Julie Kingsley (00:00:01) – Welcome to the Manuscript Academy podcast, brought to you by a writer and an agent who both believe that education is key. The beauty is the people you meet along the way and that community makes all the difference. Here at the Manuscript Academy, you can learn the skills, make the connections, and have access to experts all from home. I’m Julie Kingsley. And I’m Jessica Zimmer. Put down your pens, pause your workouts, and enjoy.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:00:33) – All right. Today we are very happy to welcome Erica Finkel. Erica, what’s so nice to see you. Tell us about you. It’s so nice to see you too.

Erica Finkel (00:00:42) – Thank you so much for having me. I love this community that you’ve built, and I’m happy to be a small part of it. Um, my name is Erica Finkel. My pronouns are she her, and I’m an executive editor at Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet Books. I’ve been there for 13 years, which is a long time in publishing yours. Um, and I work on a little bit of everything from, you know, the youngest kiddos to Ja.

Erica Finkel (00:01:07) – But I say these days I’ve been focusing mostly on those middle years. So chapter books and middle grade, a little of everything. And then I’m also the editorial contact right now for the questionnaires series, which is like a twist, and Rosie Revere. And if you know those guys and that’s kind of its own beast, kind of like a brand management role in addition to editing. Yes. Wow.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:01:31) – And you’re right. 13 years is a long time in publishing time. Can you talk about why people move so much? And I guess this means you’re happy, too. Yeah.

Erica Finkel (00:01:40) – Yeah. Um, so, yeah, it’ll be harder for me to talk about why people move so much. Because that wasn’t my personal experience. But I think it’s for growth opportunities. You know, there aren’t a lot of, um, it’s a very small world. And so sometimes people just get into the situation where they can’t really become their own editor at that company, or that imprint because they have enough editors. So if once you’ve moved past the editorial assistant or assistant editor role, you might need to move elsewhere for a growth opportunity.

Erica Finkel (00:02:12) – And I do think it’s a small world. So people do meet other editors and agents out and about at conferences and things like that. So I think that might just naturally, organically happen. But I wouldn’t know because this is where I’ve been my whole career. Um, yes. Because as you said, I like it. I think Abrams is kind of an unusual place because it’s more medium sized. While we’re technically owned by a French publisher, for all intents and purposes, we’re more of an independent house. Um, so we I get to, as I said, do a little bit of everything. We aren’t one of those big conglomerates. So it’s kind of a fun size. And it’s been a good fit for me so far.

Julie Kingsley (00:02:51) – Oh my gosh, how did you know that you wanted to get into publishing?

Erica Finkel (00:02:55) – Really? Since I was in college, I knew I wanted to get into some aspect of publishing just because I’ve always loved to read. I’m sure like a lot of your listeners, I was the kid, you know, reading books on the sidelines of my brother’s Little League games.

Erica Finkel (00:03:08) – And, um, but I didn’t really know what jobs were out there and what that entailed. So I did internships at magazine publishers and literary journals and, and academic publishers and then, oh, gosh, it’s a long story. But I went to after college, I really loved college, but I didn’t feel like I had any kind of technical skills or vocational directions. So I taught English in France. And then I went back to grad school for publishing and writing, and that was when I actually took design classes and copyediting classes, and was a bit more on track for some sort of career. And I always like to include the caveat that you don’t need to get a grad degree to work in publishing. I don’t want people to think that they have to by any means, but for me, it was just the right path because it gave me some more focus and direction. And so straight out of grad school, my first job was at Abrams, actually in the managing editorial department, which, if people don’t know, is adjacent to editorial, but it’s not exactly editorial.

Erica Finkel (00:04:10) – You’re working more on the scheduling and the copyediting and the proofreading and really just very nitty gritty logistics and details. And it’s a really important job, but a pretty thankless job. And I wanted to after about a year of that, rethink what track I was on, and I knew I wanted to do something that was more creative and more closely working with authors to help them shape their vision in a more hands on way. And so I kind of looked around and I thought, well, if I don’t want to be in the position I’m in now, what do I want to do? And I saw the children’s editorial assistants in meetings and I thought, that looks like fun. And the first job I applied for, I actually did not get um, which at the time I thought was so devastating. But just now, every day I thank my lucky stars that it happened because the stars just. Aligned, and the next job that came around was to assist the publisher at the time, which, if your listeners don’t know, it just means the head of the editorial department.

Erica Finkel (00:05:09) – That’s a confusing term. But, um, the publisher at the time renamed Susan Van Meter, and I got her job as her assistant, and that was just a really good, natural fit and was my entry point into children’s book editing. And then, as many of your listeners probably know, you kind of climb the ladder after that. So then it’s assistant editor, associate editor, yada yada, yada.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:05:30) – I remember I was so surprised when I had coffee or sweets or, you know, one of the variations of a meeting with an editor who had a really amazing, like, everyone was talking about it, bestseller of many weeks book, and she said she couldn’t get promoted because no one above her had left. And not just blew my mind because I was like, wait a second, you have the book everyone’s talking about is the cool book of the season and you can’t get promoted. What? And yeah, I think that’s a big reason why people move around so much. Can you talk a little bit about like how that works at different houses, or from what you can tell from your editorial friends or what our listeners can know?

Erica Finkel (00:06:11) – Yeah, a lot of that is timing.

Erica Finkel (00:06:13) – Unfortunately, as you said, it’s I wish it were always merit based. And it is. And I had, you know, an incredible assistant who was in a similar situation. And, you know, you just you really want to promote them, but you’re basically creating your own job for one thing, because you have to be acquiring enough books to support your own list without assisting someone else. And then also the stars need to. I keep saying the stars do do online. I’m sorry. I guess that you literally.

Julie Kingsley (00:06:42) – Have a you have a star on your shirt. I do.

Erica Finkel (00:06:46) – I think that’s how I feel about it because it is, you know, merit and luck. I think all of publishing is merit and opportunity to equal success. And I think becoming an editor is the same where you have to be doing the work, acquiring the books, having the books become successful, while at the same time your publisher either needs to be growing, whether they are adding new positions while that is happening for you or someone needs to leave.

Erica Finkel (00:07:13) – And so I think for me it was a combination of both where we were in a growth phase and we had some turnover over the decade plus that I’ve been doing this well.

Julie Kingsley (00:07:23) – This is what I’m so interested in. I don’t think I understand this at all. So if everyone has specific tastes, but you’re working for an imprint and you’re growing your own list within the imprint, how do you put like like how much autonomy do you have over growing that list, you know, as an early assistant? Or do you not get to even do that until you’re a full blown editor making your own list? Does that even make sense? Like, it’s so it’s really curious, like because you have to be under your the umbrella of your organization. But we all have our specific tastes.

Erica Finkel (00:08:02) – That is a good and complicated question. And I think the answer is that these things develop organically hand in hand. So you probably wouldn’t be a good fit for your job or for your publisher, for your imprint, if you didn’t share a similar sensibility and taste as the people you’re working for, while at the same time you want to carve out something different.

Erica Finkel (00:08:24) – Because again, as a growing editor, you kind of need to justify your place, both in number of titles and also in a niche, so that there’s a reason that an agent would send something to you rather than sending it to another editor or not. And it’s very collaborative. I don’t mean to make that sound competitive, because we’ll often share submissions and say, this doesn’t sound like a me book, it sounds like a Courtney book or whoever. But I think there’s also a conversation, continuous conversation happening with your supervisors as far as what you can bring to the list, what they want to see, more of, what you want to work on. Because at the end of the day, the thing the projects that get through really need to be the editors passion projects that they have a clear vision for. But of course, it’s not going to jump through all the hoops that editorial, meeting, board, etc. if it’s not a good fit for the list and then then fit is always tricky too, because it has to be in keeping with the list, while at the same time being different enough that we don’t already have, you know, five Christmas unicorn books or whatever it is.

Erica Finkel (00:09:25) – So that’s always the question in publishing, is that having it be similar enough to what you’re doing, while still being different enough that there’s a reason and a hunger for it.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:09:35) – Can you talk a little bit about that? Why it has to be similar and why it has to be different?

Erica Finkel (00:09:39) – Sure. So I think both as an editor, as an imprint, as a publishing house, you want to have some sort of identity, like this is an Erica kind of book. This is an amulet kind of book. This is an Abrams kind of book. Hopefully that’s what everyone is working toward as far as a cohesive marketing vision. Sales. And I also think some, you know, editors would agree that sometimes this goes a little too far, because I’m sure agents and authors are very familiar with the idea of comp titles. Whenever we bring anything to edit meeting or to pub board, we need to have similar recent successful books. But also if it’s so similar and so recent and so successful, then why are you publishing this? So that is the question.

Erica Finkel (00:10:24) – But I think the answer is that it’s a continuous chain. So really the end point of this process is that our salespeople are turning around to whoever they’re talking to, a Barnes and Noble rep, a librarian, whoever it may be. And you have to say, this book is going to sit on the shelf alongside X, Y, and Z. So it’s this larger positioning that we’re all doing, but it’s so that at the end of the day, the salespeople, the marketing people can turn around and tell their accounts and their audience where the book sits on the shelf. So that’s why it needs to be similar. And then the reason it needs to be different is the same reason any customer, any reader, would want to pick up this book instead of that book is because you want it to be fresh and memorable and get those great reviews and be a fun read and really stand out. So I’m constantly on the hunt for that idea, that premise that it’s easy to explain and it’s memorable and it’s short, while at the same time knowing the larger context and the larger category that it would it would be for readers of X and Y, which I know you guys at Manuscript Academy, you talk about in a lot of your programming.

Erica Finkel (00:11:34) – Yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:11:35) – Well, it’s interesting because I feel like I know a client’s idea is ready. You know, I like to talk with them about general idea before they write the whole thing. I want to see 20 pages, 50 pages. I don’t want them to just send me 300 pages and then be like, do you like it? And I’m like, actually, we might need to redo some of that. So to avoid all of that, I love to talk with them early on in the process and be like, okay, let’s have a plan. Let’s get a sense of, you know, the voice on the page. But I feel like the idea is ready when I know how I will pitch it. And I don’t care if my pitch gets changed along the way, because it’s going to go from me to the editor to the publisher, to the jacket copy person, to the bookstore. I don’t care if it gets changed along the way. What I care is that it feels like there’s a little packet of energy that I can be like, here you go.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:12:21) – And I know that they can do that to the next person and be like, here you go. And everyone will keep that energy as they go through this whole line of the process. I don’t care if they change it. I know it’s going to change, but it’s when you have that feeling of, I know how to explain this, that I feel like that is when an idea is ready and has legs.

Erica Finkel (00:12:39) – Exactly. That’s what I was trying to say. And you said it works. Exactly.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:12:43) – I almost explained it really badly. I was thinking of like, you know how ants are, like, hey, I got this thing. Yeah. Let’s go. Okay. Hey, I got this thing. Yeah. Let’s go. Like, they tap antlers. And I was picturing it like that, but that doesn’t translate audio. Well.

Julie Kingsley (00:12:55) – I think that’s, I think it’s really interesting because if you think of it that way, like, as blobs of energy that have it’s own, like, amazing, you know, ability to just push the story forward, the lobs of energy come to you, Erica, from all over.

