Career Planning in the Wild, Wild West

Sandra Bishop was invited in 2009 to join MacGregor Literary, an agency consistently listed among the top five dealmakers on Publishers Marketplace and was named ACFW's Agent of the Year in 2010. Prior to agenting, Sandra worked in the marketing department of a major CBA publishing company, and made a living as a freelance writer for nearly a decade.

Career Planning in the Wild, Wild West

While on an agent’s panel at ACFW in September, I sat next to Lee Hough, one of the smartest and hardest working agents in the business. While we all fielded the typical questions we get as panelists, someone asked a question about the current state of affairs in publishing, and how agents are faring.

I tend to take a positive, entrepreneurial, and philosophical approach when answering questions about the challenges of publishing.

Lee, however, hit the mark when he said “It’s like the wild, wild west out there right now.” His summation about the new landscape of publishing has really stuck with me. In fact, it’s a new constant on the landscape of my daily work life these days — right alongside MacGregor Literary’s long-standing company philosophy that “good is always better than fast.”

As positive as I try to remain, I’ll admit, it’s felt exceptionally difficult to place books and find homes for authors these past few months. Even with the successes I’ve enjoyed this year in spite of it all, it feels like I’m on more uneven ground than ever. And I know agents aren’t the only ones who feel this way.

Marketers are constantly scrambling to orient themselves to what it takes to get readers to buy in a noisy online environment. Sales teams are faced with succeeding in spite of the literal crumbling of their brick & mortar customer base. Publicists are being asked to do more with less. Editors are overworked. Authors are no longer just invited by publishers to help market their books, but are expected to do so. In fact more and more, the strength of an author’s proposal is weighed as much for the type and number of readers they bring to the table as it is for the quality of their writing. Maybe more.

Top that off with the consideration that authors are not only competing with other authors for shelf space, but with the reality that booklovers are so easily lured away from the rewards of leisure reading by endorphin fixes that pummeling pigs with birds, or outrunning evil demon monkeys can deliver far more instantly.

If I think about it too hard, it can start to feel fruitless to spend time and energy building a serious novelist’s career in a time when e-books have flooded the market and caused so much confusion over what is good and what resembles cow dung. But, I have faith in my ability to help sort out the good from the bad for publishers and authors, and I figure that’s worth something. A lot, actually.

Still, I’m sure I’m not the only agent who feels like it’s us in the hot seat these days. We’re constantly having to urge our authors who want to go the traditional publishing route to be patient and wait for the right timing. It’s not always easy to encourage authors to continue to wait for decisions from acquisition boards – decisions that seem to be taking so much longer than ever – when the seemingly instant brass ring of self-publishing is flashing in the corner of our collective eye.

E-publishers have an edge, of course, when it comes to delivering content at rapid speed. But I believe it’s the new frontier for them as well. In the end – finding readers and making the grade still comes down to effective marketing, word of mouth, and content.

The good news on this front is that where we’ve tended to take an either/or approach, I do think the two are starting to merge. I’m excited to be talking with publishers about how authors can do both successfully. We’re talking more and more about how market savvy, and marketing savvy, authors can help publishers lead the way.

While I continue to take the long view and keep my eye on the horizon, as we always try to do here at MacGregor Literary, I’ll admit, Lee’s perspective gave me a huge pick-me-up when I needed it, and actually has me riding a little higher in the saddle these days.

Go ahead. Call me an optimist. (Or, I suppose you could call me a cowgirl. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings — I’ve got a hand tooled leather belt with my name on it, a silver buckle, pointy black boots, and everything.)

I’m excited about authors who are in this for the long haul and are willing to ride on rough ground. This new territory – Lee’s “wild, wild west” is most definitely not for the faint of heart – and, honestly, that suits me just fine.

NR: From Lee's CaringBridge site, he wrote on Nov 4^th, "Two weeks ago, however, my latest MRI showed a new cancer spot." He goes on to report the cancer is only in one spot and along the scar line where he was operated on before – meaning that it’s accessible again, and they’re catching it early. Lee's journey is one of strong faith and a powerful testimony. I encourage you to go to his CaringBridge site and read it for yourself. And please, keep Lee in your prayers.

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How Editors Make a Difference ~ Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Life Support, Bloodstream, Gravity, and The Surgeon. Tess lives with her family in Maine. (PHOTO CREDIT: Paul D'Innocenzo)

How Editors Make a Difference

Tess Gerritsen (reprinted from Murderati)


It's called a death spiral, and I was in one. The year was 2000, and I had just turned in my fifth thriller, The Surgeon. In the U.S., my first four books had hit bestseller lists. In the UK my career was, if not dead, barely twitching. In publishing, "death spiral" describes the steady decline in an author's sales over time, a decline that's almost impossible to reverse. With each new release, the orders are smaller. With smaller orders there's less visibility and poorer distribution, leading inevitably to even poorer sales.


