The Lifecycle of a Book: Author Publicity

So, once your book's lifecycle is pretty much finished and it's hit bookstore shelves, your work is done, right? Wrong!

Whether you like it or not (and I'll be honest, there are some serious pros and cons), a book's success is almost always an uphill battle. Though you've already heard about the great publicity work that's done before a book is published and the marketing that starts pre-publication and continues for (in most cases) up to a year after, the author's expected to pull a lot of the weight in terms of networking, social media marketing, and hosting and attending events. Learn all about it with Publishing Trendsetter and Adam Gidwitz here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Distribution

There's one last stage in the lifecycle of the book: distribution. Distributors work to stay on top of trends and developments in the industry, and provide support for sales teams while also reaching out to consumer markets. Wondering what that means? Jenn McMurray of Greenleaf Book Group explains in Publishing Trendsetter's latest post here.

That's it, pals! Stay tuned for more content, including responses to the overwhelmingly awesome comments on this post on cover trends, next week!

The Lifecycle of a Book: The Book Buyer

How does a book make it from your publisher to bookstore shelves? Who decides between the new bestseller and a stellar debut author? Are reps still relevant to the industry in the digital age? And what are these nasty returns you hear so much about?

Every bookstore has a buyer, and his or her role is vital to the industry and ridiculously fascinating. Learn all about it with Jenn Northington and Stephanie Anderson of WORD in Publishing Trendsetter's post here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Sales

Sales might not be your favorite part of the lifecycle of the book (especially if you, like me, like to indulge your artistic side), but it may well be the most important; without sales, the industry couldn't exist! In the latest Lifecycle post from Publishing Trendsetter, Tamarra Henry from Macmillan explains how the sales department functions, the tools salespeople use, and how a sales pitch actually goes down. You can read it here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Publicity

Publicists are the face of books, authors, and publishing companies, and they are constantly working to project the best possible image of all three. They brainstorm pitches, put their creativity into press releases and media kits, and perfect the art of follow-up. For those as creative as they are business-savvy, publicity is the perfect outlet.

Learn all about it from Jihan Antoine of Hachette's Grand Central Publishing with Publishing Trendsetter here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Marketing

The publishing industry might not come with the multi-million-dollar budgets of the film and electronics industries, but that's no reason that authors shouldn't all feel like celebrities.

Nina Lassam of Wattpad explains how marketers work with authors to build their audience, and why their role is so important in Publishing Trendsetter's latest Lifecycle of a Book post here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Design

Love your cover? Hate it? Blame it on the designer. Well... sort of.

To learn all about the cover designer's role in a book's lifecycle, and about just how many people and factors affect a book's final look, check out Publishing Trendsetter's interview with Regina Roff of (my very own!) Bloomsbury & Walker Books for Young Readers here.

And folks, I work with Regina just about every day and can vouch for her awesomeness. So, just saying, you might want to check out her video.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Production

As vital as they are to the overall publishing process, production employees are often the unsung heroes of the industry. Give credit where credit's due; learn about how production fits into the overall lifecycle of a book with Ashley Horna of W.W. Norton and Publishing Trendsetter by clicking here.

The Lifecycle of a Book: Editorial

Ah, editorial. It's arguably the most coveted, glamorous role in the publishing industry, and it's the one that you, as an author, will likely have the most frequent contact with once your book has been contracted by a publishing company. You know about all the dotting of i's and the crossing of t's, but in reality editors spend very little time on that part of the process. In fact, most editors I know say they spend only about 20% of their working time on the actual editing of manuscripts.

To learn what else keeps them busy and involved in the publishing process, click here to meet Latoya Smith of Grand Central Publishing in the latest Lifecycle of a Book post from Publishing Trendsetter.

The Lifecycle of a Book: The Literary Agent

The agent, like the writer, is in the lucky position of getting to see the whole publishing process from start to finish. Joy Azmitia is a junior agent at Russell & Volkening Literary Agency; learn all about the agent's role in the Lifecycle of a Book from her in this video from Publishing Trendsetter!

The Lifecycle of a Book: The Writer

The first (and in some ways most important) player in a book's lifecycle is that of its creator: the writer. This one may be closest to home for my Writer Friends here, but you can still learn a lot from someone who's been through the submission process and gotten an agent!