Julie Kingsley (00:13:13) – Right. And everyone sees promise in these globs of creative genius. The agents have filtered out like, everything. And then they’ve created this and they’re lobbing it to you. What’s it like for you on a day to day when genius is coming your way? But you know, you only have spots for I don’t know, do you do ten a year? How many do you do. So like what’s that process?

Erica Finkel (00:13:37) – Oh, it can be heartbreaking. I used to think of myself as a killer of dreams, because I always use the analogy that it’s the difference between looking to get married rather than dating around, meaning that I’m sure a lot of these books are wonderful and publishable even, and there’s a lot that I really like in my submission log, and that’s just not enough. And I don’t want authors to think that because I don’t want them to think, oh, I submitted this to a few dozen people and no one liked it, because that’s probably not what happened. In the same way that if you were going on a bunch of dates and you didn’t get married, that doesn’t mean that you’re not a great person and that you we maybe I would want to be really good friends with you.

Erica Finkel (00:14:23) – Maybe I would want to, you know, date for a short time or whatever. But it’s just you have to think of it. This always comes out sounding discouraging, but I really mean for it to be encouraging, because I really mean for it to be like, please accept rejection as incredibly normal and standard, and you could probably have something wonderful and polished and publishable even, and still get rejected. So that’s where I’m going with this. But how it functions on my end when I’m reading all of these things is, do I want to read this a dozen times and think about it for hours and hours on end and write, you know, potentially a 15 page edit letter about it? Do I want to turn around? And as you were saying, globs of energy. Talk about this to my editorial meeting and then talk about it in my publishing board, and then talk about it in my launch meeting, and then talk about it again in my sales conference. And do I want to write sales copy for this? Do I want this to reflect on me in my job performance and how well it does or doesn’t do? These are all the things that we have to consider on the editorial side, which sounds it might sound kind.

Julie Kingsley (00:15:28) – Of stressing me out.

Erica Finkel (00:15:30) – I know I don’t want it to sound overwhelming, but it’s that’s what we’re looking for. So it’s at the end of the day, it’s much more basic than that. It’s sort of that really clear, compelling, memorable premise combined with a really strong voice. Those are really the two things that have to come together, but that’s the hoops that we’re jumping through on the editorial side. And then you have to add, in addition to that, do we not have something too similar on the list already? Is it a good fit for our imprint?

Julie Kingsley (00:15:59) – Those more logistical reminds me of having my daughter was little. We went to the mall or whatever and she could address. She just got this dress and like she was carrying it to the mall and she was kind of like twirling it around, and she was showing everyone the dress and everyone was like, wow, that’s a really pretty dress. It kind of feels like that you find the perfect little dress for the party, and you’re going through the mall and you’re like, would you like to see my dress? It is purple.

Julie Kingsley (00:16:25) – It is amazing, I love it, it’s the perfect dress.

Erica Finkel (00:16:30) – That’s cute. You’re the hype person for. Yeah, for the book. Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:16:35) – But you want to feel that good about it. Otherwise you’re not going to have the momentum to like do the uphill battle you need to do for each book.

Julie Kingsley (00:16:41) – Right? Because when you wear a dress that is itchy, even though it’s beautiful, if it’s itchy or it’s too tight, it just you feel rage.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:16:51) – Well, yeah. And then you’re going to be like, my dress is. Yes, it looks really good.

Erica Finkel (00:16:55) – I’m going to.

Julie Kingsley (00:16:56) – Cut it in the bathroom.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:16:57) – But in a sense, though, everything that gets to you has gone through an agent. So we’re taking out the element of I’m making air quotes good enough, right. Because it’s it’s reached a bar where it’s good enough. It’s not an issue of good enough at this point. It’s an issue of fit. Just as we’re not going to love everything at Barnes and Noble, nor should we, because there is not enough time to read for every book in the world.

Erica Finkel (00:17:19) – Exactly. Yeah, that’s what I really want authors to understand, is that it’s about finding the right editor, the right house, the right time, the right, you know, category. It’s about sort of both the larger what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in the market, what’s going on with that particular age group. And then the more micro this editor, this list, this house.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:17:40) – So yeah.

Julie Kingsley (00:17:41) – I think this is sorry. This is stressing me out.

Erica Finkel (00:17:44) – I’m sorry I know I don’t want to.

Julie Kingsley (00:17:46) – So as we’re looking as creators. Right. And this is maybe this is for both of you as creators. What are some things we can do that will help create the magic to get to you at Abrams? So no pressure. Yes.

Erica Finkel (00:18:05) – One thing everyone listening is already doing is I do recommend things like Manuscript Academy as CWI organizations where you’re going to educate yourself about the industry and making those connections, meeting other writers and meeting other agents and editors who are all in the same boat.

Erica Finkel (00:18:24) – It is, at the end of the day, a small world, and even though it’s competitive, it is, I think, a really friendly, warm world. And I love I just feel among like minded people when I go to these events. And then obviously the number one advice always is just reading extensively, which I hope and think everyone here is doing. But to really think carefully about where your book fits, what’s working right now, and not to be derivative, but to be in keeping with I don’t even want to say trends because, as I’m sure a lot of people talk about, it’s many years down the line. So not necessarily trends, which is what’s working. What a kid’s book sounds like these days for this category in age group. So read widely, join Manuscript Academy at CWI, all of those things I don’t, but I don’t know how much else is in your control aside from that, but I’m sure. Jessica, that’s a good question for you too. If there’s something I’m forgetting because it’s a little hard because I’m I’m, as you said, already seeing the agent work.

Erica Finkel (00:19:27) – So I know a little bit less about the crazy amounts of work and hustle that come before that piece of it.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:19:33) – Well, okay, so I think it’s a combination of everything you listed, right? Like everyone’s got the bullet pointed intellectual list of it needs to be the following X number of things. Yes. But I think also there’s an element of it where it’s like we know all of this and then we just make an intuitive leap and go for it. And I think a lot of that intuitive leap happens when it’s as if you have you know, I remember as a kid, I saw this cartoon where two characters both had thought bubbles and they were. Thanks to each other and you could see that it just was not happening. One was describing an elephant, the other one basically had an anteater, but you could see how the logical breakdown happened. What we’re trying to do here is have your thought bubble get copied. Not perfectly necessarily, but 90% into my thought bubble. So I’m picturing the same thing.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:20:18) – And when that happens, I think that’s when the magic happens where it’s like, yeah, I get it because I get it. Other people are going to get it. You’re going to make me miss my subway stop. You’re going to make them miss their subway stop. You’re going to provide this full immersive experience that I can get in, walk around almost as if it’s virtual reality, right? It’s not like a poster on a far wall for a cartoon movie. It’s I am in it. It is real. I can walk around, I can touch things. I can taste that lasagna you happen to put on the counter over there. And that’s why I love sensory details so much. In queries, they talk about how our brains love imagery. I would argue that they love sensory details of any kind, any sense, just as much because it makes it feel so real and like, yeah, you can have the best bullet pointed list of all of the intellectual reasons why this will work. It doesn’t matter to me if I can’t step inside it and see how it feels, because I think it’s that ultimate feeling, supported by the data that makes it worth it for me to risk not embarrassing myself per se, because I’m not, like, embarrassed.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:21:20) – If someone is like Jessica, this is stupid. What are you doing? You should be publishing. Not that editors do that, but sometimes you get a mean rejection. That’s like paragraphs of all the reasons why they think you’re crazy for taking it on. Okay, but I’m willing to risk all of that if I can see the vision.

Julie Kingsley (00:21:36) – Well, I think that’s like what? Especially we’re talking about children’s literature here. And I think that’s exactly true. Like you’re also thinking about comprehension. You’re also thinking about schematic theory like readability. There’s so many interesting things. How often does that go into your day Erika. Thinking about the child reading it.

Erica Finkel (00:21:55) – That’s a good question, especially now that I have children of my own. I think. I guess for middle grade, when I think of the child audience, I think of authenticity. So things that kind of give me pause are things that feel like they’re coming more from an adult’s point of view, and that maybe it’s what was the world was like when they were kids, or maybe they think they’re watching what it’s like for their kids.

Erica Finkel (00:22:22) – But you see that degree of removal, something that just quickly comes to mind is this idea of the bully and the mean girl. I always ask for a little bit more nuance there, because I don’t think that’s actually how kids are. And I even when I was a kid, I don’t remember seeing anyone, like getting pushed into a locker or asking for their lunch money. I think there are more compelling and interesting reasons why people act the way they act. So kind of avoiding that like flat or cliche or stereotyped view of childhood and really treating kids as real, fully developed human beings and taking their concerns seriously. I think that can come through on the page as far as a kid picking it up and really feeling like it reflects their experience. Um, and then when I work on some younger books, it is the adult and the child reading together. So I think they’re it’s okay if there’s a little bit more winks at the adult. Kind of like a Pixar movie where there are some jokes for kids.

Erica Finkel (00:23:18) – I like those jokes for adults. But I again, sort of going back to I have to read this at least a dozen times. Like, really, for me, it needs to be a book for kids because it’s just fun. Like, I just want kids to have a great time and laugh and feel things and fall in love with reading. At the end of the day, that’s my primary goal. So I don’t do too many, just more like philosophical, slow, or even just really heavy books. Like, I want books to just be a blast because that’s how I felt about reading as a kid. So, um, well, I got.

Julie Kingsley (00:23:55) – The full on chills when you said that. I was like, that’s right. You know, just the enjoyment of, like, that’s all it should be, you know? And I, I think that we sometimes try to like, we’re going to teach a kid about this, you know, but like, but it’s just like when you give a kid a book and you said this book, which you are, the teacher knows the magic already.

Julie Kingsley (00:24:14) – This is about a pirate and donkeys in Florida, you know, and the kids, like, I’ve been to Florida, I’ve seen a donkey and you’re like, yes. Ah, you know, and like. And that kid goes off and that kid holds that book. And all of a sudden everywhere you see that kid go with the book, that’s really what it’s about. I think it’s an adults. We want those reactions to books, but we’re really busy. And I think that’s what’s the beauty of writing for children regarding, you know, birth through Ya is that you’re just giving them just like little pieces of gold that are expanding their mind as adults were jaded, but we still like it.

Erica Finkel (00:24:53) – Yeah. And I, I also connected to what you were saying, sort of about sending a message through a book. I think kids are smart. They’re going to pick up on if you’re really trying to be heavy handed and didactic about something. I like when there is a theme that comes through and maybe a bit of substance to a story, but absolutely, I think kids know if they’re being taught electric.

Erica Finkel (00:25:13) – Yeah, right.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:25:15) – Yeah. I don’t know if these ever get through the agent filter to you, but whenever I see a book that’s like kids of this generation have no respect, my book is going to teach them respect. And it’s like, oh my gosh, like, I don’t I just can’t imagine a kid being like, you know what vibe I need more of? Brush your teeth, pick up your clothes, clean your room, do your homework, don’t have fun, eat your broccoli. Like, why would a kid choose more of that?

