Dear Santa:
We have been a very good publisher this year. We have paid our bills on time. We have one of the highest “in stock” rates in the industry. We have published many valuable books. We got several awards for our book designs. We have played nice with our authors. We told the truth in our marketing (even if we did get a little “excited” now and then). So I hope you will keep that in mind as Christmas gets near.
I know your elves are working harder than ever this time of year. Maybe they would have time to squeeze in one or two of the following into your sleigh before you take off.
1. Lots and lots of shelf space in bookstores so people can see our award-winning covers, not just our award-winning spines.
2. Media interviews for our authors that interact substantially with the content of their books, not just gush over our award-winning covers or witty back cover copy.
3. Timely, pristinely written and grammatically impeccable rough drafts. (Did I mention timely?)
4. Book returns that are in better shape when they come back to us than when we sent them out.
5. Book ad placement in magazines right across from the author’s article–not in the classified ads underneath the ad for creative writing school.
6. Top 1000 rankings at Amazon for all our books, even though we have more than a thousand titles in print.
7. Oprah. (Please, Oprah, just once!)
8. Umm . . world peace?
9. An end to the writer’s strike before (a) it extends to writers of nonfiction books and (b) it precludes the possibility of a sixth season of 24.
10. A sudden rise in the book-reading habits of college-educated, working, bill-paying adults.
I invite my colleagues and readers to join in suggesting other worthy gifts Santa might offer us this holiday season.
11. Authors who like to both (1) sit in their offices and homes studying and writing for long quiet periods and then (2) run out into the world like mad promoting their work.
I hope that you will form new, lasting relationships with new, young, fresh writers. 🙂