Love Thine Editor by Kathryn Evans

If you dream of being a published author you probably dream of being a published author.  There will be  a particular dream that motivates and inspires you.

I’d hazard a guess it’s one of these:

• Seeing your book in a reader’s hands.
• Seeing your book on a library shelf
• Getting a big fat advance
• Celebrating at a jubilant launch party
• Holding your published book in you hands for the first time
• Getting your first fan letter
• Being nominated for the Carnegie medal

via GIPHY

Am I right? Thought so. How do I know? Because I dreamed them all before More of Me was published,  and one more. One that topped my list. One that is still the single most thrilling and rewarding of the lot.

I wanted an editor. A bonafide, professional editor who would help me craft my book into something more.

My fabulous editor Sarah Stewart and me making a stupid crying face because she made my book better than I ever could on my own.

For an author, there is no greater gift than this. Your editor will love your book - they had to in order to pitch it to sales and marketing and get it through acquisitions. But they will see its faults. They will see where the pace drops, or the characterisation flags. They will see where your story is muddled, or where your have lost sight of the heart of what you’re trying to say.

They will go through your work, intimately, and gently tell you all the places you need to make it better. They probably won’t tell you how to make it better, but they will let you bounce ideas off them until you come up with an improvement. 

As a writer, what more could you ask for than someone as committed as you to making your book the best it can be?

I recently had my first editorial meeting for a Secret Project.  I got so excited at the new ideas it generated that the boss asked me to keep the noise down. Through a partition wall. I know, mildly embarrassing. But the book is going to be SO MUCH BETTER. Of course I got excited.

It does now mean I have a major rewrite on a moderately tight deadline but what a gift. I’m 14% in to the changes , I have direction and enthusiasm and a belief in the new book that only comes from the endorsement of people you trust seeing what you see. Potential.

If you get given this chance, embrace it. You will learn so much if you let go a little:

• Don’t be too precious about your beautiful words - there might be better words. 
• Don’t hang on too tight to characters you adore who just aren’t needed in this story - park them up for another story - maybe their own story if they’re that good. 
• Remember you are not best placed to see where your story lacks ‘something’ , you know it inside out and may be mentally filling in blanks that the reader can’t see.

Be grateful that someone else wants to help make your story great. Love your editor like they love your story.  Remember, they’re pulling it apart for one reason only: so you can rebuild it. Better.

via GIPHY

 Kathryn Evans is the award winning author of More of Me: A gripping thriller with a sinister sci-fi edge, exploring family, identity and sacrifice. Find her  on Facebook and Instagram @kathrynevansauthor and tweeting @KathrynEvansInk.  www.kathrynevans.ink 

12th Day of Christmas: Senior Commissioning Editor Beverley Birch

Wonderful Words of Wisdom from
Editor Beverley Birch

Singapore Fling – What’s a couple of bestsellers between editors?

By Candy Gourlay

Your intrepid Notes from the Slushpile reporter managed to get herself invited to speak at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content – which was a combination of children’s literary festival, book fair, and a SCBWI Conference. This is the first of hopefully several exhausted ... er ... exhaustive reports. With many thanks to the amazing organizers of an amazing Festival – and to the editors for so generously sharing their stories and allowing us to badger them with questions.

You’ve got to congratulate the organizers of the AFCC. There on one panel, an editor from the house of Twilight and an editor from the house of Harry Potter. Please salivate quietly, everyone.

SCBWI Undiscovered Voices 2012: The Launch Party, or The Tale Of The Level Playing Field

by Jo Wyton and Maureen Lynas

Thursday evening saw the launch party of the third Undiscovered Voices anthology. In the anthology are twelve novel extracts (written by thirteen unpublished, unagented authors - including both myself and Maureen) and gorgeous illustrations by six very talented illustrators. Katie Dale has already blogged about the event here, and we don't want to get repetitive! So instead we'll focus on something else, something which came up in conversation a few times during the night.

It seems that one thing agents and editors want, what they really, really want is...

A level playing field.

Or at least they'd like, every now and then, for writers to act as though they're on one.

