Memoir short: the book I risked my job to publish
From the days when I was an acquiring editor in book publishing
Hi! It’s Stephenie. I’ve done lots of different things as a storyteller, including working as an acquiring and senior editor for a variety of publishers.
I clearly write a lot of my own stuff, but there’s something about empowering other people to tell their stories that fills me with a joy I can’t live without. Especially when writing has been the one thing that’s always come so easily to me. I speak the language of storytelling like it’s my native tongue.
And to tell you the truth…it is. I kinda struggle to communicate with people the normal way. It’s just a product of me being neurodivergent (and traumatized lol but I’m in recovery and therapy ❤). Those two things mean that while I’m not very at good at much of anything else, when it comes to storytelling…I’ve got what it takes, Mom!
Just the same, I can tell when another storyteller has that thing most of us on Medium hope we have, too.
The mechanics of writing are the easiest thing in the world to me (second only to hyperbole). I can make pretty much anything sound good, too. Even if it’s secretly terrible. Running my own business lets me avoid having to do that last one anymore lol.
What I don’t always have are the ideas, the perspective, and the insight that does more than hook readers. Those things that deepen a reader’s relationship to themselves.
AND THEN I SAW IT
Do you know what I do when I can tell another writer has those things?
Do you know what I do when I can tell from the first page?
The first sentence?
(If the query letter doesn’t count as part of the book…)
Do you know what I do when I can tell before the first word?
I devour that book from the first to last page. If it’s not too late at night, I read it again. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t that good, but because it is, I can’t help myself.
That’s what I did with the book I’m going to tell you about.
THIS BOOK BLEW MY MIND
As I read that book, I thought about my colleagues.
I thought about the other editors who needed to voice approval if asked (and sometimes if not, because seemingly spontaneous approval can shift the orbits of planet-sized mobs).
I thought about the publicists who would turn the book and the author into a brand. I thought about the bosses who cut the checks and so kinda deserved the final say.
I thought about the readers and how we could hook them into the EXPERIENCE of this story.
I thought about the author and how to monetize their content without dishonoring what is most meaningful about their story.
I thought about all of those people because I wasn’t just reading for fun. I was there to empower the author and their story.
That meant I wanted to buy the book. Then I wanted to sell the book. And I wanted to do both with a pitch that inspired readers to repeat that same process.
I wanted that book I fell in love with to go viral. I wanted everyone else to fall as hard for it as I did, too.
The thing is that there’s no one pitch that fits all of those people at once. So instead, I focus on who I want the readers to be, who I project they’ll be despite anything we do, and how to craft a revision and publishing strategy that honors both groups.
WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE READERS?
I’m convinced readers couldn’t care less about authors. Not like, in a cruel way. I just mean when they open the book.
Readers, at least in my opinion, don’t come to a story so much for what that story did for the person who wrote it.
The person who wrote it is important and all, but, like, the reader is their own main character.
Readers come to a story for what it can bring to themselves. My job as an editor was to listen to my inner voice and why that story mattered so much to me — including if that meant accepting that my experience of the story probably wouldn’t be shared with many other people.
Including if other readers would likely have the same experience…but I was one of only six people in the world that would read that book and come back for more.
It wasn’t a perfect system, but if I couldn’t persuade the acquisition board to approve the book, we were in danger, Will Robinson.
Having an acquisition denied didn’t necessarily mean the book was BAD. The book, in fact, could be the next unpublished Sana’s Suitors (which, lucky for you, is also available for acquiring editors if you contact the author ‘s agent through that link!!).
But getting told “NO” did let me know that even if the book was great, I was missing something essential. How could I promise to sell a book to millions of readers if I couldn’t sell it to the five people in front of me?
SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THERE’S A CHANCE…
I didn’t get to acquire everything I wanted.
Sometimes, when other publishers took a chance on the book, I got to tell my bosses, “I told you so.”
Other times, I thought lol, dodged that bullet better than Neo.
But my deepest secret? I hated both of those experiences. I didn’t want to say I told you so. I didn’t want to dodge a bullet.
I wanted to acquire the books that kept me up all night.
I wanted those books to live! No matter what it cost me.
I’m a pacifist, but love can move you to take risks that used to freeze you in your tracks. Because you see, every now and then, I found a book I loved…and had no one to blame but myself when I had to let it go.
At some point, an acquiring editor has to take a stand. Even if it’s just through effusive praise for an obviously amazing book.
THE THING YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR (and why not, I certainly hyped it enough)
Here’s the book that I loved so much, I accepted the publisher would fire me if it bombed.
