Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do (51 page)

How do I acquire the books I publish? Most of the time it is as a result
of submissions from literary agents. Those nonfiction submissions are usually in the form of a proposal. The proposal presents, in outline, the book the author intends, specifying the chapter contents and theme(s). The smart agent and author will include sample material: a chapter or two, perhaps a partial manuscript; occasionally there is even a videotape of the author to demonstrate his “promotability” on television talk shows. When the author is a prior best-selling and/or critically acclaimed writer, the submission is frequently no more than a two- or three-page letter or description of the next work. Sometimes it may be merely a verbal presentation: the agent brings the author in to meet the editor and publisher to describe his next book. But then the author’s record of accomplishment is there, in all its glory, in a previously published work, or several. For those authors not yet well established or at the crest of popularity, the most convincing demonstration of the validity of their topic, and their ability to execute it as they claim, is thorough and convincing sample material. The author needs to be in control of his subject and to demonstrate it: the proposal or sample pages should be clearly written, consistent in the point of view, coherent and concise in the presentation of the subject. There are two other elements I look for in a nonfiction proposal. I touched on one before: controversy. I know that if some potential readers will be outraged, others will be impassioned—and both qualities help sell books. The last element I look for in a nonfiction work is not always applied to it but it is essential in separating out books that will succeed: creativity. However important the documentation of the subject, however substantive the material, if it is not presented in a dramatic and compelling way it will not hold the interest of the reader, or this editor. A savvy agent also will help his client position his book in the initial submission. Among editors there are always two contradictory responses to a proposal: either there is “too much competition out there for books like this,” or “we need a book like this on our list.” The writer must know the competition for his project and should identify it in terms of a bibliography and of current bookstore stock.

For example, since I published Cleveland Amory’s books on his pet, Polar Bear,
The Cat Who Came for Christmas
and
The Cat and the Curmudgeon
, I have learned marketing facts that have applicability to other works. To illustrate, it is useful to know how many Americans own cats (56 million); how many copies of successful books in the field have sold; why the author’s book is different from the others in the genre (his talent as a witty stylist and his personality portrait of his pet); what media experience the author has (every major television talk show, and features in leading newspapers and magazines). Of course I also knew the author is president of the Fund for Animals (every animal lover knows him!) and reached 66 million people with his
Parade
magazine articles. When an author includes
similar information, that addition to his proposal indicates, to this editor at least, that the author has thought beyond his own material to the market “out there.” Thus I know from the start that I will be working with an author who is interested in
selling
his book, and who will be responsive to editorial and other suggestions designed to effect that outcome.

Nonfiction books also result form an editor’s pursuing an author, or from finding an author for a particular subject. I may write several short letters each week to writers who interest me—perhaps I admired an article he wrote in a magazine or newspaper; perhaps I liked her last book. Sometimes these are just fan letters; sometimes the article I read may suggest a book on that very subject or one that is related to it. To help my awareness of what a wide range of people are writing and how they write, I “read” (or at least look at) forty to fifty magazines a month and several daily newspapers. To stay current, I also read parts of books that are especially well received or that are on best-seller lists. But because of the exigencies of our business—the number of submissions I receive a year: eight hundred to a thousand; the number of books I edit and publish: twelve to eighteen with perhaps forty others in various stages of delivery—it is difficult to find the time to originate the ideas and locate the appropriate writers (and then to negotiate an advance and contract on terms suitable to all parties).

The one area where this is different—three books this year alone—is developing new books by authors I have already published successfully. With the success of
Breaking Barriers
, Carl Rowan and I talked about how to follow that memoir. As with all good books, there were stories left on the “cutting room floor.” But we agreed that those alone would be simply recycled material. Then Carl came up with a new way to reframe those stories, and to build on them in a unique biography. He had had unprecedented access to Justice Thurgood Marshall for two award-winning television interview programs he created for PBS. And since he and the justice were also old friends from the civil rights movement, their lives had intersected at key times. Thus he proposed his new book,
Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall
. Since this will be the first insider’s account of the life and times of the first black justice, the marketplace handle for this nonfiction account is immediately apparent. With Alan Dershowitz, for another example, the editor-author explorations for his next subject took a somewhat different path: after reviewing Alan’s suggestion for an account of his recent cases, I suggested to him that the audience for
Chutzpah
had not yet been sated by the issue and answers in that book, but in fact had been merely aroused. I asked Alan to think about where that topic led, and the answer was
Is There a Future for Us?
Its examination of the issue of assimilation for Jews then suggested certain subthemes, such as Jewish humor in a postghetto era and the differences
between the way white-collar Jewish defendants and Wasp defendants are treated, that will give the book added dimensionality.

Because no editor publishes in a vacuum, once I have a proposal and sample material, once I have determined that the project interests me and is one for which I see sales potential, I will consult with one or more of my colleagues at Little, Brown. An editor always wants to galvanize the key people at her firm to share her enthusiasm. I may show the material to our marketing or sales directors, who must sell the book into the independent bookstores and book chains, and to our subsidiary rights director, who has expertise in the paperback, book club, and audio rights markets. The president of the division is also part of the decision process since he is ultimately responsible for every book the house publishes. At the proposal stage, we then determine what we will offer for the book, and either directly make that offer to the author’s agent, or if the proposal has been submitted to more than one house (called “multiple submissions”), we express our interest to the agent, who may then set up an auction. Yes, it is just as it sounds—or as it occurs in the art, jewelry, stamp, antiques, and other markets. You bid (on the phone); the bidding goes in rounds (from lowest advance to highest), and usually the bidder who offers the highest figure will end up publishing the book. Experienced literary agents, however, will state in writing that the “author reserves the right to choose other than the highest bidder.” Perhaps one house has offered a more ambitious or innovative plan to market the book; perhaps the author has a preference for one editor he has met or the reputation of a particular house.