Erica Finkel (00:25:37) – Yeah, well, you guys are at the front lines doing the heavy lifting for us. Oh, I see it all the time. Yeah, but it did remind me recently. And some editors like, roll their eyes when editors talk about their own kids. But I was reading to my three year old recently and I and while I enjoyed the pigeon books, it finally clicked into place for me at age three. Why they’re so popular. And it’s because that’s the age where they’re saying no and so that that’s just hot.

Erica Finkel (00:26:03) – Take Mo Willems is good at this, but but the fact that those books are set up where you’re the kid is saying no, and the kid is being the parent. And there that’s giving the kid, you know, a lot of respect, and it’s just really tapping into something that comes naturally, that age. That’s just, yeah, smart book. But I didn’t fully it didn’t fully click why it was so successful until. Yeah, you.

Julie Kingsley (00:26:27) – Kind of have to be with that kid. Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Finkel (00:26:29) – When they hit that milestone of just saying no to everything. Yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:26:33) – But I think that a good formula is giving kids as much power and respect and autonomy as they can handle at that age. Like that’s how they’re gonna have the most fun.

Erica Finkel (00:26:42) – Yes. And this is also the same thing that happened to me with the Jane Nolan books anyway. Yes. Yeah. They’re terrific.

Julie Kingsley (00:26:50) – And kids developmentally, they just love certain things at certain times. Like give me a fireman every day. And I guess that’s also in romance, isn’t it? Like the little kid for the.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:27:01) – Moms and the kids.

Erica Finkel (00:27:03) – Right?

Julie Kingsley (00:27:03) – The little kids are like fire trucks. And, you know, the romance, like, woof. Um, super funny. Tell us the first time you saw your book out in the wild, one of your books.

Erica Finkel (00:27:13) – It’s interesting because, um, because you assist for so long on other books that I don’t know if the first memory is necessarily clear for me, but I will tell a story where I worked on a book called In My Heart, which is kind of an unusual situation because we are owned by a French company. And so this is where I translated the book for an American audience. And so I was sort of a translator slash editor on that book when I was in assistant. And I saw that at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. And the employee working there, I forget, I think we were doing bookstore visits as a company. That’s what I don’t know if we still do that post pandemic, but we used to take, you know, a day every six months or so to visit bookstores.

Erica Finkel (00:28:02) – And this was one of those days. And so my boss tells the bookstore owner, like, oh, Erica, you know, edited and translated this book. And the bookstore owner was so excited and was like, oh, that’s so cool. You translated in my heart. And I just remember that was funny because, I mean, I am not an author, so I feel like that’s the closest I’ll get to feeling like an author that you are recognized in a bookstore. So that was a fun memory. But yeah, I don’t remember otherwise, but it’s it’s never loses its magic. You know, even when I’m just at the library, I’ll go pick up one of my books just to see, like, oh, my name is in the acknowledgments or oh, I’m so glad that they decided to carry this one. The number of times I’ve thought, wow, like, my name is like in this library that I’ve just never stepped into. That’s so cool. And I’m not even an author.

Erica Finkel (00:28:50) – Um, so I’m sure that it’s even more special for them. Magic.

Julie Kingsley (00:28:54) – If it was me, I’d be like, do you even know who I am? Like my books, my name is there, and they’re like, I helped make all this wonder. It’s so cool.

Erica Finkel (00:29:04) – Yeah, I did get to say that one time when I was at my local library and a librarian was recommending this questionnaires book to a parent, and I was a few feet away, and I was like, I couldn’t help but overhear that you’ve recommended this book. I worked on it. It was, yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Okay.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:29:23) – So we are officially here to talk about editorial and acquisitions meetings, walk us through how that works and why it’s not something writers have to be afraid of.

Erica Finkel (00:29:32) – Oh, absolutely. Yes. So writers do not have to be afraid of editorial meetings. They’re very casual. They’re a bit like when I was in assistant, I couldn’t really believe that I was paid to do this.

Erica Finkel (00:29:42) – They’re a little bit like book club, where everyone just reads the same thing and then discusses it. So, as I’m sure you know, editors get submissions through agents. You know, I would say I get anywhere from like 1 to 6 a day, say, and you’re putting them in the log, you’re reviewing when you can and if any. Anything particularly strikes me whether that’s, oh my gosh, I definitely need to sign this up or huh, there’s something here. Maybe I just want to discuss it with my team. All those materials are collected once a week and distributed, and then we meet as a department. So this is just editorial to discuss our books. And in and as I was saying, our our company is pretty small. So this is editors from novelty board books up through Ya are all reading the materials and we’re just really chatting and giving our take and but this is, as I mentioned, both from how we personally responded to it and how it fits into our list. And usually the editor will just write up a quick paragraph saying whether what they responded to about it or if they had some questions that they wanted to hear from the group.

Erica Finkel (00:30:47) – And then from there, it’s not, you know, Gladiator thumbs up, thumbs down. Sometimes it’s well, can you go back and ask the agent some more questions about this, or maybe see if the author would be open to revising something or sometimes it is rubber stamped? Yes. I think we should go for it, send it off to the next step. So that is sort of the broad strokes of the first stage, the editorial stage. So that’s pretty what almost every project goes through.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:31:14) – Do you go editorial marketing acquisitions or do you do them all at once?

Erica Finkel (00:31:18) – So we don’t have a separate marketing meeting. Marketing is a part of the acquisitions meeting. We call it Pub Board. So what happens next is if the project is rubber stamped. Yeah, let’s go for it at editorial meeting. Then it is again distributed once a week in larger to a larger group. So this would be marketing, publicity, sales, finance and management pretty much sub rights. So pretty much most departments, not every department, but most departments of the company are reviewing these materials once a week.

Erica Finkel (00:31:51) – And from there marketing sends back notes that we review before the meeting, which are how much they liked it, but also how they would pitch it, what they think the type of campaign would look like. Again, just a couple paragraphs, nothing huge. And also if they had any questions or concerns. And then sales also reviews the materials and they send back rough numbers based on their accounts. So someone from what’s called Reader link, which means this is getting really in the in the weeds. But like let’s say the representative from reader link, which is things like target and big box stores, they say, okay, like I think roughly they would take 500 of this book and then the BN person puts in their numbers and all these numbers are added together to see if we are close to the numbers that the editor put on the profit and loss statement. And this is where the details are going to vary from house to house. I don’t think everyone does this the exact same way, but editors for the pub word are putting together a profit and loss statement, which is I think we’d sell about as many copies.

Erica Finkel (00:32:57) – I think we should sell it for this amount of money. I think the production costs would be X, Y or Z, and any of those little details go into this profit and loss statement. So basically a pub board, you have to decide if we’re going to do it. And it is based on these like sticky business financials of do we feel like the sales department is more or less in line with the editor’s expectations, how passionate the publicity and marketing feel about the project, if they feel like they could help support it? Subreddits is another category altogether, which is if they feel like they could sell audio rights or foreign rights, meaning translation. And hopefully it goes through the board meeting and then you can make an offer to the agent for the project.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:33:42) – Okay, so I’ve heard stories of publicity, marketing, sales. They’re all like, don’t do it in the editors. Like I’m gonna anyway, I know this is rare, but it can happen. Yeah. Have you seen it happen?

Erica Finkel (00:33:54) – Yes.

Erica Finkel (00:33:55) – It’s depends on how the management is feeling that day. And it also and yeah, I don’t know if that would happen right now. I think we’re being a little with um, the, the way the economy is these days, I feel like we probably would have less leeway. But I do think there have been times where the head of the department called the publisher and the CEO, if they feel like the editor really has a lot of passion for the project, they might sign off on it. I wouldn’t recommend it as an editor necessarily, because it’s just going to be an uphill battle for every other meeting I mentioned, like the launch meeting, the sales conference, you want to feel like you’re serving the book as best you can, and you might not be if you don’t have full house support. It’s hard enough. This whole process can be, um, you know, tricky enough. You want all of the pieces to fall into place. So I don’t I want to think about if something went through, no one supported it.

Erica Finkel (00:34:47) – And then it was a huge success. I’m sure that’s happened. Um, that would be interesting to think about.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:34:52) – Yeah, it’s funny because I remember hearing one time from I think it was a sales department, and she was talking about a book where that had happened, and she was like, yeah. That book did not have in-house support, and I was like, wow, I didn’t realize one person could be like, you know, screw you guys. The book is happening.

Erica Finkel (00:35:09) – Yeah, I mean, it depends if you have a lenient publisher and a lenient CEO or the processes might vary across houses.

Julie Kingsley (00:35:15) – But but I want to hear what happened to that. Like did the book do well. So that’s the question how right are the business minded people? I mean, probably.

Erica Finkel (00:35:24) – It’s about right, but I think it’s because it’s nothing set in stone.

Julie Kingsley (00:35:29) – It’s an approximation. Right. Because at this point you all have a sense, right? You have a sense of how things are going to hit.

Julie Kingsley (00:35:38) – So like, is there like a margin? Is that too much? Is that too detailed?

Erica Finkel (00:35:42) – It’s not so much at that point. It’s not whether you can be right or not, because it means that, like, you’re not going to have a lot of marketing and publicity support for your book or a lot of sales enthusiasm for your book. So that’s a part of the book. Success is if they have these other departments fighting for the book as well. So it could succeed, but it would be a lot harder because you wouldn’t have that enthusiasm from the other important pieces of the puzzle. So it would just be something to think about if you have permission to pursue the project at all at that point. But it probably wouldn’t get that far if it wasn’t a really great idea.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:36:19) – Okay, so I imagine some writers are picturing this almost like there’s someone up there with a gavel who’s like, yes, done, no, done. Can you talk about what happened? So everyone from what I remember, granted, this was like 20 years ago when I was interning at a publishing house.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:36:32) – There was a little packet passed out that was like a little blurb about everything. Everyone was supposed to read it. Some people didn’t, and then they were all going to just jump in and be like, I like the following about each project. Is that still how it works?

Erica Finkel (00:36:43) – Pretty much. I mean, it is all digital now. We have a new CEO who has a little bit less of a gavel vibe, but I think is also more attuned to what the sales team supports. So I there’s still a pretty clear answer at the end of the board, but everyone does read the materials in advance. Everyone reads. I doubt they’re reading a full manuscript at that point, but they will read maybe a few pages, a proposal. They’ll see the profit and loss statement. They’ll also see, again those comp titles that we have been discussing. So the editor will prepare comp titles, they’ll prepare the profit and loss statement. They’ll show the agents, pitch any materials that came with the project, and then we will be receiving the sales numbers beforehand, the marketing comments beforehand.

Erica Finkel (00:37:30) – And then at the meeting itself, the editor will give a little spiel and then the different departments will chime in to discuss. And then the conversation is wrapped, usually with the publisher or the CEO doing the doing the gavel, sort of just, you know, either proceed or maybe we try offering a little less, or maybe we redo the profit and loss statement to account for what was discussed in the meeting. But it’s usually clear at that point about which direction we’re going to go.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:37:58) – Do they ever fight?

