Track Changes: Selling Your Book (Part 2)

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In the second look at how books get sold, former Little, Brown and Delacorte senior editor Kate Sullivan, Senior Content Development Manager for New Leaf Literary & Media, walks us through all the steps an editor takes between receiving an agent’s pitch and signing a deal memo to acquire a book. Acquisitions meetings, P&L statements, and TI sheets, oh my!

This episode is brought to you by The Slow Novel Lab, a six-week creativity and writing course from Printz-winning novelist Nina LaCour. For the summer session, beginning June 7, Nina will donate 50% of profits to Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization working with underserved communities. Learn more and sign up for the Slow Novel Lab here.

Catch up on the series so far:

Episode 1: Publishing 101

Episode 2: Agents: Who Are They, What Do They Do, And How Do You Get One?

Bonus Episode: Publishing in the time of COVID

Episode 3: Selling Your Book (Part 1)

The following agents were interviewed for this episode:

We meet Jennifer de Leon as she prepares for the release of her debut young adult novel, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, on August 4. Though Jennifer has been writing for years, she quickly learns that there’s a lot about Capital-P-Publishing that she doesn’t know. (Hear her First Draft interview here.)

Kate Sullivan is the Senior Content Development Manager for New Leaf Literary & Media. For 13 years, Kate worked in the editorial departments of three separate Big Five publishers, eventually becoming a senior editor.

Discussed in this episode:

• Faye Bender, partner and founder at The Book Group, is Jenn’s agent.

• Caitlyn Dlouhy, publisher of Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books at Simon & Schuster

• Holly Root, literary agent and founder of Root Literary

• Seth Fishman, literary agent at The Gernert Company

• Chris Colfer, actor and author of Land of Stories

• BookScan

More Information:

• “The Book P&L: How Publishers Make Decisions About What to Publish,” by Jane Friedman

• “What Book Editors Do” by Nathan Bransford

• “Publishing Myth: Editors Don’t Edit” by Nathan Bransford; good follow: a Q&A with Peter Ginna, who has 30 years of book editing experience and put together the collection What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing

• “PubCrawl Podcast: Publishing 101 Submission and Acquisition” featuring Sarah Jae-Jones and Kelly Van Sant

• “How to Handle an Editor’s Call With an Offer” by Kristin Nelson, founder of Nelson Literary Agency and one of the agents we spoke to in the Bonus Episode of Track Changes (Publishing in the Time of COVID)

• “First Book: Acquiring Minds” on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour blog

• “The Waiting is the Hardest Part” by Joanna Mackenzie on the Nelson Literary Pub Rants blog

 

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Track Changes is produced by Hayley Hershman. Zan Romanoff is the story editor. The music was composed by Dan Bailey, and the logo was designed by Collin Keith.