Because here's a secret (shh... don't tell anyone): agents and editors are people too. I know, shocking news.

The thing is, as writers we are used to sitting behind our laptops and sweating over every sentence, every word, until we don't think we get it any better. Then we send it out, and although we hope against hope for something positive, we inevitably expect to be rejected. If there is the merest sign of anything positive, we climb up to the nearest rooftop and dance a jig.

Now the UV launch party was great for a lot of reasons, but the main one for me was the intermingling of agent, editor and writer. There were no barriers in that room. If we wanted to approach people, we could. If people wanted to approach us, that was even better. So many surprises were had because of that breakdown of the neuroses which normally get the better of writers. Conversations were had that bore no relation to writing, or at least the anthology to hand, and more than that, they were enjoyed. This was a very different world than the one we are used to.

And here’s why. To a writer, the Industry Professional seems a mysterious creature. When we submit work, we think about what the person on the other end might say if they do like it, if they don't, and if they detest it with everything they have. Even if we know what the Professional looks like, we don't tend to think of them in that way when we know they have our work in their hands. We don't think of the person sitting at the other end of the e-mail, we only think about their reaction.

Will they like it, or won't they?

A number of times during the launch party, conversation turned to not only how intense the evening was for both writer and agent/editor, but to how much they were enjoying themselves. Partly, we imagine, this was due to the copious amounts of Prosecco that disappeared strangely fast. But it was also because agents and editors were surrounded by writers who weren’t afraid to talk to them.

Think about things from their point of view. Every month they receive hundreds of submissions. They know that with most of them, they either won't fall in love, or won't think that the book is ready to move on to the next stage. And yet they continue to fight through those slushpiles, because somewhere in there is the writer they would love to represent.

The reason we say 'love' is that for somebody to represent you, they have to LOVE your writing. Agents have to be able to walk in to a room and convince somebody to put money behind you and your book. Editors have to be able to face an acquisitions meeting and convince them all that your book is worth backing. You don't want somebody who likes your book, you want somebody who loves it.

And that's all agents and editors are looking for - writing they love. They want to find writers as badly as writers want to find them.

We wouldn't mind betting that when an agent or editor finds something they can get behind - something they LOVE - they look for the nearest jig-worthy rooftop as quickly as we do.

So next time you are at a conference or workshop, and you are avoiding eye contact with an agent or an editor in the desperate hope that they won't talk to you, go and say hello. You don't have to pitch (although don't tell anybody we said that). You really can just say hello. Act like there's a level playing field, and you never know, one might appear as if from nowhere.

Countdown to Christmas: Senior Commissioning Editor, Hachette Children's Books, Beverley Birch

Beverley Birch, friend and mentor to many slushpilers and published authors alike, gives us the last Advent gift. Beverley is a senior commissioning editor for Hachette Children's Books and three times nominated Brandford Boase editor. She is a writer of more than 40 books including novels, picture books, biographies and retellings of classic works. Her novel, 'Rift' came out in 2006 and you know you are in the hands of a true storyteller when you read the very first page.

When she was young, Beverley wanted to be a pilot...

 ...or an explorer...

 ...something which took her to new places and where she could be brave and intrepid.

 Writing takes her there now!

So, what is Beverley's Christmas wishlist?

1. Vigorous, original voice – serious or funny, quirky or strange, I’m open to any – but something that sucks me in, so I feel a very personal connection with characters and their predicament.

2. To be bewitched by curiosity from the outset. That ‘Oh! Where is this going? Where’s it taking me?’ feeling. Any genre or tradition in story-telling – no boundaries – but I want to be grabbed by the intrigue or puzzle or humour from that very first page.

3. A writer with something interesting/illuminating to say – not ‘just a story’ but a tale that is a revelation in some way, a window onto something, leaving me richer than I was before I read it, transmitted through the characters and how they knock against each other and their environment, the choices they make, in the bones and sinews of their story.

Slushie note: Check out Beverley's masterclass and make your writing soar in 2012!

Anne of Green Gables

Favourite book from childhood: Anne of Green Gables which Beverley loved for its sense of place.