If we succeed in buying the book, we then draw up a contract. At that point I talk to the author about exactly how we will proceed editorially. If it is an author I have not worked with before, I find it prudent to specify that I would like to see a part of the manuscript rather than wait until there is a draft of the entire book. Or if the author would prefer to show me individual chapters, I am happy to review them: my objective is to serve the author in whatever way makes him most productive and comfortable. By seeing partial material I have an opportunity to determine the author’s direction, style, and substance—and to suggest corrections before the mix solidifies in a completed manuscript and changes or shifts are more difficult to achieve: if you only have to alter a voice or refine the idea in the first fifty pages, the task is less forbidding than facing a rewrite after four hundred pages. And because I know the author is eager for my reaction once he has let the material leave his hands for mine, I call him to tell him I have received it and that I will read it that day, that week, the next weekend. The editor is the author’s umbilical cord to the outside world—will she like it or not? will they?—and I try to help him deal with that stress of separation at once.

At the first stage, and in subsequent drafts, I ask myself as I read the material, is the author accomplishing what he set out to do, and if not, what does he need to do? It may be that his analysis needs articulation, that the drama of an incident needs to open a chapter, not conclude it; it may be her sentences are complex when more direct communication will liven the style; it may be that assertions need additional documentation. I take notes as I read, and once I have identified the problems I see—and the successes as well—I write an editorial letter. In that letter, which may range from three to fifteen pages depending upon the length of the material submitted and its complexity, I praise what is good and right, identify what I see as stumbling blocks, and suggest solutions. I try to be as specific as possible. I further buttress those comments with yellow Post-it slips on every relevant page of the manuscript, my dialogue with the author about the work paragraph by paragraph—line by line, if need be. When I look back at
Chutzpah
, for example, as provocative as the book was in its first draft, I also knew that it needed to galvanize its potential audience at once. Some books may find their focus as they move along; I look for an irresistible imperative in the opening lines. And so I suggested that the author move one of his conclusions to his opening statement, turning those lines into a rallying cry and an organizing principle for the book. With his statement that Jews are second-class citizens in America and that anti-Semitism is on the rise, he acknowledged the “Holocaust mentality” I referred to earlier and showed his understanding from the outset. The point is that what the author had to say was now clearly aligned to a perception of the natural audience for the book. Clarifying thought and intent serves both the editorial process and sales (remember this book’s resultant success).

From first draft to final, there are usually three distinct editorial stages, or revisions of the manuscript. With the first draft (the editor is reading it for the first time although the author may have written and rewritten his pages many times), the editorial letter and the yellow slips address the larger problems of the manuscript and suggest exact solutions: the book needs to be more analytical and/or more anecdotal; its theme is not clear; the organization of the material is confused. The second draft (once the author has handled those matters) refines the material further: perhaps the argument is articulated now but needs additional tracing through the chapters to reinforce that larger theme. This is usually the time to give greater detail to characterizations—not just who and what they are in the book but how they distinguish themselves (physical gesture, verbal dialogue). Again, I will yellow-slip the pages and write an editorial letter that both congratulates the writer on his progress and notes the work that remains to be done. At this point the yellow slips are usually fewer and the letter shorter than on my first effort. By the third draft, the larger questions have been answered,
the initial problems solved, the style and passages smoothed. Only the final touches remain: shifting passages for ultimate drama, playing out one character’s role for balance or impact, delineating atmosphere (what blue was the sky that fateful day?), polishing the ending to leave an emotional or intellectual reverberation that stays with the reader beyond the final page.

At the finish, the work has been transformed from a typed outline to a fully fleshed portrait, rich in color and detail. The letters and yellow slips together are my way of being “there” for the writer, with a lengthy discourse of advice and support. In this enterprise, I am the writer’s best professional friend: next to her, I want her success most. But an effective editor is not only an admiring friend; she must also be an articulate critic. I like the benediction that James Thurber once provided: “I have never written a piece that I thought could not be improved.”

When the writer and I realize we have each done all that we could with the material, we have fulfilled separately and together the editor-author relationship. If the book reaches its potential, then the author’s work will be acclaimed. For no matter the extent of an editor’s backstage contributions, the book is first, foremost, and always the author’s success. And that’s the way it should be. The editor’s satisfaction comes from knowing he did the first of several editorial jobs well, that of helping the author articulate his ideas to the very best of his abilities. Even with marketing expertise, the rest is in the hands of the often capricious gods, for only a small fraction of the almost 50,000 books published every year—perhaps only several hundred—will be both acclaimed and sold in significant numbers. As one colleague said, “You have to pray that you will be lucky!”

For an editor to survive and thrive in this highly competitive business he needs to believe in his books—this book is terrific; the next one will be even better! He must have the stamina and willingness to work an extended day and week: there are simply not enough hours in the conventional working day to read and edit, since between nine-thirty and five-thirty what an editor actually does do in the office is
meet
(with publicity, advertising, and marketing people; with editorial colleagues over their/your problems and projects; with agents over future books; with the legal department over questions that arise in a manuscript; with the contracts department over negotiation points; with the subsidiary rights director to determine when to sell a book into paperback). Reading manuscripts and even proposals—the starting point of it all—comes at the end of the day: the phones begin to quiet down at five-thirty, and I usually work in the office for another two hours; two or three nights a week, I’ll read and sometimes edit for another few hours after dinner. To give the pages at hand uninterrupted attention, however, sustained reading and editorial work is best done—by this editor, at least—one full day each weekend.