There is a mysterious magic embedded in the mythos of the publishing industry: the ability to pick successful books. I was recently asked, “You say ‘no’ so often, how do you know when to say ‘yes?’”
I wish I could claim that every agent and publisher have a secret formula we consult to know what will sell. Ask any group of us for that secret and we will all laugh because there is no “secret.” We have all picked winners, but we have also picked ones that didn’t work as well. However, there are some things we do rely upon when making our choices.
Experience
Soren Kierkegaard wrote that “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Such is the nature of experience. We build and learn from our mistakes and our successes. The longer I’m in the business, the signs of potential success are easier to read.
My first few months as an acquisitions editor were not stellar. I still have some of the proposals I presented to the Bethany House Publishers committee back in late ’92 and early ’93. It amazes me how patient Carol Johnson, my boss, was in those days. Eventually I got the hang of it and began finding and picking successful books.
I believe a part of that experience comes with being widely read. Experience isn’t only having a resume with decades of years listed on it. The knowledge that comes with considerable reading can help anyone, of any age, get a handle on what works and what doesn’t.
The more you read, the better you know what is being published. Being aware of the marketplace is a huge leg up on the competition. In other words, don’t pitch a new book idea with a title like The Fourteenth Wing or Jesus Came Calling or Hungry for Games. Or don’t write in a genre in which you have no knowledge or understanding. (I once asked an author, who was writing a thriller, “What author is your favorite in this genre and compare your work to theirs for me.” Their answer was “Oh, I don’t read thrillers. I don’t like them.”
Experience, in a sense, comes by living in the room where the action takes place. Living and breathing the industry, reading or sampling hundreds of books in all genres, both fiction and nonfiction. After a while, what was an impressionistic painting becomes still-life realism.
Instinct
Instinct is not something that is easily taught. Did you know that the same editor who discovered Stephen King is the same editor who discovered John Grisham? (His name is Bill Thompson.) There is an innate skill that helps with picking the best. I can’t explain it. But there are times when you just know. This writer’s work is gasp-worthy. Or you sense in them the work ethic that is going to reap huge benefits in the long run.
Think of it in terms of a baseball scout trolling the dusty fields in the backwoods of America and other countries. They watch hundreds, even thousands, of players; and their job is to find the best and brightest and give them a chance to be a part of the big stage someday.
So What? How Does That Help Me?
This is a legitimate question because it may not necessarily help you with pitching your book …. at first glance. But actually, it speaks directly to each writer who is working toward publication.
- Be aware of the marketplace.
- Read widely, beyond your comfort zone.
- Try to figure out why that book is a bestseller and the other one on the same topic isn’t.
- Let others teach you.
- Trust your gut. Sometimes that instinct is simple self-delusion, but often it can tell you that “this is the one.”
When ‘Impression: Sunrise’
was first seen by Louis Leroy,
he rubbed his jaded critic-eyes
and then sought to employ
his gift for sharp sarcastic speech
in a lengthy written scoff
that the people he might reach
on reading, might turn off
any appreciation
that this was dawning of the Great;
when he said it gave sensation
of wall-paper’s embryonic state,
he helped launch the love we have today
for the work of Claude Monet.
Andrew, if this is the wrong place and the wrong way to do it, I apologize to you, to Steve and everybody, but…
I want very much to use one of your impromptu poems from here as a chapter epigraph in a novel. It is perfect for what the chapter and the rest of the book is about, and nothing else comes close.
How can we connect?
Gordon, absolutely, use it! I’m honoured!
Gordon, a PS…my blog is linked to my name as it appears on the comment header.
I love this article so much! I’m glad my mother encouraged eclectic book tastes in me from a young age– my own personal shelf right now has everything from T.S. Eliot’s poetry to Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, a hodgepodge of serial equine fiction books (anyone remember Thoroughbred, or Phantom Stallion?) to classic horse story collections from all the way back in the fifties and forties, indie-published English light novels, historical fiction, crime fiction, contemporary, writer books, animal behavior books, even a few books on knitting. And that’s just the two shelves I have in my bedroom. I’ve got a walk-in closet’s worth of other books that I’ve only barely dipped into.
I’ve also been on an biography kick lately online and I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy a good biography (Charles Colson’s Born Again was simply masterful, loved that book so much, and the audio was superb).
For me, books are essential to my storytelling process, because I always start with the comp titles, books with elements I want to replicate. My most recently finished project started with me spewing out the idea to choose my favorite element from each of my top ten favorite books, and by the end of the day I had a rather fledged superhero dystopian concept (perhaps one of my strongest yet). I recently finished The Outsiders and would love to write a book some day in a similar vein. Even nonfiction has become a part of my storytelling process, especially since I write equine fiction. I’ve yet to find an equine nonfiction book from a creationist/biblical worldview, and one day I’d love to write a nonfiction horse book from that standpoint. Whenever I don’t know what to write next, I start reading. Sooner of later, a book idea is gonna smack me across the face, and I already have a comp title built in!
Good morning, interesting read.
You mentioned, “signs of potential success”. Can you please identify some of them?
Many thanks, have a blessed day!
Jeannie
Great post Steve, and a terrific interview with Bill Thompson is the frosting on the cake.
Steve, if I may be allowed another comment, I’d be grateful. A lot to think about, of late.
My life’s a kind of manuscript,
the protag and the plot are flawed,
the pages are ink-stained and ripped;
how can I offer this to God?
I sometimes tried to do what’s right,
but did not hold intent for long.
Partied hard and got real tight,
and then the whole darn thing went wrong.
Can’t re-write the pages past,
and I’m afraid to go to sleep,
afraid each night could be the last,
and so I pray the Lord will keep
my repentance in the fore
as acquisitions Editor.
I feel every word of this, Andrew!
Pam, I’m so glad it spoke to you!
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was my inspiration. I knew one day I had to write something that was like no other book. Yes, I know publishers want to possess something comparable to a best-seller yet different. Seems like an impossible ask but I can guess where they’re coming from. Anyway, I’ve finally written it and am waiting patiently (?) for a special agent to recognize it. . . and be willing to point out where I can work on it to polish it to a “çan’t – put – downable state!”
A friend recommended the Netflix movie and I adored it! So I bought the book, having no idea it was written in letter form. I adored that, too!
When I read the backmatter and learned the author passed away before the book released, I wept.
Then I wept again when I realized I’d never read anything else from her again.
If the work universally applies to mankind it will sell.
Great post, Steve. I make myself read outside my preferred genre and don’t regret it a bit! I was delightfully surprised when I found books/authors I thought I would hate!
So many of us follow your advice and still aren’t “successful,” so my thought is that some of us just don’t have an engaging voice. And that’s something so elusive and personal we can’t develop it. When I get a new book by a favorite author, I can read the first three sentences and I’m smiling. Why?? I don’t even know where the story is going! But I’m engaged from almost the beginning.
Then I’ve read wildly popular books and think to myself, how in the world did this get past an editor let alone so popular??
I agree there are things we can do to give ourselves a boost, but there’s pretty much nothing we can do to figure out readers. They are so random! haha!