
I mean, you know, like, I don't know, when I wrote my first book,
I didn't necessarily know a lot of other people who had written books.
I knew other journalists, but I would hear rumors like, oh, you have to hire your own editor.
You know, you have to hire your own publicist. So I was wondering,
like, if you how much of that you encounter and kind of like,
(31:16):
I actually I did end up on my first book hiring a fact checker.
Yeah. Which was incredibly expensive, but I think was the right,
I don't know, like the right thing to do. I'd come to the magazine world.
So I just kind of knew how, how many mistakes you make, even when you're being really careful.
But yeah, I guess I don't know, like, is there? Well, now sort of a different question.
(31:37):
But like, do you think publishers will ever move towards having in house in all freelancers?
Like how many sort of like shadow people that you know?
Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question. And it's again,
it's like a part of the publishing industry that I think more people need to
talk about, but it's not necessarily discussed.
I will say it is the exception that like you as an author would have to necessarily hire.
(32:02):
I mean, first of all, an editor, unless things have gone really sour.
But if you're sort of, because you should be able to, if you,
well, it should start with an agent, right?
It sort of should start. And I can talk about that process as well too,
but maybe you guys talk to agents about that.
Like if you have an agent whom you trust and who's invested in your career,
then they are going to hopefully submit your, if it's a nonfiction book too.
(32:25):
To editors that they trust and that they were going to treat the book with the
care that it deserves to make it the best thing it possibly can be.
Sometimes things go haywire and I've heard of it when like a writer is not happy
with how their editor is editing.
So then they feel like they have to hire someone else, but that should really
be the exception of the rule.
And there's lots of, there should be lots of sort of checks slash other sort
(32:49):
of strategies before you get to that point. So there's that.
Fact-checking, that's real, which is to say that like,
As a publisher, we consider the fact, and this kind of comes down to contractual stuff.
We consider the content of we're paying you to produce the best possible content,
(33:10):
you the writer, the best possible content of the book, and that includes the correctness.
So that includes fact-checking, and that is often something that I think more
and more sort of writers and agents need to talk about, which is like,
should we set aside part of this advance to pay a fact checker because your
(33:30):
job as the writer is to deliver the best possible version of the book.
Our job is to shape the content, but I'm not a fact checker and we don't employ fact checkers.
There have been imprints that have done that one-off.
The cost, as you know, Alice, is very high and it's hard to guarantee that.
So yes, that is something to consider. in terms of
(33:52):
like a publicist again in my
experience at PRH like our
publicists are phenomenal they are working on a lot of books as all
of us are but like they are really good at what they do and they have
the best relationships in the business but that's not true everywhere and I
think it kind of comes back to for me it comes back to equity in a lot of ways
(34:13):
which is to say that like if you have sort of extra money and you don't need
to like live on your advance then like it couldn't hurt to like hire an extra publicist.
But the flip side of that is sometimes it can because sometimes too many cooks
in the kitchen can be challenging.
So there's a lot of things to weigh there. But I hate that there are writers
that would think that like, okay, if I can't pay a publicist $10,000,
(34:35):
then I can't, my book has no chance. And that's 100% not true. But.
But there is, there are writers out there who can do that and do that.
And they succeed with it sometimes too. So again, it's one of those places sort
of in publishing that I think is a problem.
And part of this, I think that could be remedied with like higher budgets and
(34:56):
publicity departments,
the ability of book publishing to lure high level publicists from various industries
into the industry, as opposed to there being publicists who leave corporate
jobs to go freelance because they can make more money.
Like that's such a tragedy in our industry because we want the best people and
we want them to be working with us to, you know, promote the hell out of our books. So, yes.
(35:22):
So true. So we were like doing one question where we're asking everyone,
which was if you could give one piece of advice to a writer to sort of in closing,
exposing what would you what what's like the one thing that
you would like non-fiction writers to know which
i know it's a big question no i love it i love it i have to i just want to like
(35:45):
think about it like and i have to not i want it to not be glib and i want it
to i okay this will sound glib and mean but i'm going to say it anyways which
is like if you like believe you can do anything else,
then do that and don't become a writer.
But if writing is absolutely what you have to do, and you fully believe in the
(36:08):
power of it, and you just have no choice, you feel as though you have no choice,
then yes, please keep writing.
And if you make that commitment and you.
I'm not going to have to say that success will come, but you will find what
you need and you will find satisfaction
in it if that is, if you are truly driven by the power of writing.
(36:32):
But again, if you can do anything else, and I think I would tell this to my
two-year-old, do it because it's really challenging.
Also, my other piece of advice is don't quit your day job necessarily.
As I'm sure Julie, you might know. So like it's, yeah, living off of book advance
and also sort of putting that pressure on yourself is really challenging in a lot of ways.
(36:54):
Even if taking this time and space to write is a gift. Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like I can't argue with that.
