Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple joined us for a Media Beat interview this week. In today’s installment, he shared advice for aspiring writers hoping to pitch his literary press.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “All of us book publishers these days are inundated with submissions–so many people are writing and there is a great diversity of voices being published. But the flip-side of that is that it is crowded. I think the best way to reach Akashic (or really any publishing company or literary agent for that matter) is to do an end-around–to find someone who we know and trust to recommend you.”
Below we’ve included more interview excerpts with Temple–a publisher and Girls Against Boys bassist. Visit Akashic Books to explore the publisher’s long and varied list.
Temple concluded: “There is the standard submission process, but if Nina Revoyr, our beloved novelist, sends me an email that says ‘I just read this debut novel by a wonderful young woman and you’ve got to read it,’ then that book will shoot up to the top of our slush pile very quickly. Traditional publishers rely on literary agents, and we do work with some wonderful agents, but we also find a lot of authors directly–authors don’t need agents to submit to us. We do like to connect to authors on a direct, one-to-one level in addition to working with agents.”
Part One: ‘We in the Publishing Business Need to Complain Less’
Part Two: ‘Authors Don’t Need Agents To Submit To Us’
Part Three: ‘You Can’t Keep All Your Eggs in One Basket’
You can also watch this video on Mediabistro’s YouTube channel.