Meet Adam Gidwitz, Writer, on Publishing Trendsetter by clicking here.

The Lifecycle of a Book

Okay, so you've written your book—now what? The system that carries a book from your hard drive to a bookstore's shelf is so complex and multifaceted that, even if you're a regular scholar of the publishing blog world, there's a good chance you still don't know every intricacy of the process. Fortunately, the many awesome bloggers of Publishing Trendsetter have teamed up to give you a comprehensive look at the process from start to finish.

Trendsetter has gone behind the scenes to talk to tons of young industry professionals about what they do and how it contributes to a book's success. Over the next few weeks, they'll explore one department a day, and I'll link their posts here so you can share the wealth.

Puzzled by publicity? Dumbfounded by distribution? Or just wondering how it all fits together? Then look no further for answers than the grid below—and our daily posts!

(click and then choose "Show Original" to enlarge)

Literary Translation: Publishing the World (for a Living!)

While she interned in the rights department of a French publishing
company, Samantha made plenty of time to travel. They say a book
can take you to a whole new world, but this is one step beyond it!

Unlike a lot of young publishing professionals, Samantha Steele knew she wanted to work in publishing early in her college career. In fact, she even knew what she wanted to do within the industry, and as a student at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study she designed a specialized major around her passion: literary translation. During a full year abroad in Paris (she’s bilingual), Samantha interned in the rights department of a French publisher, learning as much as she could about the passage of rights from one publisher—and one country—to another. Then, as my fellow intern at Scholastic, she focused on the editorial side of the bargain, reading countless queries in French and making recommendations for titles to acquire and translate. Now, as an Assistant Literary Agent at the French Publishers’ Agency, she combines both of those skill sets in one amazing job.

If you’re a fan of world travel, you read widely across cultures (or you’d like to start reading more widely), and you’re still looking for the right publishing role for you, you might just want to consider following in her footsteps!

Samantha raves about her job. “It’s exciting to sell a book in translation. It’s empowering to bring something from another country to America, to extend the lines of cultural communication a little farther. [At the French Publishers’ Agency,] we live and work in this kind of in-between space. We are not of France and we are not of America. We exist as a branch between the two and as such see things that no one else does. We are aware of two worlds at once, and that is both very cool and very weird.”

Like most publishing employees, Samantha’s hard-pressed to define a “typical day.” On any given morning, you might find her reading submissions from French publishers; writing pitches to American editors; meeting with agents, editors, scouts, and translators; corresponding with French foreign rights agents; helping editors apply for grants to fund translations; drafting contracts; processing royalty statements; attending editorial meetings; creating catalogs of the agency’s current titles; or all of the above. She also supports the office staff by working with interns, fixing the copier, running errands, and all those other typical early-career duties.

Since such a huge part of the job involves working directly with the text—or, sometimes even harder—singing its praises to editors who haven’t been able to read all of it, I asked Samantha how she feels about the books she works with. “Oh, the biggest perk is the books!” Samantha tells me. “Translated books usually stand out from the current publishing scene. That is the fun and the interest in publishing them: to add spice and diversity and a little flavor of the unknown.”

Are you sold yet? Want to learn more about how to get a job in literary translation, about the field's challenges, or about how the future is shaping up for the field? Take in the rest of my article over at Publishing Trendsetter!

Manga and the Mainstream: A Tempestuous Affair

A few weeks ago we discussed the collapse of American manga powerhouse Tokyopop, and the lessons spelled out in that end for publishers of both comics and mainstream books. This week, we’ll look at how comic books have interacted with the mainstream print industry, and how the loss of a manga megalith might affect the comics world at large. With the #1 company that primed manga readers (especially female readers, a huge chunk of the trade industry’s market) out of the picture, what will become of the illustrated novel?

The relationship between America’s mainstream trade industry and the world of illustrated novels has been rocky from the start. Censorship under the Comics Code Authority, established in 1954 to protect readers from inappropriate content, pushed the industry underground and spurred widespread prejudice against comic books. For almost fifty years after the code was created, comics were marginalized. “It’s really only in the last decade that the negative impression of comics and graphic novels in the States has changed,” Yen Press Publishing Director Kurt Hassler told Publishing Trends in 2009.