I mean, okay, here's my other, maybe another piece of advice,
which is like read contemporary books,
like go into a bookstore and read and everything that you see on like the nonfiction desk,
on the nonfiction table, like read it or read what's
(37:17):
attracted read what you're attracted to and read your competitive
titles if you're going to try to write
a book that appeals to a reader of glenn
and doyle read all of glenn and doyle you know if you
want to write a novel that competes with like the hate you give like read the
hate you give and read the rest for novels know your market and it will only
make you a better writer so let's say a writer is you know impressed you enough
(37:42):
to get acquired by Penguin Random House, what can they then do?
Do you have any pet peeves? How does a writer stay on an editor's good side?
Yes, this is a great question. Hit your deadlines.
If you hit your deadlines, you, Annette, is on all regards, like, contractual, like,
(38:04):
Manuscript deadlines, mini chapter deadlines, descriptive copy deadlines,
author photo deadlines, marketing, big mouth deadlines.
If you hit your deadlines, you will be the number one author in the house and
everyone will work harder for you. And not joking.
(38:25):
Wait, so many authors don't hit deadlines? Like that's a chronic issue?
You. It is. It really is. So one, hit your deadlines.
Two, do not let good be the enemy of perfect, which is really hard to tell a writer in a lot of ways.
It actually kind of like correlates to the point about deadlines,
which is to say, we are all grappling with like a lot of content like all day, every day.
(38:48):
And I realized that like your book is your baby and like you want it to be perfect.
But like there are practical considerations that we have to put into play,
which is how long it takes to copy edit it, how long it takes to print it,
how long it takes to promote it.
And if you work within the constraints that we sort of offer,
which are like, if you hit these deadlines, we will then offer these.
(39:08):
You know, we will copy edit the book, we will print the book.
If we can work in tandem together, it's only going to benefit everyone.
And don't be too precious about your work, that it is at the detriment of your
relationships and deadlines.
Deadlines okay as a journalist i take that
i get that i think i know that i will
(39:29):
never miss the deadline i promise i think this is the other terrible
advice i got when i sold my first book someone was like
oh like deadlines in publishing they're not like deadlines and
journalists and they're just a suggestion i mean
okay so that's like here's the irony of it
like it's true however because like
with if you run a daily paper like
(39:50):
yes you're going to press tomorrow tomorrow but in publishing like
yes we could squeeze another day out of it however a lot
of things are relationship based and so if you actually
hit your deadlines because so few writers do like
i said you will be the number one author in the house and everyone will want
to work with you and that goodwill is priceless so the deadlines are flexible
(40:11):
but if you can have this sort of like personal wherewithal to hit them then
it's yeah that's setting yourself up for success i'm going going to hand in
my edits on my first pass like today.
They're due next Monday, but I will have them done.
Also, I'm going to do it. If you want to like give yourself one more day to like read them over.
(40:32):
Yes, do that. But also you hand them in early, like also before the holidays,
everyone's going to love you. So do it.
All right. That's awesome. Libby, it was so fun to talk to you.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening. This has been an episode of How Books Work.
Join us on our next episode as we continue to explore publishing behind the scenes.
(40:56):
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
How Books Work, Real Talk with Editors, Agents, and Publishing Insiders,
hosted by writers Julie Sejau and Alice Robb.
In this conversation, Libby Burton discusses her role as an editor,
the intersection of art and commerce, changing the dynamics of publishing,
and creating a more inclusive industry.
Libby Burton is an executive editor at Crown. She publishes both practical and
(00:30):
narrative nonfiction with an eye for stories and insight from traditionally
underrepresented voices.
She has edited a wide range of award-winning and best-selling authors,
including Stacey Abrams, Katie Porter, Mariah Carey, Melissa Broder,
Jessica Valenti, and Liz Lenz.
She is also the author of the poetry collection, Soft Volcano.
(00:52):
Hi, Libby. Welcome to the show. How is your poetry going, by the way?
Are you still writing? I am still writing.
I actually saw some poetry friends last night, which was delightful.
We met for a holiday poets dinner and we traded poems.
So yeah, it's still happening. It still keeps me sane and grounded and paying
(01:14):
attention to what really matters.
Yeah. So it's a great practice. Sure.
It was so interesting. I did this like residency and there was a bunch of poets
and it was so interesting to like see them work and be so specific about each
word they're using. You know what I mean?
Like we're, we just kind of like, I feel like it's like diarrhea of the mouth
or whatever, like when you're doing more, you know, versus anyway.
(01:36):
Anyway, this is how poets are like, I know people are like, Oh,
you wrote a whole book. I'm like, I wrote a whole book of poetry.
Like, it's not a lot of words. But it is true that each word is definitely given a lot of consideration.
So much consideration. It is so fascinating.
How do you I mean, do you feel like your poetry like, or your work with the
poet informs your editing?
(01:56):
Yeah, or the other way around? The poetry definitely informs the editing.
And I will say the editing informs the poetry as well, too.
The poetry informs the editing because I was literally taught to examine each
word and like sort of ask the question,
like, does it do the job that it needs to on like multiple levels?
(02:17):
I studied poetry as an undergraduate.
I studied it as a graduate student as well, too. And that just really helps
you respect words and like how they're used. I...
I love line editing. I love sort of bringing language to the level that it wants to be.