Erica Finkel (00:37:59) – Not competitively, but people disagree, for sure. Like, for example, I’m thinking of a project that I don’t want to get into the specifics of, but marketing and publicity, we’re really behind it. And sales was not marketing. Publicity thought that while that it would get a lot of attention, but sales didn’t necessarily think that the attention would translate into sales. So everyone’s coming at it from their own perspective. And again, that was when we decided ultimately not to pursue, because you really you need everyone to be on board.

Erica Finkel (00:38:27) – You know, like I said before, it’s going to go through so many more stages after that that you want to set every project up for success as much as you can.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:38:35) – How do we know if attention translates into sales?

Erica Finkel (00:38:38) – Well, usually it does. This was just a more kind of controversial issue. It was really the only time that particular conflict had happened to me in a pub board. But usually it’s so hard to get attention and break through the noise that it’s considered a good thing and that it will translate to more sales, I think. Wow. Yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:38:58) – I mean, well, we have all these things happening on Twitter lately of writers being mean to other writers, and hopefully that does translate into good sales for the writers who were like, I don’t know if you saw someone claimed that she owned the concept of writing mythology involving the sun.

Erica Finkel (00:39:12) – Oh, wow. Yeah. No, I haven’t been on Twitter as much as of late. Um, maybe.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:20) – A good choice.

Erica Finkel (00:39:21) – Yeah, I sort of hear about those.

Erica Finkel (00:39:24) – The exciting world of kid lit Twitter from my colleagues. Um, because I like to blame the baby, but it’s also because I just it stresses me out a little too much. I think, um, to have that much conflict and confrontation when we’re all just trying our best. I think I.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:42) – Saw someone put up a graphic that’s like, it has been zero days since Twitter book drama.

Erica Finkel (00:39:47) – Oh my gosh.

Julie Kingsley (00:39:49) – I was like, where are we going? And we’re like, I don’t know.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:53) – Yeah. We were like, pulling people last night. Like, are we going to blue Sky? Are we going to friends and and.

Erica Finkel (00:39:57) – People like, can I.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:58) – Do something I’ve never even heard of?

Julie Kingsley (00:40:00) – I get overwhelmed by thinking about it. So then I do nothing.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:03) – Yeah, same. Why invest in a platform when it might be deleted in six months, you know?

Erica Finkel (00:40:07) – Yeah. Just let me know and I’ll follow. Yeah, exactly. It’s all decided.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:10) – So can you tell us some things that writers are afraid of? But they don’t have to be?

Erica Finkel (00:40:15) – Well, what kind of things are writers afraid of?

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:17) – Everything.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:18) – So many things.

Julie Kingsley (00:40:20) – A typo? You know, like messing up somewhere, not seeming cool on, like a call.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:28) – I mean, like the system being stacked against everything. It being impossible to get a book published.

Julie Kingsley (00:40:32) – Yeah. I mean, they’re afraid of everything.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:35) – Only celebrity books from now on.

Erica Finkel (00:40:37) – Right. Got it. Well, I don’t really work on celebrity books, so there’s that. I guess there’s one silver lining. Something I feel like I did think of something recently about things you don’t have to be afraid of. One thing I will say, not that we shouldn’t be afraid of this because we should. But I don’t want people to think that the book bans are discouraging publishers from pursuing bannable content. I don’t see it yet affecting our strategy. I think we think it’s very important to represent all voices and to represent queer experiences and other experiences that are being banned right now. So I, you know, whether or not that affects, you know, the sales down the line. I think publishers are still very much actively acquiring content, regardless of like current public policy.

Erica Finkel (00:41:25) – That is really disturbing. So I would say that’s one I would like people to know, even though I do think we should all be scared of it. And yeah, certainly don’t be afraid of typo. I mean, try your best, get it proofread. But that’s not why we throw things in the trash. If things are very well written, it doesn’t matter if there are typos in it or not. We have copy editors, proofreaders. There will be many, many steps after this one to catch stuff like that.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:41:47) – Yeah, I think it’s interesting that people think it’s little stuff like that. For me. It’s not that. It’s when I’m looking at you and I can see there’s something in your thought bubble and you try to give it to my thought bubble, and it was just a squiggle and I have no idea what’s happening. That’s when I say no because I’m trying to picture it and I’m like, yeah, I don’t know.

Erica Finkel (00:42:04) – Yeah. I mean, I can fix typos. Other people can.

Erica Finkel (00:42:07) – It’s really like a great idea and the great voice that I cannot do for you.

Julie Kingsley (00:42:12) – I always say it’s a human business, you know, like, no matter what, this is a human business and we’re all human and we all have good days and bad days, and the world is not going to end, you know, one, the world’s not gonna end if you don’t get one book out, because then you can just write another book or another, you know, and I know that’s hard to hear, but it truly is. I think this whole podcast, we’re realizing just how complicated, even once you get that agent it really is, but also how well taken care of you are as a writer going through this process. It’s amazing. Thank you for everything you do. I’m so impressed.

Erica Finkel (00:42:45) – Oh no. Thank you guys for what you do. I do like to break that barrier down and let people know that we’re all just people too. I’m not some judge on hi who is saying yay or nay? Your book is good or your book is publishable.

Erica Finkel (00:42:57) – It really has a lot more to do with just the individual factors that I touched on, and that is what I want authors to understand is that it’s about timing and it’s about fit. And I don’t want people to be scared of me.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:09) – Well, and I love that there are so many opinions in terms of whether a book works or doesn’t, even within one house. I think that’s hopeful, because, you know, we could theoretically get an editor from, you know, a selection of ten houses, and then we’d have ten different opinions about whether or not a book is publishable. You know, even if it’s just little things like, you know, oh, well, we don’t do books in that category. Okay. Well, it’s an automatic no for that publisher. Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s an automatic guess for someone else. It’s just interesting to see how everyone’s coming at it with a completely different perspective. And that’s that’s a great thing for writers.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:43) – Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:44) – There’s no one.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:46) – This is good enough. There are a lot of I get it or I don’t get it or I get it this way or I get it, but set it on Mars or make these edits and it’ll work out. Yeah, it’s I think it’s a beautiful thing that there’s no one. Right? Right. Erica, what tips do you have for writers?

Erica Finkel (00:44:01) – Well, it depends at what stage you are at because I always like, you know, as I mentioned to, I encourage you to read widely and to join Manuscript Academy and other things like that. I also think if you are querying, I always encourage people to just personalize your query letters to make sure that you are hitting agents who represent similar books to yours. One thing that I don’t know if this is true or not, but I feel like it is true, is I encourage authors to target junior agents at established agencies. I don’t know if this is true, but it just as someone who is receiving a lot of the missions, I appreciate when it’s from an established agency just because it feels like otherwise.

Erica Finkel (00:44:46) – Everyone has a shingle out nowadays and and so there might be some additional vetting there. But if you have a junior agent, they might have more time and attention for you. I know a lot of agents are super, super busy, so agents might be telling me that this is. Not accurate, but that’s the view that I have. But yeah, I can’t really speak to individual writing process. I’m not a writer myself. So as far as you know, write every day, don’t write every day, those sorts of things. I think you really just should tell this story that you really want to tell, because I know I did speak a lot in this interview about making sure you’re aware of the category and what the trends are, but I think at the end of the day, it’s more important that you write the story that is most pressing and important to you, and that’s going to come through. I don’t think you can reverse engineer that level of heart in a manuscript. You can’t really chase the next best thing, so you might as well not try.

Erica Finkel (00:45:39) – You might as well write this story that is really urgent and important to you. And I think that comes through in the read. Okay.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:45:45) – And I just thought of another question that is a little bit of an evil question. And if you’re not comfortable answering, I understand. But just so writers can picture the process a little better, what can agents do to make it so you are more likely to want to read the book that you get and want to take it to your team? And what do they do? For all the writers out there who have no idea how that works?

Erica Finkel (00:46:03) – Oh, sure. So agents send me a query letter the same way that you are likely querying agents if that’s the stage that you are at. And I was just listening to some Manuscript Academy podcast, and it’s pretty similar to what I receive and appreciate, which is it’s kind of like flap copy, like if you go to a bookstore, if you go to Amazon and you open up your favorite book and you read it, it tends to be really quick and compelling and voice and have a similar tone to the book itself.

Erica Finkel (00:46:31) – And it’s going to be like, here’s the situation and this character, but here’s what happens. And then a wrap up of why the story is important, what the themes are. So I think something that’s just very quick and easy to read while still being intriguing and compelling, which which is probably common sense, but um, and that just, you know, targets. I love it, even though this is probably vanity, I love it when agents do point out that this is similar to another book on my list, because it just shows that they’ve done their homework, and it’s flattering, but usually people don’t do that, but it’s a little extra credit if they do. Because, you know, it’s sometimes it’s hard to tell if your work is resonating when you’re in a publishing kind of silo. And so it’s nice when an agent is like, I saw that you edited this, so I think you would like this. And that’s what you should do if you’re querying agents too, is you should be like, I see that you represented this.

Erica Finkel (00:47:25) – So I think you would like my book. Yeah. So I think really all the advice that you guys are giving authors requiring agents that that’s good advice. And it’s the same for the next step, which is the agents querying the editors.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:47:37) – Ah, I love that. And I love that it is such a mirrored process. Erica, thank you so much. It was so lovely to talk with you. Are there any books of yours coming out soon we can look for? Oh my gosh, so many.

Erica Finkel (00:47:47) – Um, well, the newest questionnaires book just came out. It’s called Lila Greer Teacher of the year, and it’s a heartbreaking and beautiful and a great celebration of teachers who are so important. And then I can’t really even single out one book. So if my authors are listening, I love all of you. But, um, I have, I would say a short story collection in the spring called On All Other Nights that is about Passover that I’m excited about, as well as a couple of really fun chapter book series.

Erica Finkel (00:48:15) – One is called The Wolf More. It is about a luxury hotel run by and for dogs, and one is called Seashell Quay, which is a vibrant community of creative kids living by the beach and what it’s like to live there year round. So those are just a few. But you can also see my Pinterest board, which has all of the books that I work on, mostly under Erica Finkel.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:48:37) – Yeah, well, you send us a link so we can put it in the show notes.

Erica Finkel (00:48:40) – Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:48:40) – Okay. And if any of you out there want to meet with Erica, we will put a link to your book. A time with her as well. Erica, thank you so much. This was really well. Thank you.

Julie Kingsley (00:48:48) – Erica. You’re terrific.

Erica Finkel (00:48:49) – Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Julie Kingsley (00:48:52) – We are so glad that you joined us. And as always, we appreciate your feedback. Just head on over to the iTunes store and let us know what you think.

Julie Kingsley (00:49:00) – And not only helps us make this podcast be the best it can be, but it also affects our ratings within the iTunes platform.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:49:07) – We’d love to hear from you if you’re feeling brave and want to submit your page for our First Pages podcast, you can send it to Academy at Manuscript Wishlist Comm with First Pages podcast in the subject line. We’d also just love to hear from you.

Julie Kingsley (00:49:23) – And if you’d like to learn more about the Manuscript Academy and everything we have to offer, just jump on over to Manuscript academy.com.

