George and Michael and I finalized our search for an editor for our first Random Acts Books publication and are moving forward with revisions to our stories. The first book to come out will be Illusions, an Ekphrastic Trio, with a target publication date next spring. In the earlier post, And Then There Were Three, I noted we were in the process of finding that editor but didn't get into much detail. The process was fascinating and enlightening to say the least.
We started by selecting seven likely editors from several sources, mostly those recommended by Joanna Penn at her great website The Creative Penn. I emailed all seven, telling them about ourselves and our concept for our company and our projects--and including samples of our writing where requested--and we got responses from five of them. Not bad. Two of the five said they were extremely busy and probably couldn't work with us for months. Of those two, one said she loved my writing sample and we engaged in a lively email discussion of the arts and have actually reached a handshake to work together on my story collection, A Quiet Polyphony, once I've completed it. Very exciting and inspiring.
The other busy editor, after telling us how busy they were, asked us to tell them why we thought they would be the best editor for our work, and told us to submit the opening hooks and climatic sections of two or three of our novels. Wow, what a pipeline, good for them! But we elected not to pursue that one, since three of the others had responded with some enthusiasm for our concept and our project, so I wrote to let that one know we were pursuing other options. Boom! Very quick response that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to work us in, after all. We all agreed that approach felt just a bit too much like a mill and we thanked them for their attention and wished them the best. Who knows, maybe they're fabulous editors, but we wanted to work with someone excited about us and who excited us.
At any rate, the three editors who responded with compliments about and interest in our approach and our projects were quite different in terms of location, background, and emphasis. One was a crusty New Yorker who had reviewed books in the NYT and other prestigious journals! Wow! Another was fairly young and newer at the game and whose emphasis, it turned out, was more genre books. And the third seemed, as with Goldilocks, just right!
We arranged Skype or phone conversations with all three editors and enjoyed chatting about writing and editing and life and goals with each of them. The New Yorker seemed all business and we ended up feeling like he would probably be very good but that we were hoping for something more than a pure business relationship. After all, while we presented ourselves as looking for an editor for only our first project, it would be fabulous if we found someone we could develop a comfortable and reliable ongoing relationship for future projects.
The younger editor admitted that they were perhaps not as suited for our more literary fiction approach for our first Trio, so we agreed to keep them in mind for a future project.
Then we connected with Steve Parolini, the Novel Doctor, and really felt good with him and his approach. One of the best things he told us was that, while he would enjoy a cordial relationship with us, once he got our work in front of him, "it's the words that matter, and only the words." We all felt comfortable and enthusiastic and agreed to work together on our first Trio.
At this point, Steve has read and commented on our three stories and we're all working through our revisions to send back to him. His notes were highly perceptive and we all felt he "got" our stories and was very helpful, even if, as is probably always the case, we didn't agree one hundred percent with every one of his suggestions.
So, on we go, with the next step to be hiring a book designer!
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