Amy Novesky and me, on the editor-author relationship
In 2017, for a publishing workshop entitled Decisions, Decisions, Decisions, I created a set of slides to illustrate a little-discussed advantage to traditional publishing: how a successful partnership with an editor can, in turn, breed more success. The last slide of the presentation looked like this:
What this slide shows is that in 2017 (to fully understand why and how, you’ll have to attend my next happy hour, details to come), eight out of nine books I had published had come about because of relationships formed with my first editorial team at Chronicle Books (pink). And you could argue that I would not have had the chance to form those relationships at all—with publisher, editor, and two editorial assistants—if Ruby’s Wish had not been pulled out of the slush pile by my first editor, Amy Novesky. Two more books were then (in 2017) under consideration at different publishers (orange), again because of my relationship with Amy.
Nor did the advantage of this relationship go all one way. I happened to grow up to be a publisher. As Head Goose of Goosebottom Books, I published nineteen titles, and Amy was the editor of fourteen of them.
Needless to say, Amy and I work well together. We relate well on other levels, too. But what does the first mean, and why does the second matter? We’ll be exploring these questions in a frank and fun evaluation of our twenty-two-year, author-editor relationship next Wednesday, September 9th, 5pm-6:30pm, to celebrate among other things the launch of our latest collaboration, Get Up, Elizabeth!
Our conversation will be moderated by Summer Dawn Laurie, herself once a Chronicle Books and Tricycle Press editor, and now children’s specialist at Books, Inc., who are kindly co-hosting this event. So if you have any questions about children’s picture book publishing, on just this one Zoom you’ll have three people to ask.
Editor Amy Novesky
We’ll also be celebrating the launch of Amy’s book, Girl on a Motorcycle
Children’s book specialist, Summer Dawn Laurie
You can watch our three-way discussion and following Q&A here.
And you can order Get Up, Elizabeth, Girl on a Motorcycle, Ruby’s Wish, or any of the fourteen Real Princesses and Dastardly Dames books Amy and I have worked on together here. Just search by title or author and include the name(s) you’d like the book personalized to in your Order Comment when at checkout. Here’s your chance to whittle down that Christmas list — but as always, no purchase necessary. Just come and have a drink.
Speaking of a chat and a drink, if you missed the eye-opening conversation with Jody Gehrman about genre-jumping and productivity (she gives three actionable tips that some of you have already told me are working!), here’s where you’ll find the video.
Some other opportunities before I sign off to put on my party rags:
The Mendocino Theater Company are looking for submissions of one-minute radio plays. You do not have to be a resident of Mendocino County to submit! If this sounds like fun, you’ll find more information here.
Writing Day Workshops are organizing mini online conferences around the U.S. It’s not very clear to me how the regionality works now that these conferences are online and anyone can register for any or all of them. So, the best use of this opportunity, I think, would be to turn up to the conference that your dream agent will be at. These conferences focus on the “getting published” end of the game, with thirty to fifty agents in attendance at each conference. More information, here.
Hope to see you at my book’s birthday party on Wednesday, September 9, 5pm-6:30pm!
In any case, happy writing!
Shirin