 

Julie Kingsley (00:00:01) – Welcome to the Manuscript Academy podcast, brought to you by a writer and an agent who both believe that education is key. The beauty is the people you meet along the way and that community makes all the difference. Here at the Manuscript Academy, you can learn the skills, make the connections, and have access to experts all from home. I’m Julie Kingsley. And I’m Jessica Zimmer. Put down your pens, pause your workouts, and enjoy.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:00:33) – All right. Today we are very happy to welcome Erica Finkel. Erica, what’s so nice to see you. Tell us about you. It’s so nice to see you too.

Erica Finkel (00:00:42) – Thank you so much for having me. I love this community that you’ve built, and I’m happy to be a small part of it. Um, my name is Erica Finkel. My pronouns are she her, and I’m an executive editor at Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet Books. I’ve been there for 13 years, which is a long time in publishing yours. Um, and I work on a little bit of everything from, you know, the youngest kiddos to Ja.

Erica Finkel (00:01:07) – But I say these days I’ve been focusing mostly on those middle years. So chapter books and middle grade, a little of everything. And then I’m also the editorial contact right now for the questionnaires series, which is like a twist, and Rosie Revere. And if you know those guys and that’s kind of its own beast, kind of like a brand management role in addition to editing. Yes. Wow.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:01:31) – And you’re right. 13 years is a long time in publishing time. Can you talk about why people move so much? And I guess this means you’re happy, too. Yeah.

Erica Finkel (00:01:40) – Yeah. Um, so, yeah, it’ll be harder for me to talk about why people move so much. Because that wasn’t my personal experience. But I think it’s for growth opportunities. You know, there aren’t a lot of, um, it’s a very small world. And so sometimes people just get into the situation where they can’t really become their own editor at that company, or that imprint because they have enough editors. So if once you’ve moved past the editorial assistant or assistant editor role, you might need to move elsewhere for a growth opportunity.

Erica Finkel (00:02:12) – And I do think it’s a small world. So people do meet other editors and agents out and about at conferences and things like that. So I think that might just naturally, organically happen. But I wouldn’t know because this is where I’ve been my whole career. Um, yes. Because as you said, I like it. I think Abrams is kind of an unusual place because it’s more medium sized. While we’re technically owned by a French publisher, for all intents and purposes, we’re more of an independent house. Um, so we I get to, as I said, do a little bit of everything. We aren’t one of those big conglomerates. So it’s kind of a fun size. And it’s been a good fit for me so far.

Julie Kingsley (00:02:51) – Oh my gosh, how did you know that you wanted to get into publishing?

Erica Finkel (00:02:55) – Really? Since I was in college, I knew I wanted to get into some aspect of publishing just because I’ve always loved to read. I’m sure like a lot of your listeners, I was the kid, you know, reading books on the sidelines of my brother’s Little League games.

Erica Finkel (00:03:08) – And, um, but I didn’t really know what jobs were out there and what that entailed. So I did internships at magazine publishers and literary journals and, and academic publishers and then, oh, gosh, it’s a long story. But I went to after college, I really loved college, but I didn’t feel like I had any kind of technical skills or vocational directions. So I taught English in France. And then I went back to grad school for publishing and writing, and that was when I actually took design classes and copyediting classes, and was a bit more on track for some sort of career. And I always like to include the caveat that you don’t need to get a grad degree to work in publishing. I don’t want people to think that they have to by any means, but for me, it was just the right path because it gave me some more focus and direction. And so straight out of grad school, my first job was at Abrams, actually in the managing editorial department, which, if people don’t know, is adjacent to editorial, but it’s not exactly editorial.

Erica Finkel (00:04:10) – You’re working more on the scheduling and the copyediting and the proofreading and really just very nitty gritty logistics and details. And it’s a really important job, but a pretty thankless job. And I wanted to after about a year of that, rethink what track I was on, and I knew I wanted to do something that was more creative and more closely working with authors to help them shape their vision in a more hands on way. And so I kind of looked around and I thought, well, if I don’t want to be in the position I’m in now, what do I want to do? And I saw the children’s editorial assistants in meetings and I thought, that looks like fun. And the first job I applied for, I actually did not get um, which at the time I thought was so devastating. But just now, every day I thank my lucky stars that it happened because the stars just. Aligned, and the next job that came around was to assist the publisher at the time, which, if your listeners don’t know, it just means the head of the editorial department.

Erica Finkel (00:05:09) – That’s a confusing term. But, um, the publisher at the time renamed Susan Van Meter, and I got her job as her assistant, and that was just a really good, natural fit and was my entry point into children’s book editing. And then, as many of your listeners probably know, you kind of climb the ladder after that. So then it’s assistant editor, associate editor, yada yada, yada.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:05:30) – I remember I was so surprised when I had coffee or sweets or, you know, one of the variations of a meeting with an editor who had a really amazing, like, everyone was talking about it, bestseller of many weeks book, and she said she couldn’t get promoted because no one above her had left. And not just blew my mind because I was like, wait a second, you have the book everyone’s talking about is the cool book of the season and you can’t get promoted. What? And yeah, I think that’s a big reason why people move around so much. Can you talk a little bit about like how that works at different houses, or from what you can tell from your editorial friends or what our listeners can know?

Erica Finkel (00:06:11) – Yeah, a lot of that is timing.

Erica Finkel (00:06:13) – Unfortunately, as you said, it’s I wish it were always merit based. And it is. And I had, you know, an incredible assistant who was in a similar situation. And, you know, you just you really want to promote them, but you’re basically creating your own job for one thing, because you have to be acquiring enough books to support your own list without assisting someone else. And then also the stars need to. I keep saying the stars do do online. I’m sorry. I guess that you literally.

Julie Kingsley (00:06:42) – Have a you have a star on your shirt. I do.

Erica Finkel (00:06:46) – I think that’s how I feel about it because it is, you know, merit and luck. I think all of publishing is merit and opportunity to equal success. And I think becoming an editor is the same where you have to be doing the work, acquiring the books, having the books become successful, while at the same time your publisher either needs to be growing, whether they are adding new positions while that is happening for you or someone needs to leave.

Erica Finkel (00:07:13) – And so I think for me it was a combination of both where we were in a growth phase and we had some turnover over the decade plus that I’ve been doing this well.

Julie Kingsley (00:07:23) – This is what I’m so interested in. I don’t think I understand this at all. So if everyone has specific tastes, but you’re working for an imprint and you’re growing your own list within the imprint, how do you put like like how much autonomy do you have over growing that list, you know, as an early assistant? Or do you not get to even do that until you’re a full blown editor making your own list? Does that even make sense? Like, it’s so it’s really curious, like because you have to be under your the umbrella of your organization. But we all have our specific tastes.

Erica Finkel (00:08:02) – That is a good and complicated question. And I think the answer is that these things develop organically hand in hand. So you probably wouldn’t be a good fit for your job or for your publisher, for your imprint, if you didn’t share a similar sensibility and taste as the people you’re working for, while at the same time you want to carve out something different.

Erica Finkel (00:08:24) – Because again, as a growing editor, you kind of need to justify your place, both in number of titles and also in a niche, so that there’s a reason that an agent would send something to you rather than sending it to another editor or not. And it’s very collaborative. I don’t mean to make that sound competitive, because we’ll often share submissions and say, this doesn’t sound like a me book, it sounds like a Courtney book or whoever. But I think there’s also a conversation, continuous conversation happening with your supervisors as far as what you can bring to the list, what they want to see, more of, what you want to work on. Because at the end of the day, the thing the projects that get through really need to be the editors passion projects that they have a clear vision for. But of course, it’s not going to jump through all the hoops that editorial, meeting, board, etc. if it’s not a good fit for the list and then then fit is always tricky too, because it has to be in keeping with the list, while at the same time being different enough that we don’t already have, you know, five Christmas unicorn books or whatever it is.

Erica Finkel (00:09:25) – So that’s always the question in publishing, is that having it be similar enough to what you’re doing, while still being different enough that there’s a reason and a hunger for it.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:09:35) – Can you talk a little bit about that? Why it has to be similar and why it has to be different?

Erica Finkel (00:09:39) – Sure. So I think both as an editor, as an imprint, as a publishing house, you want to have some sort of identity, like this is an Erica kind of book. This is an amulet kind of book. This is an Abrams kind of book. Hopefully that’s what everyone is working toward as far as a cohesive marketing vision. Sales. And I also think some, you know, editors would agree that sometimes this goes a little too far, because I’m sure agents and authors are very familiar with the idea of comp titles. Whenever we bring anything to edit meeting or to pub board, we need to have similar recent successful books. But also if it’s so similar and so recent and so successful, then why are you publishing this? So that is the question.

Erica Finkel (00:10:24) – But I think the answer is that it’s a continuous chain. So really the end point of this process is that our salespeople are turning around to whoever they’re talking to, a Barnes and Noble rep, a librarian, whoever it may be. And you have to say, this book is going to sit on the shelf alongside X, Y, and Z. So it’s this larger positioning that we’re all doing, but it’s so that at the end of the day, the salespeople, the marketing people can turn around and tell their accounts and their audience where the book sits on the shelf. So that’s why it needs to be similar. And then the reason it needs to be different is the same reason any customer, any reader, would want to pick up this book instead of that book is because you want it to be fresh and memorable and get those great reviews and be a fun read and really stand out. So I’m constantly on the hunt for that idea, that premise that it’s easy to explain and it’s memorable and it’s short, while at the same time knowing the larger context and the larger category that it would it would be for readers of X and Y, which I know you guys at Manuscript Academy, you talk about in a lot of your programming.

Erica Finkel (00:11:34) – Yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:11:35) – Well, it’s interesting because I feel like I know a client’s idea is ready. You know, I like to talk with them about general idea before they write the whole thing. I want to see 20 pages, 50 pages. I don’t want them to just send me 300 pages and then be like, do you like it? And I’m like, actually, we might need to redo some of that. So to avoid all of that, I love to talk with them early on in the process and be like, okay, let’s have a plan. Let’s get a sense of, you know, the voice on the page. But I feel like the idea is ready when I know how I will pitch it. And I don’t care if my pitch gets changed along the way, because it’s going to go from me to the editor to the publisher, to the jacket copy person, to the bookstore. I don’t care if it gets changed along the way. What I care is that it feels like there’s a little packet of energy that I can be like, here you go.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:12:21) – And I know that they can do that to the next person and be like, here you go. And everyone will keep that energy as they go through this whole line of the process. I don’t care if they change it. I know it’s going to change, but it’s when you have that feeling of, I know how to explain this, that I feel like that is when an idea is ready and has legs.

Erica Finkel (00:12:39) – Exactly. That’s what I was trying to say. And you said it works. Exactly.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:12:43) – I almost explained it really badly. I was thinking of like, you know how ants are, like, hey, I got this thing. Yeah. Let’s go. Okay. Hey, I got this thing. Yeah. Let’s go. Like, they tap antlers. And I was picturing it like that, but that doesn’t translate audio. Well.

Julie Kingsley (00:12:55) – I think that’s, I think it’s really interesting because if you think of it that way, like, as blobs of energy that have it’s own, like, amazing, you know, ability to just push the story forward, the lobs of energy come to you, Erica, from all over.