And I mean that sort of like, I actually learned that from workshopping with
(02:39):
other writers, which is to say that not every poem, not every book,
not every chapter needs to be a very specific way.
It needs to be the best possible iteration of itself.
And finding the best words in the best order to do that is, it's a joy.
I wish I had more time to do it because it is is my favorite part of the whole entire job.
But I do like other jobs of other aspects of being an editor as well, too.
(03:02):
But that's definitely when I'm doing that, when I'm editing word by word,
I'm like, that's my happy place.
That's so cool. You know, obviously, like there's such a kind of a,
I don't know if it's really true, but like a reputation that editors don't edit anymore.
You know what I mean? I know there's that cliche, which is true in my experience
and my colleagues. I can't speak of all my colleagues, but I would say many
(03:27):
of them, it's completely not true.
It is not only are we often, especially in nonfiction, building books with writers
for the first time, which is to say many people, Julie, maybe you know this
experience of like, you've written a lot of articles,
you've written sort of a lot of like things, maybe up to like 10,000 or even
20,000 words, but that sort of leap to the next level of 75,000 to 100,000 words is a process.
(03:51):
And so So a lot of first-time writers, I know editors work really closely with
them to do that. And I work really closely with my writers to do that.
And I will say, in the actual sort of line by line, my most sort of illustrious
colleagues and smartest colleagues, they're in the trenches with writers.
And yeah, so that cliche is not true. Or maybe there are some,
(04:14):
I don't know, some lazy editors in the 80s and 90s that gave publishing that bad reputation.
How much of your day is taken up with
meetings and reading proposals and what whatever
else editors do i know i know editors like
editors at their core are project
(04:34):
managers managers who are real good at reading and that's what i think of it
as but also it's and i never i never thought the job of editing was when i was
a grad student when i was an undergrad like what it actually is is so much different
than what I anticipated,
which is I believe it's a very, and if you're effective at it,
(04:55):
it's a very social job, honestly.
And it's also like you have to understand markets in a lot of ways.
But then it all also boils down to understanding the experience of reading and
what actually can motivate someone to pay $30 for a new book.
But all that comes into play with the,
(05:16):
reading, understanding markets, and also then the relationships.
And the relationships are with agents, they're with writers,
they're with teams within a corporate structure.
So that is a roundabout way of saying not always a huge percentage of my day
is spent editing, but a chunk, I try to do a chunk every day.
I am a morning person. So I wake up early and I did this this morning.
(05:37):
I woke up at 6am and I edited one chapter from a writer who is writing her first book.
She's an expert in her field, but she's never written anything longer than like an academic article.
So I'm helping her with that process, you know, eight to 10 hours spent on actual
work and maybe like 10 to 20% of that editing and the rest is meetings and research
(06:00):
and a million other things.
So that's the kind of nature of corporate publishing these days.
I just want to say I can can attest to the fact that you are an amazing editor
because I had never written a book before and you did like, I gave you chapter
by chapter, which I mean, now that I think about that, I'm like, wow,
(06:22):
I can't believe you let me do that.
But also like you really did.
That was huge. So, so that's great.
I wonder like if you could talk about, I think from a writer's perspective,
Part of what motivated us to want to do this podcast was that it feels so much like a black box.
What you're actually doing at Penguin Meeting House works in those meetings,
(06:46):
how it works, what the dynamics are, you know, what I don't know,
maybe you could talk a little bit about that. that. Totally, totally.
And I'm glad that you guys are doing this because I, for a long time,
publishing has been this sort of very opaque black box, like culturally and
also from like a power perspective.
And still, I think this is true. Book publishers are like cultural gatekeepers.
(07:11):
And for a long time, that was shaped by sexism and racism and classism.
And a big goal of mine while working within a corporate structure is to sort
of change that dynamic in a lot of ways with both the content of my books and
then also the work that I do within this corporate behemoth that allows me to have my job.
(07:32):
So yeah, where to start with sort of like what goes on in the inside? I would say...
I don't know. Like, I, like, okay, so, so what, what, what do you think would
be helpful for writers to know about what goes on in the inside?
Like, are there certain, like, you know, marketing and publicity,
for instance, between, you know, the editor and then the marketing teams and
(07:56):
the sales team publicity, like that is very unclear to many of us. Yes, totally.
Okay. So I will say, starting from, say, you want to publish a book and you're
maybe in any sort of place in a writing career from a nonfiction perspective.
And sort of that's what I can speak to. That's where I've like honed my expertise for the last decade.
(08:16):
Market is a critical element to this, which is to say, I do believe that we
exist at the intersection of art and commerce,
which is like, I believe that I'm helping put art into the world,
but I'm also putting art into the world that needs to sell and needs to sort
of appeal to a wide audience.
So the question is, how can I sort of hedge my bets as much as possible to say
(08:41):
that this book will appeal to a massive amount of people?
And honestly, while we have sort of opened up the idea of who can write a book
and who should write a book, there's still a question of who then will get that
book to as many readers as possible.