According to Publishing Trends, it wasn’t until 2005 that a large number of trade presses began to attend Comic Con, and finally began to recognize that illustrated novels might offer a piece of the publishing pie worth having. The comic book industry can thank Tokyopop for much of that attention. The teenage girls courted by the company made up one of the few readerships to consistently crossover to trade novels, and their interest in the genre certainly got the attention of mainstream publishers—particularly publishers of Young Adult fiction.

That attention helped comic book creators to emerge from the underground into the mainstream market. In 2006 Tokyopop partnered with HarperCollins to co-produce and distribute graphic novels. “Our partnership with HarperCollins will allow us to take the Manga Revolution to the next level,” Mike Kiley, Publisher of Tokyopop, said in HarperCollins’ press release announcing the partnership. And he was right—kicked off by Meg Cabot’s Avalon High, the comics that Tokyopop and HarperCollins launched together enjoyed great success. Both book-to-manga adaptations and original creations attracted a group of readers manga may never have been able to reach in the hands of independent presses. And though the partnership ended in January 2011, Matt Blind predicts that should HarperCollins ever decide to create an in-house comic book imprint, the company will find ample fodder in what’s left of the partnership’s books.

But despite the success of manga’s many interactions with the mainstream industry, publishers were predicting the death of manga in America as early as 2007. Though the niche market for manga remained and remains strong, it would seem that the growing rift between different types of comics was separating manga from many of the markets only recently opened to it. Graphic novels emerged as the “literary” form of comics most widely embraced by mainstream publishers—and mainstream readers.

So though it seems likely that Tokyopop’s apparent disinterest in its fans’ needs helped spur the company’s demise, it may have been doomed from the start. And if that’s so, then as a female reader and aspiring editor of stories for children and young adults, I can’t help but ask myself where that leaves the readers Tokyopop was so instrumental in winning over to comic books: teen girls. Where does the decline of Tokyopop’s immensely popular series—and manga as a whole—leave young women and the publishers who work to reach them?

Read the rest of the article at Publishing Trendsetter.

How to Lose a Job in Publishing

Sorry for the radio silence of the past two weeks, Writer Friends! And double apologies to my lovely new followers; it was wrong of me to entice you with prizes and then fail to provide new and delicious publishing-related content!

But I've been doing a lot of exciting things that I can report about here, like collecting exciting ARCs at Book Expo America (they may or may not show up on this blog in giveaways; are you intrigued yet?). And interviewing authors for some new blog posts I'm cooking up. And brainstorming marketing ideas in the midst of a conference that pulls out all its stops. And collecting even more tips on how to get a job in publishing. Oh yeah, and meeting...

Tahereh Mafi, author of Shatter Me (also a completely delightful blogger/human being)...

and Little, Brown Editorial Director Alvina Ling, over whom I totally fan-girled like the editorial junkie I am...

and Laini Taylor, whose book, Lips Touch, has been an all-time favorite since my internship at Arthur A. Levine Books (No, really; it's possible that I rooted for it to win the National Book Award in 2009, despite the fact that it was competing with a book published by the company at which I was interning at the time.)

So you can forgive me, right?

There's another really exciting person I met at BEA whose face you might not recognize: my editor for Publishing Trendsetter, Elisabeth Watson.

That's us. Can you tell we're totally ecstatic about our first BEA experiences?

Aside from being one of the most delightful editors in the world (seriously, she used the word "swashbuckling" to describe a good idea), Elisabeth is one of the most put-together and professional people I've ever met. She's a fantastic reporter, a master of detail and organization, and an incredible ally to have in brainstorming, researching, and writing. I can't imagine a better person in her role at Publishing Trends, or at the helm of Publishing Trendsetter.

So perhaps it would surprise you—as it surprised me—to learn that, four months into her first full-time job in publishing, she was fired for "shortcomings too grievous to overcome." Believe me, the Elisabeth I know does not have many shortcomings. But imagine how she felt after losing her job—ashamed, overwhelmed, completely unsure of herself—in short, certain her career in publishing was over before it even started!