Julie Kingsley (00:13:13) – Right. And everyone sees promise in these globs of creative genius. The agents have filtered out like, everything. And then they’ve created this and they’re lobbing it to you. What’s it like for you on a day to day when genius is coming your way? But you know, you only have spots for I don’t know, do you do ten a year? How many do you do. So like what’s that process?

Erica Finkel (00:13:37) – Oh, it can be heartbreaking. I used to think of myself as a killer of dreams, because I always use the analogy that it’s the difference between looking to get married rather than dating around, meaning that I’m sure a lot of these books are wonderful and publishable even, and there’s a lot that I really like in my submission log, and that’s just not enough. And I don’t want authors to think that because I don’t want them to think, oh, I submitted this to a few dozen people and no one liked it, because that’s probably not what happened. In the same way that if you were going on a bunch of dates and you didn’t get married, that doesn’t mean that you’re not a great person and that you we maybe I would want to be really good friends with you.

Erica Finkel (00:14:23) – Maybe I would want to, you know, date for a short time or whatever. But it’s just you have to think of it. This always comes out sounding discouraging, but I really mean for it to be encouraging, because I really mean for it to be like, please accept rejection as incredibly normal and standard, and you could probably have something wonderful and polished and publishable even, and still get rejected. So that’s where I’m going with this. But how it functions on my end when I’m reading all of these things is, do I want to read this a dozen times and think about it for hours and hours on end and write, you know, potentially a 15 page edit letter about it? Do I want to turn around? And as you were saying, globs of energy. Talk about this to my editorial meeting and then talk about it in my publishing board, and then talk about it in my launch meeting, and then talk about it again in my sales conference. And do I want to write sales copy for this? Do I want this to reflect on me in my job performance and how well it does or doesn’t do? These are all the things that we have to consider on the editorial side, which sounds it might sound kind.

Julie Kingsley (00:15:28) – Of stressing me out.

Erica Finkel (00:15:30) – I know I don’t want it to sound overwhelming, but it’s that’s what we’re looking for. So it’s at the end of the day, it’s much more basic than that. It’s sort of that really clear, compelling, memorable premise combined with a really strong voice. Those are really the two things that have to come together, but that’s the hoops that we’re jumping through on the editorial side. And then you have to add, in addition to that, do we not have something too similar on the list already? Is it a good fit for our imprint?

Julie Kingsley (00:15:59) – Those more logistical reminds me of having my daughter was little. We went to the mall or whatever and she could address. She just got this dress and like she was carrying it to the mall and she was kind of like twirling it around, and she was showing everyone the dress and everyone was like, wow, that’s a really pretty dress. It kind of feels like that you find the perfect little dress for the party, and you’re going through the mall and you’re like, would you like to see my dress? It is purple.

Julie Kingsley (00:16:25) – It is amazing, I love it, it’s the perfect dress.

Erica Finkel (00:16:30) – That’s cute. You’re the hype person for. Yeah, for the book. Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:16:35) – But you want to feel that good about it. Otherwise you’re not going to have the momentum to like do the uphill battle you need to do for each book.

Julie Kingsley (00:16:41) – Right? Because when you wear a dress that is itchy, even though it’s beautiful, if it’s itchy or it’s too tight, it just you feel rage.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:16:51) – Well, yeah. And then you’re going to be like, my dress is. Yes, it looks really good.

Erica Finkel (00:16:55) – I’m going to.

Julie Kingsley (00:16:56) – Cut it in the bathroom.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:16:57) – But in a sense, though, everything that gets to you has gone through an agent. So we’re taking out the element of I’m making air quotes good enough, right. Because it’s it’s reached a bar where it’s good enough. It’s not an issue of good enough at this point. It’s an issue of fit. Just as we’re not going to love everything at Barnes and Noble, nor should we, because there is not enough time to read for every book in the world.

Erica Finkel (00:17:19) – Exactly. Yeah, that’s what I really want authors to understand, is that it’s about finding the right editor, the right house, the right time, the right, you know, category. It’s about sort of both the larger what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in the market, what’s going on with that particular age group. And then the more micro this editor, this list, this house.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:17:40) – So yeah.

Julie Kingsley (00:17:41) – I think this is sorry. This is stressing me out.

Erica Finkel (00:17:44) – I’m sorry I know I don’t want to.

Julie Kingsley (00:17:46) – So as we’re looking as creators. Right. And this is maybe this is for both of you as creators. What are some things we can do that will help create the magic to get to you at Abrams? So no pressure. Yes.

Erica Finkel (00:18:05) – One thing everyone listening is already doing is I do recommend things like Manuscript Academy as CWI organizations where you’re going to educate yourself about the industry and making those connections, meeting other writers and meeting other agents and editors who are all in the same boat.

Erica Finkel (00:18:24) – It is, at the end of the day, a small world, and even though it’s competitive, it is, I think, a really friendly, warm world. And I love I just feel among like minded people when I go to these events. And then obviously the number one advice always is just reading extensively, which I hope and think everyone here is doing. But to really think carefully about where your book fits, what’s working right now, and not to be derivative, but to be in keeping with I don’t even want to say trends because, as I’m sure a lot of people talk about, it’s many years down the line. So not necessarily trends, which is what’s working. What a kid’s book sounds like these days for this category in age group. So read widely, join Manuscript Academy at CWI, all of those things I don’t, but I don’t know how much else is in your control aside from that, but I’m sure. Jessica, that’s a good question for you too. If there’s something I’m forgetting because it’s a little hard because I’m I’m, as you said, already seeing the agent work.

Erica Finkel (00:19:27) – So I know a little bit less about the crazy amounts of work and hustle that come before that piece of it.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:19:33) – Well, okay, so I think it’s a combination of everything you listed, right? Like everyone’s got the bullet pointed intellectual list of it needs to be the following X number of things. Yes. But I think also there’s an element of it where it’s like we know all of this and then we just make an intuitive leap and go for it. And I think a lot of that intuitive leap happens when it’s as if you have you know, I remember as a kid, I saw this cartoon where two characters both had thought bubbles and they were. Thanks to each other and you could see that it just was not happening. One was describing an elephant, the other one basically had an anteater, but you could see how the logical breakdown happened. What we’re trying to do here is have your thought bubble get copied. Not perfectly necessarily, but 90% into my thought bubble. So I’m picturing the same thing.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:20:18) – And when that happens, I think that’s when the magic happens where it’s like, yeah, I get it because I get it. Other people are going to get it. You’re going to make me miss my subway stop. You’re going to make them miss their subway stop. You’re going to provide this full immersive experience that I can get in, walk around almost as if it’s virtual reality, right? It’s not like a poster on a far wall for a cartoon movie. It’s I am in it. It is real. I can walk around, I can touch things. I can taste that lasagna you happen to put on the counter over there. And that’s why I love sensory details so much. In queries, they talk about how our brains love imagery. I would argue that they love sensory details of any kind, any sense, just as much because it makes it feel so real and like, yeah, you can have the best bullet pointed list of all of the intellectual reasons why this will work. It doesn’t matter to me if I can’t step inside it and see how it feels, because I think it’s that ultimate feeling, supported by the data that makes it worth it for me to risk not embarrassing myself per se, because I’m not, like, embarrassed.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:21:20) – If someone is like Jessica, this is stupid. What are you doing? You should be publishing. Not that editors do that, but sometimes you get a mean rejection. That’s like paragraphs of all the reasons why they think you’re crazy for taking it on. Okay, but I’m willing to risk all of that if I can see the vision.

Julie Kingsley (00:21:36) – Well, I think that’s like what? Especially we’re talking about children’s literature here. And I think that’s exactly true. Like you’re also thinking about comprehension. You’re also thinking about schematic theory like readability. There’s so many interesting things. How often does that go into your day Erika. Thinking about the child reading it.

Erica Finkel (00:21:55) – That’s a good question, especially now that I have children of my own. I think. I guess for middle grade, when I think of the child audience, I think of authenticity. So things that kind of give me pause are things that feel like they’re coming more from an adult’s point of view, and that maybe it’s what was the world was like when they were kids, or maybe they think they’re watching what it’s like for their kids.

Erica Finkel (00:22:22) – But you see that degree of removal, something that just quickly comes to mind is this idea of the bully and the mean girl. I always ask for a little bit more nuance there, because I don’t think that’s actually how kids are. And I even when I was a kid, I don’t remember seeing anyone, like getting pushed into a locker or asking for their lunch money. I think there are more compelling and interesting reasons why people act the way they act. So kind of avoiding that like flat or cliche or stereotyped view of childhood and really treating kids as real, fully developed human beings and taking their concerns seriously. I think that can come through on the page as far as a kid picking it up and really feeling like it reflects their experience. Um, and then when I work on some younger books, it is the adult and the child reading together. So I think they’re it’s okay if there’s a little bit more winks at the adult. Kind of like a Pixar movie where there are some jokes for kids.

Erica Finkel (00:23:18) – I like those jokes for adults. But I again, sort of going back to I have to read this at least a dozen times. Like, really, for me, it needs to be a book for kids because it’s just fun. Like, I just want kids to have a great time and laugh and feel things and fall in love with reading. At the end of the day, that’s my primary goal. So I don’t do too many, just more like philosophical, slow, or even just really heavy books. Like, I want books to just be a blast because that’s how I felt about reading as a kid. So, um, well, I got.

Julie Kingsley (00:23:55) – The full on chills when you said that. I was like, that’s right. You know, just the enjoyment of, like, that’s all it should be, you know? And I, I think that we sometimes try to like, we’re going to teach a kid about this, you know, but like, but it’s just like when you give a kid a book and you said this book, which you are, the teacher knows the magic already.

Julie Kingsley (00:24:14) – This is about a pirate and donkeys in Florida, you know, and the kids, like, I’ve been to Florida, I’ve seen a donkey and you’re like, yes. Ah, you know, and like. And that kid goes off and that kid holds that book. And all of a sudden everywhere you see that kid go with the book, that’s really what it’s about. I think it’s an adults. We want those reactions to books, but we’re really busy. And I think that’s what’s the beauty of writing for children regarding, you know, birth through Ya is that you’re just giving them just like little pieces of gold that are expanding their mind as adults were jaded, but we still like it.

Erica Finkel (00:24:53) – Yeah. And I, I also connected to what you were saying, sort of about sending a message through a book. I think kids are smart. They’re going to pick up on if you’re really trying to be heavy handed and didactic about something. I like when there is a theme that comes through and maybe a bit of substance to a story, but absolutely, I think kids know if they’re being taught electric.

Erica Finkel (00:25:13) – Yeah, right.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:25:15) – Yeah. I don’t know if these ever get through the agent filter to you, but whenever I see a book that’s like kids of this generation have no respect, my book is going to teach them respect. And it’s like, oh my gosh, like, I don’t I just can’t imagine a kid being like, you know what vibe I need more of? Brush your teeth, pick up your clothes, clean your room, do your homework, don’t have fun, eat your broccoli. Like, why would a kid choose more of that?