Eventually, no bookstores will order your books. And no publisher wants you as their author.


That's the position I was in back in 2000. My sales had all but crashed and burned in the UK. I'd already failed with two different publishers, and now no one there wanted to touch me. The Surgeon, it appeared, would not be released in the UK at all.


Then a plucky new editor at Transworld Publishers picked up The Surgeon and decided she had to acquire the book. The author's track record was dreadful, getting the book into stores would be a battle, but she was damn well going to do it. She forced (that's the description I heard!) all her colleagues to read the manuscript, and now they were getting excited too. She was the cheerleader, the taskmaster, the evangelist for The Surgeon. I was only vaguely aware of her efforts at the time; after all, I'd failed miserably in the UK before, and my hopes were no higher this time. She sent me the cover design that she was so excited about: a sink drain with splashes of blood.


I just didn't get it. She assured me it would work in the UK market. Anyway, what did I know about the UK market? I was already deemed a failure there, and I was sure to be a failure again. When the book was released in hardcover in the UK, I paid little attention because it was just too depressing to think about.


But this editor wouldn't leave me alone. She kept sending me cheery emails and sales figures. While The Surgeon wasn't hitting any bestseller lists, it wasn't a complete flop. The corpse of my UK career actually took a breath -- if only a shallow one.


The following year, with the publication of The Apprentice in hardcover and The Surgeon in paperback, Transworld invited me for a UK book tour. It was the first time I'd been asked overseas, and I still have one vividly depressing memory of a group booksigning I did in London.


I was sitting next to a bestselling crime author who had a line of fans to buy her book. One man came with a whole box of books for that author to sign. Then he looked at me, shrugged, and said: "I have no idea who you are." He bought one of my paperbacks, but I could see it was only out of sheer pity.


The Surgeon, in paperback, miraculously made it to the top-ten bestseller list.


In the years that followed, as my UK sales continued to climb, this editor and the entire Transworld team never stopped flogging my books. They continually re-packaged the series. They brought me over again and again for tours. They invested in publicity and promotions.


In 2006, I finally hit #1 on the London Times paperback bestseller list with Vanish. And last year, I hit #1 on the hardcover list with The Killing Place.


Transworld not only breathed life back into this old corpse, they got it up and walking and then sprinting ahead of the pack. It demonstrates that even a career that looks dead can be reanimated -- given the right team with the right book. It's a lesson that authors and publishers need to take to heart. If an author writes great books, even if his sales are moribund, he deserves a second look, a second chance. Because he just might be your next #1 bestseller.


Lately, there's been a lot of talk about how authors don't really need publishers anymore because we can self-publish with e-books. Hey, we can do it all ourselves, make more money in the long run, and have complete control over our destinies. To some extent it's true; we can publish our own books. The question is, can we publish our own books well?


(Even in the world of self-publishing, publishers will still play a vital role as gatekeepers. Spam now clogs online booksellers with 99 cent e-books that are either junk or blatantly plagiarized. A publisher's seal of approval can help separate the worthwhile books from the fake ones.)


Over my twenty-five career, I've worked with some truly gifted editors. Every single one has been a pleasure to work with, and my books are all the better because of their input. True, a self-published author could hire a private editor to help polish a manuscript, but the fact is, editors do a lot more than edit. They advocate. They strategize. They even harangue, all on your behalf.


And sometimes, they become your dear friends. This is something we don't talk enough about: how important friendships are in the publishing business. It's not all about sales figures and bean counting. Long after our business associations end, long after we stop needing each other for deals, the friendships remain.


Last month, it was announced that my wonderful UK editor, Selina Walker, is leaving Transworld to take an impressive new job as publisher for Century and Arrow Books. I guess that's what happens when you do a smashing job -- you get promoted. I'm thrilled for her, of course, but I'm also sad that she's leaving. She was the one who pulled me out of my UK death spiral. And that, I will never forget.

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Change We DO Believe In

I use my blog, “Reading, Writing, and the Stuff In-Between,” to interview Inspirational novelists and introduce their latest releases to my readers. As most interviewing bloggers do, I tend to use a set of questions that doesn’t vary significantly from author to author. The answers are what vary, since they reflect so many different viewpoints and experiences.

Still, each month I have a particular question just for that month’s authors. Sometimes I ask something very specific about their craft, sometimes about their joys or frustrations, sometimes about their readers. Not too long ago, I asked my featured novelists about the Inspirational publishing market. “What, if anything,” I asked, “would you change about the Inspirational fiction industry?” Maybe you’ll identify with some of their answers.

