Sales conference - Fall 2013

I think I might thrive under pressure.  I say that because this week, here at Llewellyn headquarters, we will be doing our Fall 2013 sales conference and I have been slow to get prepared.  For those of you unfamiliar with sales conference, it is a huge meeting where the acquiring editors showcase the fall titles for the sales, marketing, and publicity departments.  For each title, we create a document that gives those departments all the information it needs, such as:

• release date
• cover image
• synopsis
• author bio
• physical book description (page count, sub-genre, ISBN)
• who the audience is
• a one to two sentence sound bite
• three comparable titles with book description and life to date sales

We also create a powerpoint to go with the presentation.  During the presentation, I give a verbal summary of the book and often go deeper into why I chose the applicable comp titles.  I also talk a bit about the author, especially if I have personally met the author.

 

After each title presentation, I ask if there are any questions or other information to add.

 

Is it stressful?  Heck yeah.  The most stressful part for me is the question time, because I have no idea what might come up!

 

But in general, I find sales conference to be fun and exciting.  I acquire books that I love and often refer to them as my children.  And at sales conference, I get to whip all my baby pics!  I tell stories of hanging out with authors and getting to know them.  I might go on and on about how much I loved a manuscript.  I can talk about a series - where it has been and where it is going.  I also work in my vision of Midnight Ink.  Where we have been and where I see us going.

 

But alas, I procrastinate.  Which means I should be filling in my powerpoint rather than typing up a blog post.  By noon today, I will start feeling anxious and stressed out.  Tuesday I will probably be a wreck and finish up my powerpoint.  Wednesday starts the sales conference with nonfiction lines.  Thursday we do fiction.  I can't wait...  now to just finish this powerpoint!

 

 

 

 

I give a big shout out to Kelly Van Sant who did the heavy lifting on my onesheets.  And to Brian Farrey-Latz who put the bones of my powerpoint together.  :)

 



Daily Life

Someone asked about the daily life as an editor...  hmmm...

To start this week, I had 31 items on my "To-Do" list.  Some things on that list were quick and easy, such as I needed to email Kathleen Ernst with information she needs so we can put photos of particular antiques in her next book, Heritage of Darkness.  But I also needed to read four full manuscripts, each one taking at least half a day.  My biggest item on the list was to acquire two manuscripts for the Winter 2014 season - and that I can't quantify.  Does anyone want to guess how many items are crossed off my To-Do list?  10.

10 out of 31.  Yikes.

Ok, to the nuts and bolts of what I do daily.  First I check my email and respond to anything that has exploded overnight.  Second, I get a cup of tea.  Then all heck breaks loose.  :)

There are any number of meetings I may have to attend -

• a one-on-one meeting with my boss, the Publisher
• the weekly acquisitons meeting where the acquiring editors present the books we want to publish.  Most weeks I have nothing, other weeks I might have three or four books.
• vision meeting - once we have decided to go forward on a book, there is small group meeting where we discuss content and what changes we may want the author to make.
• production planning - the physical nuts and bolts meeting - how many pages, any artwork/photos, etc.
• launch meeting - the BIG meeting.  here we decide on the title, cover direction, series name, etc.
• cover meeting - after the designer has put together mock up covers, a small group chooses what cover we like best, make suggestions for changes and then the designer finds an artist to produce/illustrate the final cover.

Besides scheduled meetings, at any time the cover designer might pop over for a quick question on the cover direction, or ask my opinion on an element or an illustrator.

I see every routing that happens for a book.  Cover design, back cover copy, galley copy, and catalog copy.  I have to read and sign off on all of them.  It isn't unusual for any of those routings to route 3-4 times.

I was just interrupted, so I have forgotten what I was going to say next!  Hmmm... I no longer have to create and negotiate contracts, I do negotiate the offer.  That can be as simple as a day or over a week.  Right now I have two offers and I am waiting to hear back from the agents.  When those agents accept the offers, then I send our contracts person all the info she needs.