So we were looking at writers with a platform a lot of times,
(09:03):
which is not to say that you can't just write Go Away in a cabin and write a
phenomenal book and then sell it to a publisher and have it sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
That can still happen, but it's getting harder and harder.
And we are often looking for authors who can bring their own audience and have
(09:24):
built a platform in the form of social media or publishing journalism or have
certain connections in journalism.
Those worlds that will help us then get that book to a lot of readers?
It's empowering in a lot of ways, because if you are an author with something
to say and a powerful platform, we will help you and we will help you hone that
message in the best way possible. And I've done that with lots of writers.
(09:46):
But also to say that the bar is very high for both the content of the books
and then also the audience that an author may bring to the table.
So those are the questions that we are are talking about within sort of publicity
and marketing meetings as well?
Sort of how do we leverage an audience that an author has?
And how do we find additional audiences for a specific book?
(10:10):
That is what we're thinking about all the time.
So do you think that the like that it maybe used to be more editor driven,
and now it's more sales and marketing driven, like that they have more more
say in the process now. They have a lot of say.
And I think they have to have a say because we don't have a lot of choices.
The book buying market grew over the pandemic. It's shrunk a little bit.
(10:37):
And we are just finding, in order to find an audience for a book,
we need to pull all those marketing and publicity levers as much as possible.
At the end of the day, though, The content of the book, generally,
there are obviously exceptions, still needs to be phenomenal and also serve
people and readers where they are.
(10:58):
And an example of this that is really sort of heartening for me is that My Imprint
Crown published a book called Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond this year, which was a tremendous,
huge bestseller, really well-reviewed, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies already.
It is not an easy book to read.
(11:18):
And a lot of those book buyers, I believe, may feel implicated by that book.
And that's the point, which is to say that poverty exists in America because of our actions.
But that book was named the number one Goodreads nonfiction book for the whole entire year.
Goodreads is a very democratic sort of way of rating books because anyone can
(11:39):
put any book on there and score it anyway. There's no gatekeeping like at the New York Times.
So that's really affirming to me that this book that's not an easy read but
is a very rigorous and important read is still reaching a lot of people and
getting them to think and changing their minds. So things like that keep me going.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one person that we interviewed was an agent who was talking
(12:02):
about how the nonfiction market has been, the sales have been down this year, definitely.
Is that what you're inferring? Yeah, exactly.
I think that's something that we have seen. Yeah, people are often trying to
escape into fiction, which I think is tremendous.
I am among those people who like loves reading fiction for escapist reasons.
(12:23):
And nonfiction, like it's harder if it's not sort of giving people very practical,
pragmatic ways to improve their lives,
or sort of meeting them in a very specific place or celebrity driven,
it is hard to get people to buy those books. But that's, that's our challenge.
You mentioned Goodreads and how democratic it is.
(12:43):
I'm curious how much publishers I guess how much weight publishers give to things
like Goodreads reviews.
And I mean, I don't know, I was just reading about the like review bombing campaign,
The review bombing. I know exactly.
I would say any one review, like not a lot, but an aggregate, a lot of it.
But that's the interesting thing
too about review bombing, which is to say that like it's social media.
(13:07):
So it can be sort of like controlled and also, you know, exploited in ways by non-reviewers.
By bad actors in certain ways, right? Like it wasn't intended to be used that way.
I was supposed to say like, you read a book and you tell other people how you
feel about it. Like one-to-one, easy peasy.
But you know, it's imperfect as anything is.
So we do, it's like a tool. It's like one other tool that we have to use.
(13:32):
And I think it's not a bad thing that it is more democratic than some.
But again, like any social media tool, it can be sort of exploited and used
in, in different ways. That's really interesting.
I wonder what, like, well, I mean, I guess, okay, so if, if it's challenging
and if publicity and marketing and platform and all those things we all hear
(13:53):
about are so important, what, when you're, you're an acquiring editor,
obviously, what, are there certain things you're looking for topic wise or that,
you know, hit those marks that you feel like are,
you know, obviously there's certain trends that happen.
I don't know. Is Is there a trend you're trying to get?
Like what's appealing to you right now, I guess? Totally. I would say what's
(14:17):
appealing to me and the markets in a lot of places are practical.
Pragmatic, sort of prescriptive is like kind of going far in that direction,
but sort of books that give people tangible tools for living in a better way in a changing world.
And that can take many forms.
(14:38):
Like I have been, as mentioned, I have a two-year-old. So I've been reading
in the parenting space a lot.
And I've also been acquiring and adding books in the parenting space because
I understand that at this moment, I understand the sort of...
Challenges it takes to be a parent in 2023, even with all the privilege that
I've been to the experience.
(14:58):
As I tell my friends and future expecting parents, I didn't think America hated me until I had a kid.
And like, which is like hilarious, but also sad. Like it's, it's tough.
Like childcare is really expensive. Talent, like balancing having a full-time
demanding intellectually and emotionally engaging job plus raising a child is really, really hard.
(15:19):
So giving people tools to do that in the most in the best way and the most thoughtful
way i'm really invested in that too as well like as julie knows because i like
you know we work together i'm always interested in untold histories and histories that sort of like.
