Writing about books and placing them in their market - the publisher's perspective
Notes from a presentation by John Grindrod, Advertising and Promotions Manager for Flamingo (HarperCollins), at the Branching Out Core Training Day, 10 February, 2000, at Wandsworth Library.
In a publishing company, talking about the book, defining it and placing it, begins very early on, when an editor has to grab enough attendtion and enthusiasm from a number of people, including fellow editors, and sales and marketing colleagues. And it has to be enough attention to be able to take the book on.
The task is more difficult with new writing, first novels. Your colleagues start from a position of ignorance and sometimes scepticism. So you must put yourselves in their shoes. Why should I support this book? Why should I be interested in it? There are numerous tactics, as follows, all of which amount to defining the book, explaining its reason for being in the universe. There are several tactics to employ.
1 Place it in terms of quality
Within Flamingo we've actually only got two placements - up the market literary and literary commercial. Both have equal currency in a literary list. Examples of both are:
Literary commercial - Sebastian Faulks
Up the market - Penelope FitzgeraldThe characteristic in common is fine writing
2 Compare it to something recognisable
The book is an unknown quantity. So, for instance, with Judy Budnitz's If I Told You Once, we pulled in the Angela Carter comparison for starters, and then drew in some comparable books - Julia Darling's Crocodile Soup and Cynthia Ozeki's My Year of Meat. The reader who liked that will like this.... (Click here to view the publisher's advance information sheet for If I Told You Once.)
People often laugh at outlandish comparisons and crossovers, and I think if you do them (and everyone does) then to do it successfully y ou have to be as exact as possible. Andy maybe a little bit bold. We dragged in the Brothers Grimm too. Hansel and Gretel with... somebody mentioned 'Narnia with sex' but we kept that one quiet!
With The Restraint of Beasts, we really were on unknown ground. There didn't seem to be any book to compare it to at all. So we concocted a complicated sequence of references which amused everybody but actually were spot on. (Click here to see the publisher's advance information sheet for The Restraint of Beasts.)
3 Pick up on trends
This makes life a lot easier. And speaks saleability and recognition. As we speak there will be editors galore presenting books to their acquisitions panels saying, 'Well, it's just like Magnus Mills.' But we have to be careful to come in on the trend at the right time. Journalists writing confessional books, drug novels.... Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now. Much better to set the trend that's about taking risks.
4 Stick your neck out
Especially with the unknown quantity. Don't be dull about it! Be a bit off the wall (see the descriptions of The Restraint of Beasts on the advance information sheet.) Put a bit of your own personality into how you describe the book. Use interesting language. It's about so much more than filling in forms and making the figures work.
5 Look at the whole picture
The author, the context. It's about more than whether the author has a pretty face. I hate that! It's about whether the author is interesting (and, really, all authors are.) Magnus Mills was a bus driver. Maeve Brennan, author of The Springs of Affection, ended up a baglady after being totally glamorous in her youth. These things aren't essential, but they help.
6 Other things that help
Judy Budnitz had been published in the US - a collection of short stories. The acclaim for that collection helped us prove that she was a writer of quality. The acquisition panel didn't have to completely take our word for it.
An attention-grabbing postcard produced by
HarperCollins to publicise The Restraint of Beasts, by Magnus Mills
Writing about books - a practical exercise
After the presentation by John Grindrod, Branching Out librarians were asked to write short pieces about a book they'd read. They then had to pass these pieces to another Branching Out librarian to be edited. Librarians were then asked to suggest the positioning in the marketplace for the books.
Attached are some of the results of this exercise.
Click here to see a piece written about Stella Duffy's Eating Cake. This shows not only how the piece was fine-tuned by the 'editor' (the second piece is the final version) but also has notes about the positioning of the book.
Click here to see the first draft of a piece about Mark Merlin's Pyrrhus. Click here to see how the editing process has sharpened and tightened the original text.
Click here to view a piece about A Scientific Romance, by Ronald Wright, and see how the principles explained by John Grindrod of placing the book in the market have been employed.
