Questions Editors Should Ask

Editors are responsible to bring new book ideas and proposals to the publishing committee. Previously I wrote about how weak books can kill strong books, especially if the committee has not been objective enough about a given project. Here are some additional questions editors can ask of themselves before they ever bring a book to the publishing committee.
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“Why Don’t You Just Publish Bestsellers?”

“Why don’t you just publish bestsellers?” I think everyone in publishing has gotten this question at least once. And don’t we all smile knowingly to ourselves that it is not quite that simple.

Of course, every once in a while someone comes along who thinks it is that simple. Here you will read about Jonathan Karp at Twelve who seeks after the Holy Grail of publishing.

Certainly he is to be commended for limiting his list to give every book the best chance possible (publishing only one title a month–thus the name of the firm). Every publisher knows that too many books can mean that each book does not get the editorial or sales, marketing and publicity attention it deserves. With over 290,000 new books published in the U. S. in 2006, all publishers have to ask if they are doing too many.

Of course, it is not necessarily the goal of every publisher to only publish bestsellers. For some the goal is to publish the best books of a certain genre and still stay in the black. Nonetheless, it will be worthwhile to check in with Jonathan Karp in three, five or seven years. For we can also lay alongside the common question noted above the dictum: “It is easy to get into publishing. It is hard to stay.”

Humor Is Serious Business

Remember the running gag in Finding Nemo when Marlin the clown fish (whom others keep thinking will be funny) painfully tries to tell a joke? “Okay, a mollusk walks up to this sea cucumber, well he doesn’t actually walk, he’s just there, and he turns to the sea cucumber, and. . . Well, wait, there’s a mollusk and a sea cucumber and . . . Normally, they don’t talk, sea cucumbers, but in a joke everyone talks. So the sea mollusk says to the cucumber. . .”
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How a Weak Book Kills a Strong Book

I’ve seen the pattern all too often. We as a publishing committee are enthusiastic about a book because we see it as unique or because we are passionate about the topic or because it touches on a trend that it is rising. Then a year or two after publication we look back with disappointment. It didn’t catch on. There weren’t many readers as passionate about it as we were. It may have had fine editorial quality, but the experience left a bad taste in our mouths.
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Stories Are the Point

Bob Harvey, my former pastor, told the congregation in a sermon about the time he was on vacation at a lake, sitting in a giant inner tube when suddenly and unexpectedly he lost his balance and found himself upside down in the water, still stuck in the tube. As a man with a few extra pounds on his frame, he was unable to get out and right himself. While he was underwater trying to figure out what to do, he told us, he thought, You know, this will make a good sermon illustration.
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Public Speaking Isn’t Life or Death–It’s Much Worse Than That

Once I was invited to be part of a panel discussion during a conference. The panel went well, and I was ready to go back to the office to finish up some work I had there. As the moderator of the conference closed the panel he said to the group. “We’ll take a fifteen minute break now, and then for the next hour Andy Le Peau will be speaking to us.”

My worst speaking nightmare had come true.
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