Change how we view something that we
(15:40):
thought that we knew be that sort of like the intersection
of of history architecture and power
in New York City in the form of Plaza Hotel or
say I have a book coming from like the about the history
of ballroom and drag and sort of how the origins of that whole practice in you
know the mid-20th century evolved into RuPaul's Drag Race and I'm always interested
(16:02):
in histories that are not written by white cishet privileged men because because
they wrote our histories for a very long time.
And those things will always appeal to me.
Also, you know, tools that give sort of anyone who's been an outsider,
be that a woman, person of color, non-binary, or sort of like non-straight individual
tools to, you know, have access and make their lives better.
(16:26):
I'm always interested in that. The flip side though, and as your question sort
of alluded to, I also need to ensure that even if this book is incredibly written,
that we can get it to a wide audience.
So that comes in the the form of writers with Instagram followings,
or YouTube subscribers, or.
Sub stack subscribers and or sort of like a plethora of like bylines and various
(16:50):
like respectful, respected, quote unquote, like journalistic venues.
So those things, it's like, I'm constantly thinking of both those things together,
the content, and then also how do I get this content to an audience?
That's interesting. When you're I assume your inboxes,
you know flooded with proposals how do you like sift through them is it what
(17:14):
agent it's coming to coming through or you know i mean it's an interesting thing
because like the agent system which i don't know if you guys are like getting
into that much on this podcast but.
It's it's a traditional system that's like worked really well for a long time
but i'm not convinced It's the system that is the best for writers and publishers.
(17:37):
And basically, it's sort of as like for listeners, a major publisher like Penguin
Random House, we won't necessarily consider a publication or a submission that
comes straight from a writer. It usually needs to come through a publisher.
I mean, through an agent that we know and trust.
And listen, that's not absolute. It's just sort of the general rule.
(17:57):
And often I form relationships with writers outside of agents and then move
towards publication. But often...
An agent works as another sort of gatekeeper in a lot of ways, and that is good and bad.
But so having worked in publishing for over 10 years, I have extensive relationships
with almost all of the agents in the industry.
(18:18):
Therefore, they know what I'm interested in, they know what I'm good at,
and they know what I can publish well, Crown, which is where I work now.
So given that, they sort of gauge their submissions and will pick certain editors
at certain houses to to submit to.
So as you sort of alluded to Alice, I do generally go to emails from agents
(18:40):
I know first because they know what I like.
We have a relationship and I know they won't waste my time because it is my
inbox is very, very full.
So I start there and I will read.
Sometimes I read the cover letter first and sometimes I just dive into the proposal.
It's actually not. I worked for an editor who did a lot of fiction and memoir,
(19:02):
and she never read the cover letter.
She was like, I just want to be, I just want to like, pretend I am picking up
a book in a bookstore and just start reading it, which I think could work with
fiction and works with fiction really well.
With nonfiction, a lot of the things I'm concerned in are like the thesis of
the book, the platform again, and sort of like the credentials of the writer.
So like, I need to take that into consideration, because readers will take that
(19:24):
into consideration when deciding deciding whether or not to buy a book.
And but then also then at the end of the day, it's in the read.
Like, I don't know, I rarely bought a book that I thought the proposal was like terribly written.
I still have to I have, you know, and granted, then, you know,
there have been considerations that maybe it was something by a celebrity or
(19:47):
an expert, and they are bringing something to the table that's beyond the actual writing.
And that's something that we then fix in in the process.
But the proposal has to be engaging and compelling in the same way that when
you open a book at the bookstore, you're probably only going to buy it if you
want to keep turning the pages.
I'm so interested that you said that you're not sure if the agent process makes a lot of sense.
(20:11):
What do you mean? Because your inbox is so flooded and don't you need those
gatekeepers? Otherwise, you could be really overwhelmed.
Listen, listen, I don't have a better system, but I'm really interested in further
equity within the publishing industry.
And the publishing industry has been very white and very rich for
(20:33):
a very long time and it's worked in a traditional way
for a very long time so i think if we are we collectively as
people in the media industry are interested in changing it then we have to change
the way in which we do things i don't have a better system in mind but as i
think just the fact that you guys are producing this podcast which i mentioned
is like seeking to reach writers right and sort of like pull the veil back from how how it all works,
(20:57):
that to me is an indicator that the system is not equitable and fair and transparent
in the way that maybe it should be.
So I actually think that conversations like this are a good step in that process.
Yeah, I don't know what the alternative is.
I will say I do make an effort, and not as much as I should,
(21:19):
but to reach out to sort of younger agents, agents of color,
and also just people who might not be so established in the industry and make connections with them.
I think that's something all editors should do.
Because the way in which sort of the agency model works is that success begets more success.
You sell a giant book, it's a bestseller, you then more authors come to you,
(21:42):
you sell another book, it's a bestseller, and you become sort of very powerful.
But it's really hard to sort of break in and penetrate that system.
And again, I don't have an alternative, but I'd love to entertain and imagine
a world and an industry where success doesn't always have to be get success,
but there's just a bit more of a meritocracy.
