K. Marvin Bruce

In a recent conversation my friend Steve mentioned a disturbing editorial board meeting.  I’ve mentioned Steve before—he’s an editor at an academic press in New York.  What made this meeting disturbing, he said, was that editors had already decided what a writer’s style was, based on a previous book. Writing style, in my experience, is fluid.  I have written non-fiction books that are, frankly, boring.  That’s what I’d learned the academic presses wanted.  As a writer, however, I can produce pieces of a totally different style.  Who’s to say what kind of writer I am? This disturbs me because editors are the fundamental gatekeepers of the publishing industry.  And they don’t understand writing.  There was a time when editors were writers.  Now they’re business men and women.  I wonder how many of them read for pleasure. Type-casting used to be something actors feared.  I fear it too, I guess, as a writer.  If ...

Some things I just take for granted. My friend Steve, for example, is an editor. Although he works for a non-fiction publisher, he still knows a few things about the publishing process. He suggested that I share some of it with the struggling writers out there. Most of us dream, I suppose, of getting a book published.  I know I still dream about it.  How does it happen?  With traditional publishers, it begins with a query. Editors are, for the most part, very busy people.  Publishers are the ones who give credibility to writers, and to get published, you need to work with an editor.  All editors work with a “slush pile”—submissions that come in unsolicited.  Until they get your query, editors don’t know you exist, and your submission ends up in the slush pile. Slush piles do get read, but they don’t have the priority that a known author or a repeat author with the press earn.  This can take a surprisingly long time. Many editors requir...