I've worked hard for you, but not hard enough...
Over the last year, I've printed interviews with scores of writers, ranging from first-time novelists to publishing veterans. But until today, I've never interviewed an editor.
I would like to introduce you to Sam Douglas, an associate editor at Picador. His firm has published critically acclaimed novels like Michael Cunningham's The Hours and memoirs like Running with Sissors by Augusten Burroughs.
For the rest of the week, Sam Douglas is answering our questions about the mysterious world of book editors. Welcome to my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions.
In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...
Jason Boog:
What kind of books do you look for? How many proposals do you receive every month?
Sam Douglas:
I'm looking mostly for literary fiction (a term that has almost no meaning outside the industry, but has become essential for us.
I'd also be glad to publish any nonfiction book that took some sort of unorthodox angle to a familiar subject. A good example is a book Picador published before I arrived called Voices From Chernobyl, a collection of accounts, first-hand, from people directly affected by the meltdown and the fallout.
Being fairly new to the business, I probably get fewer proposals than most editors at this point, maybe 20 a month from agents. Then there are the unagented ones, which range from somewhat viable (very rare) to completely wacky (arriving daily by email.)
Note: If serialized interviews annoy you, just click here to read the whole interview as it is collected this week...
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» Interviewing Sam Douglas: Real Advice from a Real Fiction Editor from ThePublishingSpot
As my Valentine's Day gift to you, I retrieved an old interview from the dusty archives of The Publishing Spot. Way back in 2006, I interviewed Sam Douglas--an associate editor at Picador.Picador has published critically acclaimed novels like Paul ... [Read More]
Tracked on: February 14, 2008 11:42 AM | Permalink to Trackback