And yet her career wasn't over; Elisabeth is absolutely thriving in her current position. And what's more, she loves her job. She's an inspiration to me, and I wanted to share her story with you because I think it's one that's more common than many of us realize.

I’ve spoken to so many assistants in publishing who feel an enormous pressure never to make a mistake. We're all idealists in this field, and for that reason I think it hits us twice as hard when our careers are rocky. And somehow me manage to tell our authors that their setbacks are no big deal (everyone faces rejection, really, even insert famous author's name here) and yet be so, so hard on ourselves for our own setbacks. Heaven forbid we take the time to learn—you know, as entry-level employees do. Instead we put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves to never miss a comma, never send an email to the wrong address by mistake, never learn that some roles just aren't a good fit for us, never find our weaknesses. It's a competitive industry, we tell ourselves, and we're lucky to have jobs; better not screw them up! We take any small mistake like a bullet, and a larger setback can absolutely shatter us.

But if I've learned anything from graduating college, beginning a career, and watching my friends begin their own careers in other industries, it's this: beginnings are messy. Some starts just don't work out. And you build the path to your perfect job on the foundation of those broken dreams. You patch up your wounds and heal twice as strong, and if you really want it then you learn everything you can from your setbacks and you go after it again. And again. And again.

In publishing, I often feel that we don't talk about our failures, because we don't want anyone to know we can be less than perfect. Or maybe we're just so ashamed, because no one else seems to fail or even falter. Occasionally I look around at the entry-level employees I know and feel terrified. Surely they'd never make a single one of the silly mistakes I made in my first few weeks at my job. Surely they never struggle just to keep abreast of their workload. Surely they have something I lack.

But when I talk to fabulous people like Elisabeth about their paths, invariably I learn that they've sometimes stumbled too. We all do. Because publishing can be absolutely heartbreaking. Just like any career can be heartbreaking. At some point, no matter what we do or who we are, we all face failure.

When you face it, I hope Elisabeth's post helps you.

And remember: Once you heal, you'll love what you do more than ever.

P.S. Today's my birthday! Hooray for what my fellow sci-fi-loving friend calls my "successful completion of another journey around the daystar"!

P.P.S. Name this quote: "'Day' is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable... I didn't get you anything."

Tokyopop Closes its Doors May 31st

What Does that Mean for Mainstream Publishers?

Tokyopop, one of America’s largest comic publishers and the company credited with popularizing manga outside Japan, will officially close its doors in North America on Tuesday May 31^st. The announcement, made April 15^th, didn’t surprise many followers of the comic book industry; rounds of layoffs had reduced the company to a six-person staff months earlier, and a collapse seemed inevitable even as early as March, 2011.

But how did the company reach the point of collapse when, just eight years before, Steve Kleckner reported it had been growing by at least 200% for three years and wasn’t even slowing? And more importantly for publishers of more mainstream products, what is there to be learned from it?

[read more]

From time to time, I'll be posting links to my posts on Publishing Trendsetter in lieu of posting here. I look forward to reading your insights, comments and questions in both places!

Young to Publishing, or Still Making Your Way In? Publishing Trends Just Launched a Blog for You!

I'm really excited to announce that Publishing Trends has invited me to join them on a new venture, the launch of their Publishing Trendsetter blog. The whole Trendsetter team is dedicated to fostering dialogue and innovation among the new generation of book industry professionals—those within their first ten years in the business (and those aspiring to be!). With over ten regular bloggers at various points in their careers and with backgrounds in consulting, design, acquisitions, e-publishing, publicity, marketing, reviews, editorial, and more. We'll share our own insights; present research and analysis; offer Q&As, podcasts and surveys; and open topics up for roundtable discussions with young publishers and industry veterans alike.

There are a lot of great blogs out there for those at the executive level in publishing, and they all offer valuable insights on the industry and ideas for the future. But we are the future. With that in mind, Publishing Trendsetter is, in the words of our fearless leader Elisabeth Watson, "where the brilliant publishing minds of tomorrow are today."

I'm so excited to hear from you on Publishing Trendsetter. Click the banner above to go check it out!