Sitting on my wife’s chifforobe I recently noticed a small, old, clothbound book. On the front was the title, True Liberty, the author’s last name, Brooks, and a drawing of flowers printed on the case. The book is about 5″ x 7″ and only thirty-two pages, published by the Henry Altemus Company of Philadelphia (1842-1936), which started as a bookbinder and evolved into a publisher of photo albums, Bibles, decorative reprints of fiction, religious and moralistic books, juvenile series books, fairy tales, and puzzle books.
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They Just Love My Title
“I asked five friends, and they all told me they loved the title I’m thinking of for the book.”
“I randomly surveyed a dozen people at the mall and most liked my title best.”
“I’ve been speaking on this topic lately, and when I mention my working title for the book, I get a very positive response.”
Over the years we at InterVarsity Press have heard many variations on this theme from authors. They mention their working title to friends, relatives, coworkers or people in the intended audience, and the reaction they get leads them to believe they have a winner. And they might. But why should a publisher be cautious about such a conclusion? Why should an author also be cautious about such a conclusion?
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Publishers Don’t Sell Books
“Publishers don’t sell books. Authors sell books.”
I was with a group of editors last week. Roy Carlisle, who has been an editor at HarperSanFrancisco (now HarperOne), Crossroad and his own imprint, was making a presentation and was getting just slightly off topic. But he was passionate nonetheless. “An author has got to have a platform. That’s what has been true in New York for the last five or ten years. It’s what every editor there knows.”
Publishers don’t sell books? How do they stay in business?
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Being a Good Boss
Firing people is probably the worst experience a supervisor can go through. You want to avoid it if at all possible. But the best way to avoid it is to confront it directly. That’s what my friend Brian taught me. Here’s how to take as much emotion, subjectivity and surprise out of the equation as possible, while treating people with dignity.
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Sometimes Supervisors Are Just Too Nice
Why are people so often fired badly? Sometimes, of course, the boss is just a jerk. But many times well-intentioned supervisors just don’t know what to do.
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The Joy of Interruptions
Yesterday I was asked
–what subtitle we should have on an upcoming book
–what title I’d recommend for a different book
–how to handle art costs for a book we are copublishing with a British publisher
–whether we are changing the retail price on a backlist book
–to consider suggestions for handling work flow in the editorial department
–if I saw any problem with an editor scheduling a business trip while I would also be gone to the Frankfurt Book Fair
–what price and print run we should recommend for a potential book
–if a particular author ever sent back a signed contract
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“I Love to Fire People”
More than one friend of mine has been fired from a job. I’m not talking about being downsized, going out of business, being a victim of cutbacks, being laid off or, as our friends on the other side of the Pond say, being made redundant. I’m talking fired, dismissed, sacked, given a pink slip. Maybe I just hang out with the wrong people.
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Keeping Promises
Some years ago we promised an author that if he signed his book contract with us that we would advertise the book in several key magazines. So he signed the contract, completed the manuscript and sent it in. It was a strong piece, and we were happy to publish it. However, we also discovered that it did not come to us very well targeted for the particular audiences of the magazines in which we had promised to advertise the book. As we discussed the audience for his book and possible revisions with the author, he was not inclined to make any significant changes.
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Trashing a Book
True confession. Last week I threw away a book. I hesitated a moment before I did so. Could I sell it online? Should I try to give it away? Was it somehow immoral to throw away a book? It sure didn’t feel right. But I did it anyway. In fact, I threw away eight or ten.
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The Art of Telecommuting
Almost twenty years ago, before it was fashionable, IVP’s first telecommuter, Dan Reid, set up shop two thousand miles from the home office. We thought it was an incredibly high-tech arrangement since we could communicate by mail, by phone, by fax and by CompuServe–a company that gave us the amazing capability of allowing two PCs (one in Seattle and one in Downers Grove) to exchange data and files via the phone lines. It was whacked-out futuristic in our minds. We actually managed in this primitive arrangement, if you can believe it, for a full five years before the internet connected us all in 1995.
Since then any number of IVP employees have entered the ranks of the telecommuting. But it takes more than technology to make telecommuting successful. Here’s some of the factors we’ve kept in mind that have helped it work for us.
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