(22:02):
Yeah. I mean, you yourself did that with your career in a way, right?
Because you started out, I mean, you've worked your way up through,
I don't know, maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
You're working at all these different houses and also maybe consolidation a
little bit, how that's affected things.
Yeah, totally. So yeah, I would say I'm very privileged in a lot of ways.
(22:24):
And I recognize that privilege.
I am from Virginia, but I was able to attend grad school at Columbia University
for my MFA in poetry writing.
And I made that decision because one, I wanted to go into publishing as opposed
to academia, which was the right choice.
And two, they did offer me a scholarship, but my family was able to help defray
(22:48):
the cost of going to Columbia University, which is tremendously expensive,
and also living in New York City. So without the help of my family...
I don't know if I would be here. And that's point blank true.
And I want to tell everyone that I did make a very concerted effort to network
and to get into the sort of publishing conversation.
(23:10):
But honestly, my first job came about because I had a friend whose sister's
partner was looking for an editorial assistant.
And she sort of sent out an email to our cohort at Columbia.
And I I said, I want that job. Who do I email?
And I went after her, my friend. And then also I went after my friend's sister,
whom I never met. And I was like, why is she looking for an assistant?
(23:33):
And I sort of like deranged, like wrote a deranged email that,
you know, got me an interview and then got me in the door at WW Norton.
And that was both fortunate. I mean, very fortunate because like who got those
emails, like only the people at Columbia.
So that already is like gatekeeping that is frustrating, but also a system that I exploited and used.
(23:56):
And yeah, I started there at WW Norton, I went to Hachette.
So I'll say WW Norton is a sort of an outlier to the big five publishing.
And I don't know if you guys want me to like sort of talk about that.
Yeah, which is an interesting sort of phenomenon in the world in in in New York publishing.
And I'd say in the world of US publishing, there's the big five,
which are the big corporate entities.
(24:21):
And then right under the big five in terms of market share.
But they culturally are very different because they are employee owned,
which allows them a lot of flexibility.
And they're not beholden to shareholders. And they can therefore publish,
I think, books that maybe they don't have to necessarily perform so highly,
(24:43):
but are more culturally relevant.
And it's a beautiful place and a beautiful publisher for that reason.
But when I was there, I was not working on books that I was personally invested in.
So I knew I had to sort of move on and go someplace where I could really work
on books that I cared about.
So I went to Hachette, which is another one of the big five.
And it is owned by a French media company, but you don't see a lot of the sort
(25:08):
of impact of the Frenchness in the culture of it.
And from there, I went to Macmillan, which is German owned, and then to PRH.
And I've been at PRH for almost, which is Penguin right now.
And PRH is the biggest in market share and you feel it. You feel the power and sort of the.
The caliber of my colleagues, which is tremendous and unparalleled within the industry.
(25:30):
And also our ability to do things like print, you know, beautiful four color
books overseas and also do so in a very quick timeline and ship books anywhere in the world.
So all of those things make my job a lot easier and also makes my job of attracting
editor or attracting writers a lot easier.
It's such a big book, such a big imprint was, I mean, such a big publishing
(25:52):
house with so so many imprints.
How does that work? I know there's like, I'm with Doubleday,
but there's also random, there's this.
I mean, do you all come to sales meetings together and pitch things?
Or how do they decide which books to really emphasize in the publishing process?
Because it does seem like it's a bit baked in, I should say,
(26:14):
like which books end up getting a lot of push, and then those guys end up getting
more attention, and then they'll get more, you know, it kind of goes down I mean, it's funny.
It's like the imprint system and like the division system is like,
it's both ridiculous and also very effective.
So, and it's hard to learn. Again, it's very hard. It's very opaque.
And I remember when I was applying to jobs initially, and then also when I moved
(26:37):
jobs, I would study Wikipedia,
I would study the corporate websites, I would study Publishers Marketplace,
which is this sort of trade website to say like, what, like what imprint and
like who works at what imprints? and what books do they do?
It's also not even clear to the agent community because some of it is only known internally.
(26:59):
So I'll say it's ridiculous, but also important. And why do all these exist?
How do they serve the books? Great question.
They kind of started all initially as separate publishing houses.
And then as you alluded to, Julie, they sort of came together and got bought up.
Even today, there was a report that Penguin Random House bought an independent
(27:19):
publisher called Hay House, which is to say Hay House has independently been
publishing a lot of practical and sort of spiritual, non-Western oriented books
for a long time and very successfully.
Now they've been bought by Penguin Random House, which will probably change
their list, give them a lot of opportunities to distribute widely,
but also might restrict what they're doing in certain ways too,
(27:41):
which is of course the trade-off of corporate life.
I would say within in any imprint, there are always going to be books that are
given more budget and sort of like more time and energy.
That's often based on, you know, the profile of the author, but also the past
performance of the author. But all this is to say,
That sort of attention is not destiny. And right now I'm working on a book that
(28:04):
is beautifully written, debut, just sort of like a gorgeous,
ruminative book about sound underwater.
And it's called Sing Like Fish. And it's about how sound underwater actually
dictates the environments.
