What's Not

To Like?

by D. J. Herda

I do a lot of reading each and every day about which books acquisitions editors are acquiring...and which they're not.  Between what I learn from that and what I've managed to pick up from my own book sales over the years, you'd think I'd be pretty good at predicting what's going to be high on the editorial Wish List.  What he's going to like and what not.

Wouldn't you?

Well, that's what I thought, too.  But then I stumbled across something that has left me scratching my head.  It's a summary of a recent day of book sales that appeared in Publisher's Marketplace, an on-line publishing  industry trade publication, on Sept. 16:

"Rounding out a busy week of auctions and pre-empts (with 185 reports since Monday), we've added another 43 [book] deals since yesterday, among them Alec Ryrie's PROTESTANTS, a history of the most creative, restless and argumentative religious movement and how it made the modern world, pre-empted by Viking in the US and sold to Collins UK at auction; Dr. Peter Frankopan's THE NEW SILK ROAD, a reassessment of world history, suggesting that the most curious aspect in recent history is not the rise of the east, but the rise and fall of the west, pre-empted by Henry Holt; actress Gina Gershon's untitled collection of true stories about her beloved cat Cleo, pre-empted by Gotham; and Cameron Jackson's IMPASSE, the story of a man who is gifted with an "adventure vacation" in Alaska but is left to die, to Thomas Dunne Books."

Now, one of the most commonly encountered reasons for editors to turn down a new book proposal is that it's been done to death already.  So I wandered over to Amazon.com, did a book search on the word, Protestant, and came up with 29,337 books on the subject published over the years, some as recently as 2011.  Huh?

Then, just for fun, I took a look at the number of books dealing with world history in general (566,804 total) and the Silk Road in particular (3,604 total, literally dozens as recently as this year and two already slotted for a 2012 release).  

I didn't bother looking up "Impasse," but I couldn't help but think the story line sounds suspiciously like a film that Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin did together in 1997 called The Edge.

In fact, of all four books singled out for special mention in the article above, the only one I can understand being genuinely appealing to an acquisitions editor--let alone to his editorial board, which has to concur with his selection--is the book of short stories about actress Gina Gershon's cat, Cleo.  Not, of course, because short-story anthologies about anything sell well these days.  Just the contrary: they're poison.

But, after all, Gina Gershon is a celebrity, and publishers do love books by and about celebrities.  It's that built-in "Wow" factor.  I guess.

So the next time you decide to put together a book proposal to show to an acquisitions editor at a major publishing company, take my advice.  First come up with a subject that's virtually guaranteed not to sell.  Then send it to the editor.

Oh, yeah.  I almost forgot.  Before you send it out, change the name on the proposal to Penelope Cruz.  I think you'll have a winner.  You can thank me later.

And I…am D. J. Herda.

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D. J. Herda is President of the American Society of Authors and Writers (http://amsaw.org), an organization made up of authors, writers, editors, publishers, agents, directors, producers, and other media professionals who rely upon the printed word in the creation of quality literature and entertainment.  He is a member of the Author's Guild, a former member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a former member of the National Press Club.  He has published more than 80 books and several hundred thousand articles, short stories, columns, interviews, plays, and scripts.
 

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