Hey Editors! Less Max Perkins, More Billy Mays

By Neal 

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We’ve beaten this drum before, so just a quick summary. The publishing industry has yet to take full advantage of one of the greatest opportunities offered by social networking tools: the ability to communicate one’s passion for great books—in the aggregate and on a case-by-case basis—to their potential readers. We’d love to see more editors launching in-house blogs and twittering about the projects they’re working on, building upon the foundation established by colleagues like Diana Gill at Eos or Lou Anders at Pyr. Especially in the realm of literary fiction, and this speaks to the basic rationale that justifies creating a Nan A. Talese or an Amy Einhorn Books or… take your pick.

Setting aside the “all is vanity” argument, let’s consider the notion these imprints are intended to signal that Your Esteemed Editor is a person of extraordinarily keen judgment, that we can pick up any of her books and be assured of the satisfaction we shall find within. Why, then, do so few readers know who any of these people are? If the name on the spine is intended to signal somebody (book reviewers?), why can’t it be intended to signal everybody?

Here are the standard arguments against this idea, as they were presented to us last week:

But: If people already do care about the name on the label in some cases (like genre fiction), why can’t they come to care in other cases (literary fiction)?

And that’s where the late Billy Mays fits into the discussion.


billymays-maxperkins.jpgBilly Mays is the perfect counter to the idea that consumers only care about the product: People chose to buy what he had to offer because he was relentless in his passionate enthusiasm for each and every product. They saw what he stood for, they saw that he stood for it consistently, and they trusted him. (Even consumers who laughed at his on-screen behavior were willing to give OxiClean a try on tough stains.) He was they very thing many in the publishing industry believe is integral to maintaining a successful ongoing relationship with readers: a curator.

Sure, if you’re an editor, and you’re working with Jennifer Weiner, or Jodi Picoult, or John Irving, you don’t need to step out in front and make a case for them—but let’s be honest: How many authors do you have whose names are strong enough to carry the load on their own? Everybody else you acquired needs an advocate, and you’re well positioned to be one. You are, after all, the thread that ties them all together.

So here’s what we’d like to see from book editors: lots more direct engagement. You’ve got a great book? A bunch of great books? You need to be out every day, like Hyperion‘s Brenda Copeland or Angela James of Samhain Publishing or HarperStudio‘s Debbie Stier (yes, we know she’s primarily in marketing, but she’s started acquiring and editing, too), getting in conversations with readers—finding out what they love, telling them what you love, introducing them to your authors… building trust day in and day out. Do that often enough, and your word will carry weight with “regular readers.”

(We linked to the Twitter accounts of the people we cited in the last paragraph, but that’s not the only option. Get on Facebook. Jump into the discussion forums on Goodreads. Start a blog. And so on.)

Now, strictly speaking, the exact parallel to Billy Mays in the book publishing world wouldn’t be Nan A. Talese, it’d be… oh, let’s say Jeff Bezos. And you could even say that all this endorsing books and persuading people to read them is a book critic’s job, not an editor’s. But you see where we’re going with this, right? A book’s success is too important to entrust to somebody who doesn’t have a stake in it. Editors are already fierce enough advocates to have persuaded their bosses to let them acquire the books in the first place; why not let them keep on advocating?

(Also: OK, we cheated: We don’t really want to see less Max Perkins—although, like Richard Curtis, we could do without the more precious evocations of his name. After all, if publishers are going to encourage their editors to present themselves publicly as discerning book lovers, it would be best if they did in fact have good judgment in literary matters. But that wouldn’t have made for a catchy headline.)