Underwater environments across the entire world and how shipping and boating
(28:25):
and like pile driving is affecting these underwater environments.
And we actually have an opportunity to fix that at this moment and for it to
not all go wrong, like sort of the rest of climate change.
But it's her first book, beautiful writer. And this has been a book that's really
been embraced by our sales team, who's really enjoyed reading it.
And we're going to push it in a big way.
(28:47):
So it doesn't always, although for everything I said earlier in this conversation,
that platform form an audience is really important.
There's always sort of hope for those books that are just beautiful and meet
the moment in a really important way. So it's not all doom and gloom.
Do advances relate? Are advances important in terms of what you pay up front
(29:08):
in terms of how much emphasis you put at the back end, like at the publishing publicity part?
I would say every single book does get the exact in the same treatment in the
sense that like you you have your own publicist. This isn't my imprint.
You have your own publicist, you have your own marketer, you have a marketing
and publicity teams that are invested in everything that you're doing.
But as it sort of stands to reason, if a company invests millions of dollars
(29:32):
into a book versus say hundreds of thousands of dollars,
there's going to be sort of like a variation in sort of how that book is sort
of treated within the company.
And like you'd be be kind of like naive not to think that but
again it doesn't always mean destiny and
what i like still find exciting about this this industry and
(29:52):
this job is that like the magic
and like and this will sound a little like schmaltzy right now but like the
magic of like a powerful book and people read it like corporately and they are
like wait a second this could be you know the next sort of even i mean take
a book like say lessons in chemistry which is like a huge huge best like like
(30:12):
international bestseller and a TV show and yada,
yada, like a debut by that woman who didn't know anybody.
And again, that's fiction and it can work a little differently,
but like, you never know.
And you never know sort of what writers are going to really touch readers in a huge way.
So that's why we keep publishing so many books because this happens and it's a beautiful thing.
(30:34):
So, but I understand what your question was, which is like, yes,
we're, you know, is Prince Harry's book going to get a certain treatment that's
maybe a little different than my debut writer?
Yes. But that isn't to say that my debut writer can't be a bestseller too.
One kind of consequence of how opaque some things sometimes feel from the writer's
(30:54):
side is you hear about like...
I mean, you know, like, I don't know, when I wrote my first book,
I didn't necessarily know a lot of other people who had written books.
I knew other journalists, but I would hear rumors like, oh, you have to hire your own editor.
You know, you have to hire your own publicist. So I was wondering,
like, if you how much of that you encounter and kind of like,
(31:16):
I actually I did end up on my first book hiring a fact checker.
Yeah. Which was incredibly expensive, but I think was the right,
I don't know, like the right thing to do. I'd come to the magazine world.
So I just kind of knew how, how many mistakes you make, even when you're being really careful.
But yeah, I guess I don't know, like, is there? Well, now sort of a different question.
(31:37):
But like, do you think publishers will ever move towards having in house in all freelancers?
Like how many sort of like shadow people that you know?
Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question. And it's again,
it's like a part of the publishing industry that I think more people need to
talk about, but it's not necessarily discussed.
I will say it is the exception that like you as an author would have to necessarily hire.
(32:02):
I mean, first of all, an editor, unless things have gone really sour.
But if you're sort of, because you should be able to, if you,
well, it should start with an agent, right?
It sort of should start. And I can talk about that process as well too,
but maybe you guys talk to agents about that.
Like if you have an agent whom you trust and who's invested in your career,
then they are going to hopefully submit your, if it's a nonfiction book too.
(32:25):
To editors that they trust and that they were going to treat the book with the
care that it deserves to make it the best thing it possibly can be.
Sometimes things go haywire and I've heard of it when like a writer is not happy
with how their editor is editing.
So then they feel like they have to hire someone else, but that should really
be the exception of the rule.
And there's lots of, there should be lots of sort of checks slash other sort
(32:49):
of strategies before you get to that point. So there's that.
Fact-checking, that's real, which is to say that like,
As a publisher, we consider the fact, and this kind of comes down to contractual stuff.
We consider the content of we're paying you to produce the best possible content,
(33:10):
you the writer, the best possible content of the book, and that includes the correctness.
So that includes fact-checking, and that is often something that I think more
and more sort of writers and agents need to talk about, which is like,
should we set aside part of this advance to pay a fact checker because your
(33:30):
job as the writer is to deliver the best possible version of the book.
Our job is to shape the content, but I'm not a fact checker and we don't employ fact checkers.
There have been imprints that have done that one-off.
The cost, as you know, Alice, is very high and it's hard to guarantee that.
So yes, that is something to consider. in terms of
(33:52):
like a publicist again in my
experience at PRH like our
publicists are phenomenal they are working on a lot of books as all
of us are but like they are really good at what they do and they have
the best relationships in the business but that's not true everywhere and I
think it kind of comes back to for me it comes back to equity in a lot of ways
(34:13):
which is to say that like if you have sort of extra money and you don't need
to like live on your advance then like it couldn't hurt to like hire an extra publicist.
But the flip side of that is sometimes it can because sometimes too many cooks
in the kitchen can be challenging.