Erica Finkel (00:25:37) – Yeah, well, you guys are at the front lines doing the heavy lifting for us. Oh, I see it all the time. Yeah, but it did remind me recently. And some editors like, roll their eyes when editors talk about their own kids. But I was reading to my three year old recently and I and while I enjoyed the pigeon books, it finally clicked into place for me at age three. Why they’re so popular. And it’s because that’s the age where they’re saying no and so that that’s just hot.

Erica Finkel (00:26:03) – Take Mo Willems is good at this, but but the fact that those books are set up where you’re the kid is saying no, and the kid is being the parent. And there that’s giving the kid, you know, a lot of respect, and it’s just really tapping into something that comes naturally, that age. That’s just, yeah, smart book. But I didn’t fully it didn’t fully click why it was so successful until. Yeah, you.

Julie Kingsley (00:26:27) – Kind of have to be with that kid. Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Finkel (00:26:29) – When they hit that milestone of just saying no to everything. Yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:26:33) – But I think that a good formula is giving kids as much power and respect and autonomy as they can handle at that age. Like that’s how they’re gonna have the most fun.

Erica Finkel (00:26:42) – Yes. And this is also the same thing that happened to me with the Jane Nolan books anyway. Yes. Yeah. They’re terrific.

Julie Kingsley (00:26:50) – And kids developmentally, they just love certain things at certain times. Like give me a fireman every day. And I guess that’s also in romance, isn’t it? Like the little kid for the.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:27:01) – Moms and the kids.

Erica Finkel (00:27:03) – Right?

Julie Kingsley (00:27:03) – The little kids are like fire trucks. And, you know, the romance, like, woof. Um, super funny. Tell us the first time you saw your book out in the wild, one of your books.

Erica Finkel (00:27:13) – It’s interesting because, um, because you assist for so long on other books that I don’t know if the first memory is necessarily clear for me, but I will tell a story where I worked on a book called In My Heart, which is kind of an unusual situation because we are owned by a French company. And so this is where I translated the book for an American audience. And so I was sort of a translator slash editor on that book when I was in assistant. And I saw that at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. And the employee working there, I forget, I think we were doing bookstore visits as a company. That’s what I don’t know if we still do that post pandemic, but we used to take, you know, a day every six months or so to visit bookstores.

Erica Finkel (00:28:02) – And this was one of those days. And so my boss tells the bookstore owner, like, oh, Erica, you know, edited and translated this book. And the bookstore owner was so excited and was like, oh, that’s so cool. You translated in my heart. And I just remember that was funny because, I mean, I am not an author, so I feel like that’s the closest I’ll get to feeling like an author that you are recognized in a bookstore. So that was a fun memory. But yeah, I don’t remember otherwise, but it’s it’s never loses its magic. You know, even when I’m just at the library, I’ll go pick up one of my books just to see, like, oh, my name is in the acknowledgments or oh, I’m so glad that they decided to carry this one. The number of times I’ve thought, wow, like, my name is like in this library that I’ve just never stepped into. That’s so cool. And I’m not even an author.

Erica Finkel (00:28:50) – Um, so I’m sure that it’s even more special for them. Magic.

Julie Kingsley (00:28:54) – If it was me, I’d be like, do you even know who I am? Like my books, my name is there, and they’re like, I helped make all this wonder. It’s so cool.

Erica Finkel (00:29:04) – Yeah, I did get to say that one time when I was at my local library and a librarian was recommending this questionnaires book to a parent, and I was a few feet away, and I was like, I couldn’t help but overhear that you’ve recommended this book. I worked on it. It was, yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Okay.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:29:23) – So we are officially here to talk about editorial and acquisitions meetings, walk us through how that works and why it’s not something writers have to be afraid of.

Erica Finkel (00:29:32) – Oh, absolutely. Yes. So writers do not have to be afraid of editorial meetings. They’re very casual. They’re a bit like when I was in assistant, I couldn’t really believe that I was paid to do this.

Erica Finkel (00:29:42) – They’re a little bit like book club, where everyone just reads the same thing and then discusses it. So, as I’m sure you know, editors get submissions through agents. You know, I would say I get anywhere from like 1 to 6 a day, say, and you’re putting them in the log, you’re reviewing when you can and if any. Anything particularly strikes me whether that’s, oh my gosh, I definitely need to sign this up or huh, there’s something here. Maybe I just want to discuss it with my team. All those materials are collected once a week and distributed, and then we meet as a department. So this is just editorial to discuss our books. And in and as I was saying, our our company is pretty small. So this is editors from novelty board books up through Ya are all reading the materials and we’re just really chatting and giving our take and but this is, as I mentioned, both from how we personally responded to it and how it fits into our list. And usually the editor will just write up a quick paragraph saying whether what they responded to about it or if they had some questions that they wanted to hear from the group.

Erica Finkel (00:30:47) – And then from there, it’s not, you know, Gladiator thumbs up, thumbs down. Sometimes it’s well, can you go back and ask the agent some more questions about this, or maybe see if the author would be open to revising something or sometimes it is rubber stamped? Yes. I think we should go for it, send it off to the next step. So that is sort of the broad strokes of the first stage, the editorial stage. So that’s pretty what almost every project goes through.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:31:14) – Do you go editorial marketing acquisitions or do you do them all at once?

Erica Finkel (00:31:18) – So we don’t have a separate marketing meeting. Marketing is a part of the acquisitions meeting. We call it Pub Board. So what happens next is if the project is rubber stamped. Yeah, let’s go for it at editorial meeting. Then it is again distributed once a week in larger to a larger group. So this would be marketing, publicity, sales, finance and management pretty much sub rights. So pretty much most departments, not every department, but most departments of the company are reviewing these materials once a week.

Erica Finkel (00:31:51) – And from there marketing sends back notes that we review before the meeting, which are how much they liked it, but also how they would pitch it, what they think the type of campaign would look like. Again, just a couple paragraphs, nothing huge. And also if they had any questions or concerns. And then sales also reviews the materials and they send back rough numbers based on their accounts. So someone from what’s called Reader link, which means this is getting really in the in the weeds. But like let’s say the representative from reader link, which is things like target and big box stores, they say, okay, like I think roughly they would take 500 of this book and then the BN person puts in their numbers and all these numbers are added together to see if we are close to the numbers that the editor put on the profit and loss statement. And this is where the details are going to vary from house to house. I don’t think everyone does this the exact same way, but editors for the pub word are putting together a profit and loss statement, which is I think we’d sell about as many copies.

Erica Finkel (00:32:57) – I think we should sell it for this amount of money. I think the production costs would be X, Y or Z, and any of those little details go into this profit and loss statement. So basically a pub board, you have to decide if we’re going to do it. And it is based on these like sticky business financials of do we feel like the sales department is more or less in line with the editor’s expectations, how passionate the publicity and marketing feel about the project, if they feel like they could help support it? Subreddits is another category altogether, which is if they feel like they could sell audio rights or foreign rights, meaning translation. And hopefully it goes through the board meeting and then you can make an offer to the agent for the project.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:33:42) – Okay, so I’ve heard stories of publicity, marketing, sales. They’re all like, don’t do it in the editors. Like I’m gonna anyway, I know this is rare, but it can happen. Yeah. Have you seen it happen?

Erica Finkel (00:33:54) – Yes.

Erica Finkel (00:33:55) – It’s depends on how the management is feeling that day. And it also and yeah, I don’t know if that would happen right now. I think we’re being a little with um, the, the way the economy is these days, I feel like we probably would have less leeway. But I do think there have been times where the head of the department called the publisher and the CEO, if they feel like the editor really has a lot of passion for the project, they might sign off on it. I wouldn’t recommend it as an editor necessarily, because it’s just going to be an uphill battle for every other meeting I mentioned, like the launch meeting, the sales conference, you want to feel like you’re serving the book as best you can, and you might not be if you don’t have full house support. It’s hard enough. This whole process can be, um, you know, tricky enough. You want all of the pieces to fall into place. So I don’t I want to think about if something went through, no one supported it.

Erica Finkel (00:34:47) – And then it was a huge success. I’m sure that’s happened. Um, that would be interesting to think about.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:34:52) – Yeah, it’s funny because I remember hearing one time from I think it was a sales department, and she was talking about a book where that had happened, and she was like, yeah. That book did not have in-house support, and I was like, wow, I didn’t realize one person could be like, you know, screw you guys. The book is happening.

Erica Finkel (00:35:09) – Yeah, I mean, it depends if you have a lenient publisher and a lenient CEO or the processes might vary across houses.

Julie Kingsley (00:35:15) – But but I want to hear what happened to that. Like did the book do well. So that’s the question how right are the business minded people? I mean, probably.

Erica Finkel (00:35:24) – It’s about right, but I think it’s because it’s nothing set in stone.

Julie Kingsley (00:35:29) – It’s an approximation. Right. Because at this point you all have a sense, right? You have a sense of how things are going to hit.

Julie Kingsley (00:35:38) – So like, is there like a margin? Is that too much? Is that too detailed?

Erica Finkel (00:35:42) – It’s not so much at that point. It’s not whether you can be right or not, because it means that, like, you’re not going to have a lot of marketing and publicity support for your book or a lot of sales enthusiasm for your book. So that’s a part of the book. Success is if they have these other departments fighting for the book as well. So it could succeed, but it would be a lot harder because you wouldn’t have that enthusiasm from the other important pieces of the puzzle. So it would just be something to think about if you have permission to pursue the project at all at that point. But it probably wouldn’t get that far if it wasn’t a really great idea.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:36:19) – Okay, so I imagine some writers are picturing this almost like there’s someone up there with a gavel who’s like, yes, done, no, done. Can you talk about what happened? So everyone from what I remember, granted, this was like 20 years ago when I was interning at a publishing house.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:36:32) – There was a little packet passed out that was like a little blurb about everything. Everyone was supposed to read it. Some people didn’t, and then they were all going to just jump in and be like, I like the following about each project. Is that still how it works?

Erica Finkel (00:36:43) – Pretty much. I mean, it is all digital now. We have a new CEO who has a little bit less of a gavel vibe, but I think is also more attuned to what the sales team supports. So I there’s still a pretty clear answer at the end of the board, but everyone does read the materials in advance. Everyone reads. I doubt they’re reading a full manuscript at that point, but they will read maybe a few pages, a proposal. They’ll see the profit and loss statement. They’ll also see, again those comp titles that we have been discussing. So the editor will prepare comp titles, they’ll prepare the profit and loss statement. They’ll show the agents, pitch any materials that came with the project, and then we will be receiving the sales numbers beforehand, the marketing comments beforehand.

Erica Finkel (00:37:30) – And then at the meeting itself, the editor will give a little spiel and then the different departments will chime in to discuss. And then the conversation is wrapped, usually with the publisher or the CEO doing the doing the gavel, sort of just, you know, either proceed or maybe we try offering a little less, or maybe we redo the profit and loss statement to account for what was discussed in the meeting. But it’s usually clear at that point about which direction we’re going to go.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:37:58) – Do they ever fight?

