Every Writer Should Go Through An Agent: Publishing Advice From A Fiction Editor

You would never stick your baby in an envelope and mail them away to some strange family. Still, every day hundreds of writers send their literary offspring to live with editors they've never met.

Today, an editor explains the best way to show off your infant novel.

Welcome to the second installment of my interview with 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.

This is 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 are the biggest mistakes authors make when sending you book proposals? Any horror stories about bad authors?

Continue Reading...

Sam Douglas:
Well the first mistake they make is sending me the proposals or manuscripts directly.

Every writer should go through an agent.

Nasty though agents can be, publishers can be nasty too, and this particular aspect of the nasty publishing machine does make it more likely an author will be treated fairly, and his or her work given a decent look.

The horror stories are mostly in the form of ridiculously bad books, which isn't really so oppressive for an editor, since it only takes a minute to dismiss them. I've never been stalked or shot at or anything.

Note: If serialized interviews drive you batty, just click here to read the whole interview as it is collected this week...

» Every Writer Should Go Through An Agent: Publishing Advice From A Fiction Editor from ThePublishingSpot
You would never stick your baby in an envelope and mail them away to some strange family. Still, every day hundreds of writers send their literary offspring to live with editors they've never met.Today, an editor explains the best way... [Read More]

» 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]

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