Take a look tomorrow, dear readers, for Christmas wishes from the Slushpile Team!

Countdown to Christmas: Brenda Gardner, Managing Director, Piccadilly Press

Brenda Gardner, publisher and MD started Piccadilly Press 28 years ago. Brenda’s experience in publishing was through editorial and she worked for Penguins, W H Allen, and Evans before setting up Piccadilly. Piccadilly won the Independent Publisher’s Award in 2009 after being shortlisted three times and publish across a wide range from picture books to young adult.

Brenda Gardner, Piccadilly Press

Brenda's wish list:

1. We’d love an interesting and fresh novel for young adults. 

A love story that could be a crossover book perhaps.

2. A sharp witty picture book text would be

 an ideal present from Father Christmas

Illustrated by SCBWI's very own Mike Brownlow

3. Illustrations with animals and small children that touch the heart.

Written by SCBWI's very own  Juliet Clare Bell 

4. A knock them dead funny series for 7-12 would be a great present.

You don't get much funnier than Dinopants

5. Authors and illustrators who have studied our website and know the sorts of books we publish and even read some of them, before sending in material, would win our hearts.

Book I wished we published: Diary of A Wimpy Kid.
Not only because it is a bestseller but I did spot it some years ago and was just days too late as Puffin had snapped it up. I thought it was a great concept – fresh and appealing and at the same time very reassuring and funny.

Piccadilly Press submission guidelines.

Countdown to Christmas: Megan Larkin of Orchard Books

Megan Larkin is publishing director of Orchard Books, part of Hachette Children's Books. Orchard Books offers a sparkling range of very special titles that sell all over the world. Picture book characters from Daisy the Duck to Charlie & Lola, authors such as Michael Lawrence and Giles Andreae, illustrators from Jane Ray to Angela Barrett and best-selling fiction series such as Rainbow Magic and Tiara Club, make for a rich treasure-trove of talent.

Megan's Christmas Wish:

I love books that make you laugh, and books that make you cry. If a book can make me laugh AND cry then I’m in heaven. A few years ago, Orchard published a glorious book called Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, a wonderfully moving story about a lovable, quirky character who will stay in my heart for ever. I would love to find another Stargirl in my Christmas stocking.

Stargirl!

Slushpile note: Megan and Orchard Books are also publishing one Teri Terry, part of the Slushpile team! Slated will be out in May 2012, as reported here.

Countdown to Christmas: Editorial Director Maurice Lyon, of Children's Books at Frances Lincoln

Maurice Lyon is Editorial Director for Children’s Books at Frances Lincoln, now part of the Quarto Group. He has had a long career as a children’s books editor, working for Puffin and Hodder Children’s as well as freelancing for the likes of Scholastic and Simon & Schuster Children’s. Authors he has worked with range from Philip Pullman, Paul Stewart and Jan Mark to Michelle Harrison and Keren David.

Countdown to Christmas: Commissioning Editor Jasmine Richards

Jasmine is an editor by day and an author by night. So she is perfectly placed to understand both sides of the process. Jasmine has worked in publishing for seven years - working on the Beast Quest series for Working Partners and now senior commissioning editor for Oxford University Press. Jasmine is a keen SCBWI member and one of the judges for the Undiscovered Voices competition. She has two books coming out next year: Oliver Twisted (Egmont in the UK) and The Book of Wonders (Harper Collins in the US).

Countdown to Christmas - Editor, Amber Caraveo, Orion

Amber Caravéo is Editorial Director at Orion Children’s Books. She joined Orion Children's Books in 2010 from Random House.Before that she was at Working Partners, and many years ago she used to create children's titles for a magazine company – heady days when she interviewed stars such as Gordon the Gopher! She has an MA in Children's Literature and has been privileged to work with a host of wonderful and award-winning authors. Amber lives near Maidenhead with her husband and too many cats!

Countdown to Christmas: Editor Sarah Odedina of Hot Key Books

Sarah Odedina, formerly Editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury's children's division, is the Managing Director of the all new Hot Key Books where the focus will be on fiction for 9 plus. The interesting name derives from the power of stories to open doors and feed the imagination of readers. 