ILLUSIONS
by Madeline Reynolds Genre: LGBTQ+ Historical YA fantasy with strong romantic elements
One boy has a secret… The other has a plan.
(BCC revised from Goodreads edition)
THOMAS
Thomas Pendelton was born into wealth and prestige. He has a sensitive heart and wants nothing more than to write poetry. Instead, he is apprenticing for Neville Wighton the Great, an aging magician who has become somewhat crazed over the years in his pursuit of fame.
With Thomas’ help, Wighton has premiered the greatest illusion seen by man.
And with it comes a risk to the person behind the trick that no one saw coming.
Thomas never asked to be born like this. To love boys instead of girls, to risk his life through his mere existence…or to extend his fingers and sense the power that could change everything.
No one can figure out how Neville does the trick because no one has thought to ask whether it is, in fact, an illusion.
While Thomas’s master is a good illusionist, he is still just a man. Thomas, however, possesses something that no other illusionist has: real magic.
SAVERIO
The entire theatrical world is desperate to learn Neville Wighton the Great’s big secret. It is bold, and not just because no one can figure out how he does it.
Few magicians unveil their greatest tricks in their twilight years. The risk? Younger rivals will ease your passage and take your tricks for their own.
One such magician is Paolo il Magnifico. He sends his persuasive assistant Saverio Moretti to infiltrate the rival magician’s inner circle and bring back the secret.
After all, who would suspect a teenage boy? Least of all the rival’s intriguing orphan apprentice. There’s no harm in a little fun amongst a forbidden magical heist.
Suddenly, Saverio has a plan of his own. He always wanted enough power to live according to his rules. His terms. And with this magic trick, he can do that and more. All he has to do is seduce Thomas, learn the secret, and with one snap of his fingers…
But seduction turns to real feelings. And given the lies that brought them together, those real feelings are doomed to turn to real betrayal.
Through journal entries, posters, letters, and other documents, ILLUSIONS is a story of love, betrayal, and of course, magic.
AND DON’T MISS THE BOOK MADDY WROTE NEXT!
Hey, before you leave! Go look at this book, too.
THE TIME TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO MODERN ROMANCE
Elias Caldwell needs more than his life in nineteenth-century England has to offer. He’d rather go on an adventure than spend one more minute at some stuffy party. When his grandfather gives him a pocket watch he claims can transport him to any place and time, Elias doesn’t believe it…until he’s whisked away to twenty-first-century America.
Tyler Forrester just wants to fall hopelessly in love. But making that kind of connection with someone has been more of a dream than reality. Then a boy appears out of thin air, a boy from the past. As he helps Elias navigate a strange new world for him, introducing him to the wonders of espresso, binge-watching, and rock and roll, Tyler discovers Elias is exactly who he was missing.
But their love has time limit. Elias’s disappearance from the past has had devastating side effects, and now he must choose where he truly belongs — in the Victorian era, or with the boy who took him on an adventure he never dreamed possible?
This book began as a spec project. That’s where the editor comes up with the story, the characters, the themes, the arcs, etc etc etc, then finds the perfect author to take over. For editors with a million ideas (and authors who have run out of them), it’s a wonderful arrangement, but you have to be ready to let go of the project so that the author can make it their own.
For The Time Traveler’s Guide to Modern Romance, the premise came in large part by Kate & Leopold, with a not insignificant dash of everything I loved about PN Elrod’s Red Death series. The gentleman vampire Jonathan Barrett deserves an HBO television series as much as Louis and Lestat.
(I mean…vampires during the American Revolution? Hot and steamy romance? Diabolical family drama? Are you kidding me? Why hasn’t Showtime given this an immediate order? Audiences would show up in droves. Literally dozens of us!)
As a male/female cishet romance, the story never quite found its footing. Or an author.
It was frustrating as the months and months piled together. Some stories sound cool and then just kinda die.
But like the man says: “Lean into the poetry of it all.”
Because those constant delays, finding a new author to write the book, finding ANOTHER new author to write the book…all paid off as soon as I connected with Maddy.
Madeline Reynolds took the premise of my heart and turned it into a book worthy of her name and mighty pen. She turned it into something I could never have come up with on my own. She wrote a book that’s wholly her own and yet makes me feel honored that it had even a tiny connection to what would otherwise have been a dying idea soon to be dead.
ILLUSIONS+THE TIME TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO MODERN ROMANCE=THE PERFECT WEEKEND DOUBLE FEATURE
If you need something that will make you laugh, make you cry, and then make you beg to come back for me, these are the two books you want to curl up with this weekend.
THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)
Hi, it’s Stephenie!
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