by Jane
I don’t know why I still find it astonishing when publishers tell me they are "only looking for big books," that mid-list titles aren’t on their radar. How do they know what’s going to be a big book?
This last week, when I called an editor to follow up on a proposal I sent him--by a Pulitzer Prize winning writer no less--he told me how much he had enjoyed reading it. He then said that the new president of his company had told all of the editors there that, for the time being at least, all they should be looking for was "big, front list" titles. But how do they know what "big front list" is?
Think about it, there are literally hundreds of books that were seriously underestimated by publishers but that turned into huge bestsellers. Here is a brief list that I hope that editor and his new boss will note:
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom
THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant
SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM by Uwem Akpan
COD: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE FISH THAT SAVED THE WORLD by Mark Kurlansky
THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini
SIMPLE ABUNDANCE by Sarah Ban Breathnach
EAT, PRAY, LOVE by Elizabeth Gilbert
THE MEMORY KEEPER’S DAUGHTER by Kim Edwards
THE SHACK by William P. Young
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester
LONGITUDE by Dava Sobel
THE NANNY DIARIES by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
THE WORLD WITHOUT US by Alan Weisman
SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand
Can you think of more?
Posts
You might add THE LOVELY BONES by Alice Sebold.
ReplyDeleteWould Harry Potter apply? First U.S. print run of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was 50K (albeit for $100,000 advance).
ReplyDeleteTHE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
ReplyDeleteThe Color of Water - James McBride
ReplyDeleteThe Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd... Both were wonderful. :-)
A WRINKLE IN TIME, by Madeline L'Engle, almost didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteThe Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.
ReplyDeleteI think these qualify as underestimated, except maybe Snow Falling on Cedars since Guterson’s short stories revealed his potential, but who expected it to do that well.
ReplyDeleteSusan Hinton’s The Outsiders
Jay McInernay's Bright Lights, Big City
Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things
Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes
Melinda Hayes's Mother of Pearl
Jhumpa Lahiri's The Interpreter of Maladies
Nicholas Sparks's The Notebook
Janet Fitch's White Oleander
David Guterson's Snow Fall on Cedars
Laurie Notaro’s Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club
Agents do the heavy lifting these days. Editors must step up, trust their ability to spot the odds, and read a MS that a trusted agent recommends.
Notwithstanding publisher guidelines, a publisher has no more use for an editor who does not strike gold than for a mid-list book. And you cannot find gold without getting your pan out and wading into the stream.
If editors do not read submissions for good books, how can they hope to succeed? Will all of these front-list books drop into their laps? Yeah. That happens.
Maybe the art of editing a good book to greatness is lost to our generation. Maybe it is that readers will only pay to read a dozen living writers. Time will tell. But if either is true then many editors will soon be looking for work.
Marty, I couldn't agree with you more. And this incredible fixation on frontlist bestsellers will eventually do away with backlist as well. And backlist is the spine of our business.
ReplyDeleteBill, I think Harry Potter absolutely applies. If I remember correctly, it took a while to even get a U.S. print run, and had started off with relatively small print runs and a low advance in the U.K.
ReplyDelete