The Acquisitions Process...

It's eerily quiet in my office today. An occasional conversation, an occasional phone ringing. Otherwise quiet quiet quiet. A number of my co-workers are attending the first day of a three-day off-site meeting, something about revamping our process for acquiring books. I'm not quite sure what they're doing for three whole days through breakfast, lunch and dinner. I do know they're having a Reverse Pub Board meeting. Everyone's been buzzing about Reverse Pub Board for weeks. At this meeting, the Editors pretend they are in Sales and the Sales people pretend they are Editors. The Sales team will present books they think we should publish (along with lengthy proposals they've prepared). The Editors will (I'm predicting) shoot a lot of them down.

Acquiring books is a not big part of my job. I do it only occasionally, when we do a book that is children's publishing-related. I really like doing it occasionally, but I'm happy I don't have to do it all the time. It's a great deal of work. I didn't become an editor because I love doing reports. I don't imagine many editors enter the field so they can spend their days crafting proposals and profit & loss reports. (I didn't know about all that going in--no one mentioned it in college.)

So here's the thing: An editor must really really dig your book to take it through the acquisitions process. They must love it enough to devote lots of time to it before it's under contract with the possibility that a group of Sales & Marketing folks or higher-ups will say No. And of course they love it enough to want to spend time with it through the editorial process. So when an editor calls you and says those seven magic words, "We'd like to offer you a contract," feel the love! Feel the love!