Sarah Odedina

Sarah says that the name also reflects the digital age in which we now live, through its association with ‘hot key’ commands. The name, like Sarah, radiates energy and dynamism.

Countdown to Christmas: Publisher Barry Cunningham

Barry Cunningham is the co-founder and Publishing and Managing Director of Chicken House Publishing, where he works with authors Cornelia Funke, Brian Williams and Roderick Gordon, Stuart Hill and Rachel Ward. Before the days of the Chicken House, Barry was the founder-Publisher of Bloomsbury Children's Books, where he worked with the likes of Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan and... oh yeah, a little somebody called J.K. Rowling.

Countdown to Christmas: Commissioning Fiction Editor Helen Boyle of Templar Publishing

When she's not tweeting, reading or writing about books, Helen Boyle has two of the best jobs in the world. Editor of tBkmag, a magazine for Peters Bookselling Services aimed at 8-12 yr old readers, and Commissioning Fiction Editor for Templar Publishing's new and exciting Fiction list. Luckily she's a fast reader.

Countdown to Christmas: Editor Simon Mason of David Fickling Books

Simon Mason is an editor at David Fickling Books as well as the Guardian prize nominated author of Moon Pie and the children's series, The Quigleys. Simon's Christmas offering to Slushpilers who have already written their books are five tips on how to get published.

Countdown to Christmas: Publisher Kate Wilson of Nosy Crow

Managing Director of Nosy Crow, Kate has 25 years’ publishing experience. She started her career as a rights seller, before becoming MD of Macmillan Children’s Books, Group MD of Scholastic UK Ltd, and then (briefly!) CEO of Headline. She cares about good books, design, literacy and technology.Since starting Nosy Crow, she likes waking up in the morning.In September 2011, she won the title of Inspirational Business Mum of the year at the MumpreneurUK awards.

Authors or Agents? Picking the Shortest Queue

So Sarah Megibow at the online friendly Nelson Literary Agency was carefully explaining manuscript submission rules to a Denver writer's conference when someone asked, "are those rules the same for all agents/editors?"

GULP! No, they aren’t. I’ve been thinking about that question a lot this month. There are so many rules and regulations that writers must feel overwhelmed. I mean, Nelson Agency only accepts email queries (no paper mail whatsoever), but other agents only want snail mail. Some agents want query letters and yet others want a query pitch and a synopsis. Others will want you to include the first ten pages of the work. Then there are the editors. Some will read unsolicited submissions and others won’t even look at them unless submitted by an agent. It’s enough to make any writer’s head spin. So while I don’t have a submission rule that’s true for all agents or editors, I can give this suggestion: Do your research online before submitting. Tips From the Slushpile, November 2007 issue

And sometimes online research doesn't do the trick.

If you checked out the website of Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury, the submission guidelines are clear:

Unfortunately, due to the enormous volume of material sent in to our Children's department, Bloomsbury can no longer accept unsolicited children's manuscripts.

But last week soft-spoken Emma Matthewson, Deputy Editorial Director of Bloomsbury Children's Books told a group of SCBWI authors that yes, submissions will be read.

Cause for celebration? Weeeell. Editors speaking at writer's events (and I can claim to have attended quite a few of these) very kindly always say they will look at your manuscript. My theory is that confronted with the fresh-from-the-garret faces of suffering writers, editors feel they just have to be nice.

And yes, they really do read the manuscripts. Now before you print off another copy of your 1700 page wizard fantasy, beware.

I asked Emma if agents had to wait as long as authors for their submissions to be looked at. She said, no, though agents had to wait a few weeks, they pretty much jumped the queue of direct author submissions. The authors submitting directly have to wait months. And the sad number of books from the slush pile that make it to publication (I think Emma said they published four in the past five years) just isn't funny.

So which queue — Editors or Agents?

At the end of the day, it's only time.

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Are you a facebooker? Join our group The Waiting Room - for all writers and illustrators who are waiting, waiting, waiting for that call from a publisher or agent. Published people are welcome to join and mock. But please no spitting.