Erica Finkel (00:37:59) – Not competitively, but people disagree, for sure. Like, for example, I’m thinking of a project that I don’t want to get into the specifics of, but marketing and publicity, we’re really behind it. And sales was not marketing. Publicity thought that while that it would get a lot of attention, but sales didn’t necessarily think that the attention would translate into sales. So everyone’s coming at it from their own perspective. And again, that was when we decided ultimately not to pursue, because you really you need everyone to be on board.

Erica Finkel (00:38:27) – You know, like I said before, it’s going to go through so many more stages after that that you want to set every project up for success as much as you can.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:38:35) – How do we know if attention translates into sales?

Erica Finkel (00:38:38) – Well, usually it does. This was just a more kind of controversial issue. It was really the only time that particular conflict had happened to me in a pub board. But usually it’s so hard to get attention and break through the noise that it’s considered a good thing and that it will translate to more sales, I think. Wow. Yeah.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:38:58) – I mean, well, we have all these things happening on Twitter lately of writers being mean to other writers, and hopefully that does translate into good sales for the writers who were like, I don’t know if you saw someone claimed that she owned the concept of writing mythology involving the sun.

Erica Finkel (00:39:12) – Oh, wow. Yeah. No, I haven’t been on Twitter as much as of late. Um, maybe.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:20) – A good choice.

Erica Finkel (00:39:21) – Yeah, I sort of hear about those.

Erica Finkel (00:39:24) – The exciting world of kid lit Twitter from my colleagues. Um, because I like to blame the baby, but it’s also because I just it stresses me out a little too much. I think, um, to have that much conflict and confrontation when we’re all just trying our best. I think I.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:42) – Saw someone put up a graphic that’s like, it has been zero days since Twitter book drama.

Erica Finkel (00:39:47) – Oh my gosh.

Julie Kingsley (00:39:49) – I was like, where are we going? And we’re like, I don’t know.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:53) – Yeah. We were like, pulling people last night. Like, are we going to blue Sky? Are we going to friends and and.

Erica Finkel (00:39:57) – People like, can I.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:39:58) – Do something I’ve never even heard of?

Julie Kingsley (00:40:00) – I get overwhelmed by thinking about it. So then I do nothing.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:03) – Yeah, same. Why invest in a platform when it might be deleted in six months, you know?

Erica Finkel (00:40:07) – Yeah. Just let me know and I’ll follow. Yeah, exactly. It’s all decided.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:10) – So can you tell us some things that writers are afraid of? But they don’t have to be?

Erica Finkel (00:40:15) – Well, what kind of things are writers afraid of?

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:17) – Everything.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:18) – So many things.

Julie Kingsley (00:40:20) – A typo? You know, like messing up somewhere, not seeming cool on, like a call.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:28) – I mean, like the system being stacked against everything. It being impossible to get a book published.

Julie Kingsley (00:40:32) – Yeah. I mean, they’re afraid of everything.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:40:35) – Only celebrity books from now on.

Erica Finkel (00:40:37) – Right. Got it. Well, I don’t really work on celebrity books, so there’s that. I guess there’s one silver lining. Something I feel like I did think of something recently about things you don’t have to be afraid of. One thing I will say, not that we shouldn’t be afraid of this because we should. But I don’t want people to think that the book bans are discouraging publishers from pursuing bannable content. I don’t see it yet affecting our strategy. I think we think it’s very important to represent all voices and to represent queer experiences and other experiences that are being banned right now. So I, you know, whether or not that affects, you know, the sales down the line. I think publishers are still very much actively acquiring content, regardless of like current public policy.

Erica Finkel (00:41:25) – That is really disturbing. So I would say that’s one I would like people to know, even though I do think we should all be scared of it. And yeah, certainly don’t be afraid of typo. I mean, try your best, get it proofread. But that’s not why we throw things in the trash. If things are very well written, it doesn’t matter if there are typos in it or not. We have copy editors, proofreaders. There will be many, many steps after this one to catch stuff like that.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:41:47) – Yeah, I think it’s interesting that people think it’s little stuff like that. For me. It’s not that. It’s when I’m looking at you and I can see there’s something in your thought bubble and you try to give it to my thought bubble, and it was just a squiggle and I have no idea what’s happening. That’s when I say no because I’m trying to picture it and I’m like, yeah, I don’t know.

Erica Finkel (00:42:04) – Yeah. I mean, I can fix typos. Other people can.

Erica Finkel (00:42:07) – It’s really like a great idea and the great voice that I cannot do for you.

Julie Kingsley (00:42:12) – I always say it’s a human business, you know, like, no matter what, this is a human business and we’re all human and we all have good days and bad days, and the world is not going to end, you know, one, the world’s not gonna end if you don’t get one book out, because then you can just write another book or another, you know, and I know that’s hard to hear, but it truly is. I think this whole podcast, we’re realizing just how complicated, even once you get that agent it really is, but also how well taken care of you are as a writer going through this process. It’s amazing. Thank you for everything you do. I’m so impressed.

Erica Finkel (00:42:45) – Oh no. Thank you guys for what you do. I do like to break that barrier down and let people know that we’re all just people too. I’m not some judge on hi who is saying yay or nay? Your book is good or your book is publishable.

Erica Finkel (00:42:57) – It really has a lot more to do with just the individual factors that I touched on, and that is what I want authors to understand is that it’s about timing and it’s about fit. And I don’t want people to be scared of me.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:09) – Well, and I love that there are so many opinions in terms of whether a book works or doesn’t, even within one house. I think that’s hopeful, because, you know, we could theoretically get an editor from, you know, a selection of ten houses, and then we’d have ten different opinions about whether or not a book is publishable. You know, even if it’s just little things like, you know, oh, well, we don’t do books in that category. Okay. Well, it’s an automatic no for that publisher. Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s an automatic guess for someone else. It’s just interesting to see how everyone’s coming at it with a completely different perspective. And that’s that’s a great thing for writers.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:43) – Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:44) – There’s no one.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:43:46) – This is good enough. There are a lot of I get it or I don’t get it or I get it this way or I get it, but set it on Mars or make these edits and it’ll work out. Yeah, it’s I think it’s a beautiful thing that there’s no one. Right? Right. Erica, what tips do you have for writers?

Erica Finkel (00:44:01) – Well, it depends at what stage you are at because I always like, you know, as I mentioned to, I encourage you to read widely and to join Manuscript Academy and other things like that. I also think if you are querying, I always encourage people to just personalize your query letters to make sure that you are hitting agents who represent similar books to yours. One thing that I don’t know if this is true or not, but I feel like it is true, is I encourage authors to target junior agents at established agencies. I don’t know if this is true, but it just as someone who is receiving a lot of the missions, I appreciate when it’s from an established agency just because it feels like otherwise.

Erica Finkel (00:44:46) – Everyone has a shingle out nowadays and and so there might be some additional vetting there. But if you have a junior agent, they might have more time and attention for you. I know a lot of agents are super, super busy, so agents might be telling me that this is. Not accurate, but that’s the view that I have. But yeah, I can’t really speak to individual writing process. I’m not a writer myself. So as far as you know, write every day, don’t write every day, those sorts of things. I think you really just should tell this story that you really want to tell, because I know I did speak a lot in this interview about making sure you’re aware of the category and what the trends are, but I think at the end of the day, it’s more important that you write the story that is most pressing and important to you, and that’s going to come through. I don’t think you can reverse engineer that level of heart in a manuscript. You can’t really chase the next best thing, so you might as well not try.

Erica Finkel (00:45:39) – You might as well write this story that is really urgent and important to you. And I think that comes through in the read. Okay.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:45:45) – And I just thought of another question that is a little bit of an evil question. And if you’re not comfortable answering, I understand. But just so writers can picture the process a little better, what can agents do to make it so you are more likely to want to read the book that you get and want to take it to your team? And what do they do? For all the writers out there who have no idea how that works?

Erica Finkel (00:46:03) – Oh, sure. So agents send me a query letter the same way that you are likely querying agents if that’s the stage that you are at. And I was just listening to some Manuscript Academy podcast, and it’s pretty similar to what I receive and appreciate, which is it’s kind of like flap copy, like if you go to a bookstore, if you go to Amazon and you open up your favorite book and you read it, it tends to be really quick and compelling and voice and have a similar tone to the book itself.

Erica Finkel (00:46:31) – And it’s going to be like, here’s the situation and this character, but here’s what happens. And then a wrap up of why the story is important, what the themes are. So I think something that’s just very quick and easy to read while still being intriguing and compelling, which which is probably common sense, but um, and that just, you know, targets. I love it, even though this is probably vanity, I love it when agents do point out that this is similar to another book on my list, because it just shows that they’ve done their homework, and it’s flattering, but usually people don’t do that, but it’s a little extra credit if they do. Because, you know, it’s sometimes it’s hard to tell if your work is resonating when you’re in a publishing kind of silo. And so it’s nice when an agent is like, I saw that you edited this, so I think you would like this. And that’s what you should do if you’re querying agents too, is you should be like, I see that you represented this.

Erica Finkel (00:47:25) – So I think you would like my book. Yeah. So I think really all the advice that you guys are giving authors requiring agents that that’s good advice. And it’s the same for the next step, which is the agents querying the editors.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:47:37) – Ah, I love that. And I love that it is such a mirrored process. Erica, thank you so much. It was so lovely to talk with you. Are there any books of yours coming out soon we can look for? Oh my gosh, so many.

Erica Finkel (00:47:47) – Um, well, the newest questionnaires book just came out. It’s called Lila Greer Teacher of the year, and it’s a heartbreaking and beautiful and a great celebration of teachers who are so important. And then I can’t really even single out one book. So if my authors are listening, I love all of you. But, um, I have, I would say a short story collection in the spring called On All Other Nights that is about Passover that I’m excited about, as well as a couple of really fun chapter book series.

Erica Finkel (00:48:15) – One is called The Wolf More. It is about a luxury hotel run by and for dogs, and one is called Seashell Quay, which is a vibrant community of creative kids living by the beach and what it’s like to live there year round. So those are just a few. But you can also see my Pinterest board, which has all of the books that I work on, mostly under Erica Finkel.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:48:37) – Yeah, well, you send us a link so we can put it in the show notes.

Erica Finkel (00:48:40) – Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:48:40) – Okay. And if any of you out there want to meet with Erica, we will put a link to your book. A time with her as well. Erica, thank you so much. This was really well. Thank you.

Julie Kingsley (00:48:48) – Erica. You’re terrific.

Erica Finkel (00:48:49) – Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Julie Kingsley (00:48:52) – We are so glad that you joined us. And as always, we appreciate your feedback. Just head on over to the iTunes store and let us know what you think.

Julie Kingsley (00:49:00) – And not only helps us make this podcast be the best it can be, but it also affects our ratings within the iTunes platform.

Jessica Sinsheimer (00:49:07) – We’d love to hear from you if you’re feeling brave and want to submit your page for our First Pages podcast, you can send it to Academy at Manuscript Wishlist Comm with First Pages podcast in the subject line. We’d also just love to hear from you.

Julie Kingsley (00:49:23) – And if you’d like to learn more about the Manuscript Academy and everything we have to offer, just jump on over to Manuscript academy.com.