What would you change about the Inspirational Fiction Industry?

I think most novelists would just as soon write, write, write, and leave the promotional efforts to someone more talented in that department. Ronie Kendig, author of Digitalis (Barbour), says that, since the Inspirational market “ . . . is a dynamic, constantly changing industry, I don’t know that I’d change anything. Or perhaps I’d lift the burden of marketing from the author’s shoulders and return it to the marketing department. To me, this is like asking a dog owner to be able to perform surgery on his/her pet simply because it’s their pet.” I so agree. I’ve definitely seen my “pets” thrive more from the able efforts of my publishing houses’ marketing efforts than from anything I’ve been able to accomplish.

Part of the equation for the success of our novels includes shelf placement in bookstores. Mary Connealy, author of Sharpshooter in Petticoats (Barbour), says, “I love the Inspirational fiction industry. I think it’s the most exciting genre in fiction today, expanding in all directions, trying new things, reaching new audiences.” Still, she says, “I think my books are for everybody. I wish somehow I could get them in the general romance section and the Inspirational fiction section.

"That’s tricky.” Maureen Lang, author of Springtime of the Spirit (Tyndale), agrees. “I wish bookstores would place our books in the fiction section in their bookstores. If they’d like to set it apart as Inspirational fiction, that’s okay—I don’t want a reader to be surprised by Christian content, either. But so often Inspirational fiction is set far away from the rest of fiction, barely marked or under Religious sections without a clue to a browser that our books are even available. It’s so sad when I receive a note from a reader that starts out saying, ‘I had no idea there was such a thing as Inspirational fiction!’”

The higher-selling novelists in the Inspirational industry—those who have actually experienced placement on the famed bestseller lists—can have an unique take on how our books are presented to the buying public. New York Times bestselling novelist, Terri Blackstock, author of Vicious Cycle (Zondervan), says, “I wish there were more Christian stores that reported to the New York Times so that all of our fiction could compete with the best-selling secular books. In the past, none of our Christian book store sales were counted. To make the NYT list, you had to have stellar sales in the secular stores. But in the last few months, a couple of the Christian chains announced that they are going to be reporting their sales. That’s a major breakthrough, and it’s because the New York Times recognizes that Christian books are selling very well.”

That’s good news for all of us.

Still other authors focused their answers to my question on the content of the books themselves, and the restrictions novelists may experience in subject matter. Janelle Mowery, author of When All My Dreams Come True (Harvest House), says, “I’d like [Inspirational fiction] to be perceived as good entertainment rather than another means to preach. I’ve heard people say they avoid Inspirational fiction for that very reason.”

Gail Gaymer Martin, author of A Dad of His Own (Love Inspired), adds, “Although some publishers are becoming less conservative, I find that sometimes the stories I want to tell are bound by restrictions that don’t reflect real life. Christians are sinful and make mistakes. I want to write real and deal with characters who struggle with all of the life situations that so many of us face day to day. We can’t do this if we are restricted by too many rules.” In the short time I’ve been publishing, I can say I’ve experienced a bit more of what Martin craves. Just today one of my readers thanked me for using two divorced characters as my hero and heroine. I have my publisher to thank for allowing me to “get real” about an unfortunate but true sector of the reading public.

I ask all of my interviewees to imagine their novels in film version. When answering my question about the Inspirational novel industry Mary Ellis, author of Abigail’s New Hope (Harvest House), said, “I would encourage filmmakers to make more wholesome, family-oriented movies. Other than animated films, there are few good movies that aren’t loaded with violence, sex, and/or foul language.” Amen to that, Mary, and we Inspirational novelists could point the filmmakers to plenty of good material to choose from.

As Mary Connealy said, the Inspirational publishing industry is expanding and trying new ways to reach readers. Since every player in this particular market has the same ultimate goal, I like to think some of the above author suggestions might be given consideration. After all, if any wing of the publishing industry has a prayer of succeeding, ours does.

Unforgettable

Rachel Stanhope tries to see the good in everyone.

But Josh Reegan tests even her good graces when they meet outside her Arlington, Virginia, dance studio in 1951. He's attractive, yet his cynicism and cockiness are hard to tolerate.

A journalist and former World War II Air Force pilot, Josh considers ballroom dancing a frivolous waste of time. Although Rachel's confident nature is a refreshing challenge, he wouldn't tangle with her if his newspaper hadn't assigned him to cover her studio's competition in New York City.

Between the melodrama of ballroom antics and the real drama of political corruption, Rachel and Josh have their hands full. The last thing either of them expects is mutual need and support. But once they stop dancing around the truth, the results are unforgettable.

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