Since today is Friday, it is generally a meeting free day.  We only schedule meetings on Fridays if the meeting is time sensitive and we can't work it in earlier in the week.  So today I will spend the day trying to find another book for my Winter 2014 catalog.  Everything else on the list will have to wait.  Which means I will start Monday with a list of at least 21 To-Do items.  :(

And the reality of my day is that I have no idea what shape my day will take.  The process of walking a book through production is long and requires a lot of steps along the way.  I will save the nuts and bolts for another post, but a village of people work on every book.  We work collaboratively with each other and with the author to produce the best book possible.

I didn't include writing a blog post on my To-Do list, so sadly, I don't get to cross that off.  So I better get back to reading submissions.  And maybe I can cross that off my list next week.

Mondays - UGH! and a FREE BOOK giveaway

It's Monday for sure...  I had a few days off last week, so today has been catching up on five days worth of emails.  UGH.  I also have to create a PCS - that is a Project Cover Sheet.  This is the information I gather to take a manuscript to the acquisitions committee.  On Thursday I will present the info and hopefully shortly after that, I can make an offer to the author and/or agent.

Besides the email and PCS, tomorrow we will launch 2 books.  In the launch meeting we settle on a title, tag line and cover design.  Sometimes these are very short meetings.  Sometimes... well...  sometimes we walk away and reschedule for a week later.  Yikes.

On the horizon looms our sales conference.  At the sales conference, myself and the other acquiring editors will present the Winter 2012 books to the company.  This is one of the most fun but most stressful parts of my job.  Besides presenting the titles, the folks in sales and marketing often ask me a lot of questions so I try to prepare to answer any question that comes up whether it's about the author, the book or the market.  Whew!

Of course, today and every day I am trying to find manuscripts to acquire...  I'm gonna need a lot of coffee for the month of July. 

or maybe...  I should have some wine... yeah, that sounds good.  Actually, I mean Wined and Died, the new home crafting mystery by Cricket McRae.  All you have to do is comment about your favorite coffee or wine and you will be entered in the drawing.  I will draw a winner next Monday!

Also check out Cricket's blog for most contests!

Guidance from Senior Editor Becky Zins

Sometimes authors run into a bit of confusion because here at Midnight Ink/Llewellyn, authors have two editors.  I am the acquiring editor - the gatekeeper, so to speak.  I acquire manuscripts and often do a revision or two with the author before I formally put the book into production.  My revision requests are generally developmental - I don't correct grammar...



That job falls to the production editors.  I picked on one editor today, Becky Zins and asked her a couple questions.  First I asked if she would provide us a short description of her job:

I like to approach a fiction title with the goal of making a comprehensive style sheet that includes not only place names, brand names, etc. but also a list of the characters and their relationships, physical attributes, and quirks. Timelines are also something I keep track of. Characters frequently have name changes throughout a ms from earlier incarnations of the story, so keeping a style sheet is crucial. Also paying attention to physical details—if a character walks from a café to the store down the street at the beginning of a chapter, but at the end of the chapter leaves the store and jumps on their bike, then there's some tweaking to do. Perhaps the most challenging aspect is judging whether a character's actions, motives, or speech is consistent with how they've been set up so far in the story, but that's another important aspect of the editorial process.

How about a list of do's or don'ts?  Or, what would make your job easier?

As far as do's or don'ts for authors, I would suggest that if they're not already making up a style sheet for themselves, maybe they should think about doing so. The more mistakes that are fended off before submitting a ms to a publisher, the better, because despite our best efforts, errors do get overlooked! So if I were writing a novel, I'd have a comprehensive timeline, list of characters, and list of terms or phrases that I would want an editor to retain instead of change (for example, say I have a character who repeatedly screws up some aspect of the English language—it's part of their zaniness—I don't want a well-meaning editor or proofreader to come along and make them sound like an English professor!). Submitting this along with the ms would assure greater communication between author and editor(s) and proofreaders.

So there you have it - helpful hints from a production editor!  If you had the ear of an editor - what would you like to know?  Becky would be happy to answer more questions.  She's a sweetie.