The Fine Balance Between Author and Publisher
I spent a long time as an author before becoming a publisher. I have had rejections that were maddening. My favorite was my thesis novel that passed muster with professor who didn't believe in narrative. Don't ask me why they were teaching English Literature. I think they all needed therapy. At any rate, selling them on a novel that told a linear story was not easy. And one of them actually recommended it to an editor that a big publishing house. The novel was based on an experience I had in one of my many careers and I did not take much license with the characters. It was rejected for being unbelievable. The subject of the novel offered to intervene with the editor in his own Jersey bad boy way, but I felt that being a prison author had been overdone.
My least favorite rejection was from an editor at St. Martins Press who had come to speak to my class. He called my work beautifully realized and a pleasure to read, but it didn’t have a clear enough market. It wasn’t Black enough to be considered Black fiction. Black was still the term at the time. And they couldn’t handle a Black author writing about mainstream middleclass life – nevermind that that was what I was growing up living. I shouldn’t have been surprised at his rejection. In his speech to our class, this editor said that they were looking at authors who would do well on talk shows and morning news shows – even going as far as videotaping a prospect to see how they read on camera.
All in all, I think being told that I sucked would have been easier than these rejections. On the genre end, I learned from an author who began as a reader at Avon books that the slush pile is even more huge than even I had imagined. Two authors that she read, Katherine Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers, were pulled from the pile at random. Who knows how many good authors relegated there were sent rejections without even being read. It was and is hard to break into the big time. I have had six agents since the late 80s. I have a good friend who recent signed with one after her off Broadway play garnered a terrific write-up in The New Yorker. She’s had dozens of meetings with publishers and producers that have not produced much in the way of results. My final straw with mainstream publishers was when an offer of publication was withdrawn when that editor was replaced with another one.
I learned from the film biz that once you make something that does well or is well received critically, the people you desire will come to you. I learned while working at Borders Books, that authors from tiny publishers or who published themselves sometimes make their way to big publishing houses if their work is well-received or sells well. The technology and that notion is what caused Marie and I to found Sybaritic Press. We founded it to be a springboard for aspiring authors who don’t easily fit in a niche, and to be a place to get out own work out in the arena. We are ‘real’ in the sense that we don’t charge authors to be published. We shoulder the cost of editing, formatting and cover designing. However, beyond getting the titles reviewed and promoting in avenues that are inexpensive or free, we cannot do what the big houses do. That is up to our authors.
This has not been an easy road for us. The hardest part of the job is the selection process. It is very hard for authors to reject another author’s work. Since we are hoping to foster talent, Marie and I have opted not to tell an author why a piece was rejected. The reason is best explained by a quote from Raymond Carver in speaking about his student, Jay McInerney. He was asked by a fellow lecturer why he wasn’t harder on McInerney whose work was not very polished then. Carver replied that he didn’t want to discourage him. It turned out to be a sound course. We don’t want to discourage an author with a specific rejection. What we don’t like, another publisher may love. The lack of polish we see may improve markedly with more practice. This policy has resulted in more than a few really snarky e-mails. In fact, we are most abused in our recruiting efforts. It is more than puzzling to have a call for submissions result in derision. I suppose that stems from the fact that authors, like any creative soul, are flakey.
What I’m trying to say is that we really want to help new authors and we work hard to acquire new titles and see them properly launched. But we are also authors. Sometimes, we are slow in responding because we have our own pursuits. I really don’t like feeling like I’m stealing time to do my own writing. Sybaritic Press will always strive for better ways to fulfill its mission, but remember that we are seeking the same things as the rest of our authors. So patience and flexibility are the keys to working with us. And we promise to never put our authors on videotape to see how they read on camera.
My least favorite rejection was from an editor at St. Martins Press who had come to speak to my class. He called my work beautifully realized and a pleasure to read, but it didn’t have a clear enough market. It wasn’t Black enough to be considered Black fiction. Black was still the term at the time. And they couldn’t handle a Black author writing about mainstream middleclass life – nevermind that that was what I was growing up living. I shouldn’t have been surprised at his rejection. In his speech to our class, this editor said that they were looking at authors who would do well on talk shows and morning news shows – even going as far as videotaping a prospect to see how they read on camera.
All in all, I think being told that I sucked would have been easier than these rejections. On the genre end, I learned from an author who began as a reader at Avon books that the slush pile is even more huge than even I had imagined. Two authors that she read, Katherine Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers, were pulled from the pile at random. Who knows how many good authors relegated there were sent rejections without even being read. It was and is hard to break into the big time. I have had six agents since the late 80s. I have a good friend who recent signed with one after her off Broadway play garnered a terrific write-up in The New Yorker. She’s had dozens of meetings with publishers and producers that have not produced much in the way of results. My final straw with mainstream publishers was when an offer of publication was withdrawn when that editor was replaced with another one.
I learned from the film biz that once you make something that does well or is well received critically, the people you desire will come to you. I learned while working at Borders Books, that authors from tiny publishers or who published themselves sometimes make their way to big publishing houses if their work is well-received or sells well. The technology and that notion is what caused Marie and I to found Sybaritic Press. We founded it to be a springboard for aspiring authors who don’t easily fit in a niche, and to be a place to get out own work out in the arena. We are ‘real’ in the sense that we don’t charge authors to be published. We shoulder the cost of editing, formatting and cover designing. However, beyond getting the titles reviewed and promoting in avenues that are inexpensive or free, we cannot do what the big houses do. That is up to our authors.
This has not been an easy road for us. The hardest part of the job is the selection process. It is very hard for authors to reject another author’s work. Since we are hoping to foster talent, Marie and I have opted not to tell an author why a piece was rejected. The reason is best explained by a quote from Raymond Carver in speaking about his student, Jay McInerney. He was asked by a fellow lecturer why he wasn’t harder on McInerney whose work was not very polished then. Carver replied that he didn’t want to discourage him. It turned out to be a sound course. We don’t want to discourage an author with a specific rejection. What we don’t like, another publisher may love. The lack of polish we see may improve markedly with more practice. This policy has resulted in more than a few really snarky e-mails. In fact, we are most abused in our recruiting efforts. It is more than puzzling to have a call for submissions result in derision. I suppose that stems from the fact that authors, like any creative soul, are flakey.
What I’m trying to say is that we really want to help new authors and we work hard to acquire new titles and see them properly launched. But we are also authors. Sometimes, we are slow in responding because we have our own pursuits. I really don’t like feeling like I’m stealing time to do my own writing. Sybaritic Press will always strive for better ways to fulfill its mission, but remember that we are seeking the same things as the rest of our authors. So patience and flexibility are the keys to working with us. And we promise to never put our authors on videotape to see how they read on camera.
posted by Sybpress | 9:52 AM
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