So there's a lot of things to weigh there. But I hate that there are writers
that would think that like, okay, if I can't pay a publicist $10,000,
(34:35):
then I can't, my book has no chance. And that's 100% not true. But.
But there is, there are writers out there who can do that and do that.
And they succeed with it sometimes too. So again, it's one of those places sort
of in publishing that I think is a problem.
And part of this, I think that could be remedied with like higher budgets and
(34:56):
publicity departments,
the ability of book publishing to lure high level publicists from various industries
into the industry, as opposed to there being publicists who leave corporate
jobs to go freelance because they can make more money.
Like that's such a tragedy in our industry because we want the best people and
we want them to be working with us to, you know, promote the hell out of our books. So, yes.
(35:22):
So true. So we were like doing one question where we're asking everyone,
which was if you could give one piece of advice to a writer to sort of in closing,
exposing what would you what what's like the one thing that
you would like non-fiction writers to know which
i know it's a big question no i love it i love it i have to i just want to like
(35:45):
think about it like and i have to not i want it to not be glib and i want it
to i okay this will sound glib and mean but i'm going to say it anyways which
is like if you like believe you can do anything else,
then do that and don't become a writer.
But if writing is absolutely what you have to do, and you fully believe in the
(36:08):
power of it, and you just have no choice, you feel as though you have no choice,
then yes, please keep writing.
And if you make that commitment and you.
I'm not going to have to say that success will come, but you will find what
you need and you will find satisfaction
in it if that is, if you are truly driven by the power of writing.
(36:32):
But again, if you can do anything else, and I think I would tell this to my
two-year-old, do it because it's really challenging.
Also, my other piece of advice is don't quit your day job necessarily.
As I'm sure Julie, you might know. So like it's, yeah, living off of book advance
and also sort of putting that pressure on yourself is really challenging in a lot of ways.
(36:54):
Even if taking this time and space to write is a gift. Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like I can't argue with that.
I mean, okay, here's my other, maybe another piece of advice,
which is like read contemporary books,
like go into a bookstore and read and everything that you see on like the nonfiction desk,
on the nonfiction table, like read it or read what's
(37:17):
attracted read what you're attracted to and read your competitive
titles if you're going to try to write
a book that appeals to a reader of glenn
and doyle read all of glenn and doyle you know if you
want to write a novel that competes with like the hate you give like read the
hate you give and read the rest for novels know your market and it will only
make you a better writer so let's say a writer is you know impressed you enough
(37:42):
to get acquired by Penguin Random House, what can they then do?
Do you have any pet peeves? How does a writer stay on an editor's good side?
Yes, this is a great question. Hit your deadlines.
If you hit your deadlines, you, Annette, is on all regards, like, contractual, like,
(38:04):
Manuscript deadlines, mini chapter deadlines, descriptive copy deadlines,
author photo deadlines, marketing, big mouth deadlines.
If you hit your deadlines, you will be the number one author in the house and
everyone will work harder for you. And not joking.
(38:25):
Wait, so many authors don't hit deadlines? Like that's a chronic issue?
You. It is. It really is. So one, hit your deadlines.
Two, do not let good be the enemy of perfect, which is really hard to tell a writer in a lot of ways.
It actually kind of like correlates to the point about deadlines,
which is to say, we are all grappling with like a lot of content like all day, every day.
(38:48):
And I realized that like your book is your baby and like you want it to be perfect.
But like there are practical considerations that we have to put into play,
which is how long it takes to copy edit it, how long it takes to print it,
how long it takes to promote it.
And if you work within the constraints that we sort of offer,
which are like, if you hit these deadlines, we will then offer these.
(39:08):
You know, we will copy edit the book, we will print the book.
If we can work in tandem together, it's only going to benefit everyone.
And don't be too precious about your work, that it is at the detriment of your
relationships and deadlines.
Deadlines okay as a journalist i take that
i get that i think i know that i will
(39:29):
never miss the deadline i promise i think this is the other terrible
advice i got when i sold my first book someone was like
oh like deadlines in publishing they're not like deadlines and
journalists and they're just a suggestion i mean
okay so that's like here's the irony of it
like it's true however because like
with if you run a daily paper like
(39:50):
yes you're going to press tomorrow tomorrow but in publishing like
yes we could squeeze another day out of it however a lot
of things are relationship based and so if you actually
hit your deadlines because so few writers do like
i said you will be the number one author in the house and everyone will want
to work with you and that goodwill is priceless so the deadlines are flexible
(40:11):
but if you can have this sort of like personal wherewithal to hit them then
it's yeah that's setting yourself up for success i'm going going to hand in
my edits on my first pass like today.
They're due next Monday, but I will have them done.
Also, I'm going to do it. If you want to like give yourself one more day to like read them over.
(40:32):
Yes, do that. But also you hand them in early, like also before the holidays,
everyone's going to love you. So do it.
All right. That's awesome. Libby, it was so fun to talk to you.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening. This has been an episode of How Books Work.
Join us on our next episode as we continue to explore publishing behind the scenes.
(40:56):
Music.
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