Names of Editors

It may be because the majority of big house editors don't accept unagented submissions, so having a list of who they are and what they like is sort of moot (plus, there's the whole "editors don't know what they're looking for until it lands on their desk" argument I see on occasion). And most of the houses/editors who do accept unagented submissions via the slush pile are pretty easy to find by searching online.

YMMV.

popmuze,

I don't know where, or if, you can find what you are looking for, but if you don't mind me asking, why should this info be important to writers? That is, "....a good source to at least reveal the tastes of some editors." If by that you mean what genres they are interested in, that info is all over the place.

popmuze said:

While Agent Query and others have demystified the agent experience, why isn't there something comparable about editors?

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Editors come and go, bouncing from house to house, leaving the job or moving on to some other niche in the industry, but that doesn't matter, because the senior editors won't see your work if it's in the slush pile. (They're busy looking at stuff sent to them by agents.)

An editorial assistant (A.K.A. the poor schumck whose job is to go through the slush) will be the first to open your envelope or e-query.

That person will see if the writer remembered to use spell check, can put a sentence together, and has an interesting hook. Hopefully the book will be a genre that the house publishes.

Get past that person and it's kicked upstairs, eventually--if it's REALLY GOOD--getting to the senior editor. By then, she will have the whole MS and will show it to the Suits, explaining to them why she thinks publishing it will make them money.

That's how it worked with me.

AGENTS will know which editors work at which house and what they're looking for. Their information is fresh because they "do lunch" and find out these things for you. Your agent will know that this editor is heartily sick of __, but actively looking for ___.

You can have a general idea of what the house wants by checking their releases, but keep in mind the newest titles were bought 18-24 months ago. That editor may be long gone by now.

What you can do is get the names of the agents working for those authors.

Alas, we lost Donald Westlake this year. He was one of my literary mentors, though we never met. I learned a LOT from him!

I miss him.

.

AGENTS will know which editors work at which house and what they're looking for. Their information is fresh because they "do lunch" and find out these things for you. Your agent will know that this editor is heartily sick of __, but actively looking for ___.

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Which is one the best (though not the only) reason why new authors should be looking for agents rather than submitting via the slushpile, IMO.

A good agent can also say that Editor A is heartily sick of vampire novels -- but that they're still flying off the shelves so she's still buying them. Or that Editor B just got the okay from upstairs to expand a line -- or the orders to cut back.

Invaluable info that could give you a head start over writers pouring over internet "news" that's days or even weeks older.

Pick up a copy of Writer's Market or The Writer's Handbook, 2010 editions (mine arrived last week). There you will find most publishing houses, the editors' names, and the genres they're looking for. And, most importantly, whether they accept unsolicited material.

ETA: the books also list editors' clients (purchases, you could say), expected time-frames, recent acquisitions, how-to's re: submitting, etc. The UK editions also tell a little about the history of the editors' careers.

I have no idea if the US editions list any of this information at all, but they should.

CheshireCat said:

Which is one the best (though not the only) reason why new authors should be looking for agents rather than submitting via the slushpile, IMO.

A good agent can also say that Editor A is heartily sick of vampire novels -- but that they're still flying off the shelves so she's still buying them. Or that Editor B just got the okay from upstairs to expand a line -- or the orders to cut back.

Invaluable info that could give you a head start over writers pouring over internet "news" that's days or even weeks older.

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I hope that all newbies have and/or will read your post and the one before you from Gillhoughly. You've both outlined some of the many critical reasons why having an agent is so important. Bravo.

popmuze said:

I'm talking about all us way past newbies whose agents may need all the help they can get.
I guess it's back to the old "look at the dedications approach."
All I know is, I just asked a writer friend of mine for some good editors and he came up with two names for the kind of book I do, with no problem.
So I figure, writers in the field may have just as good a handle on some good editors as some agents.
Maybe years ago nobody wanted to mention the names of agents because they thought it would violate some kind of protocol. But now that's changed.

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Chances are probably 100% certain that an agent has already heard of/met an editor you'll mention, so it might be a moot point already.

That, and you also run the chance of coming across as being incredibly pushy and trying to tell an agent how to do his or her job.

You could make a list of similar books and then used the deal tracker on Publishers Marketplace to see who the editor was. But in general, if your agent doesn't know who to submit your manuscript to, you probably need a better agent.

popmuze said:

I'm talking about all us way past newbies whose agents may need all the help they can get.
I guess it's back to the old "look at the dedications approach."
All I know is, I just asked a writer friend of mine for some good editors and he came up with two names for the kind of book I do, with no problem.
So I figure, writers in the field may have just as good a handle on some good editors as some agents.
Maybe years ago nobody wanted to mention the names of agents because they thought it would violate some kind of protocol. But now that's changed.

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I don't think this is a bad idea at all... my agent asked me if I had editors to recommend, because I've been around the block awhile. And now she's going to hit one of them up... why not?

I think the reason some of us would like to know some of this info is because it might help us gauge whether we have the right agent or not.

In any case, as a journalist, I always believe that knowledge is power, so knowing more about editors can't hurt!

popmuze said:

That goes without saying. But in many cases a better agent may not be possible to find.

What I was looking for here are personal experiences from other writers, not reference material the agent can undoubtedly find.

I'm not sure what you mean by "....personal experiences from other writers, not reference material the agent can undoubtedly find." I assume you are talking about personal experiences as they relate to business, not personal life. So, hypothetically lets say we have an agent who reps romance novels, and has been doing so for 2-3 years, with 1-2 sales per year. Are you saying that writers of romance novels will often know more about the likes, desires, (whatever), of editors than will this hypothetical agent, an agent who like most agents has to take in everything about her genre and the business each and every day? And even if you are right, do you believe that editors would want writers--as opposed to agents--to know their wants, needs, and inner-most buttons?

I don't agree with the idea a bad agent is worse than no agent. Unless your gent is an out and out crook. But most places won't look at your stuff without an agent, so if there was a way to supply your b/a with names of editors, then at least you'd get the look you'd never get otherwise.

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The agent you just described is, I would say, a really horrendous agent, and I'm assuming he or she is not a crook, just ignorant of the business. You describe an agent to represents a genre for a literary agency who doesn't even know to whom s/he should submit anything, much less the names of who to send to, much less has had no prior contact with any editor, in other words, someone who shouldn't be in the business and who I doubt is in the business. Why in the world would anyone want to use such an agent? Does anyone think that one or two submissions (put together by the writer) would have any meaning to an editor coming from such an "agent"?

And as Gill mentioned upthread, getting a manuscript directly to an editor is no less of a guarantee. Rather than sending it to the go-between who'll know the market and where your work should go, you've just dropped your manuscript into Slushpile Hell.

I have only ever submitted to editors. Yes, I have nothing published, but I have personal rejections from senior editors in major houses. It is posible to get your ms to a senior editor if it is good enough. But then it has to be good enough to be published.

Richard

popmuze said:

Not sure I follow this part of the argument.

I'm just saying, once you have the name of the editor, it's better for an agent to send the book than a writer.

We totally agree on this. However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm under the impression that you think writers of different genres should place the names of specific editors within each genre in some centralized type of pool which writers and agents could use as sources for queries. If so, I think that agents are far more knowledgeable and knowing about where to whom to send queries.
However, on an individual basis I see nothing wrong with one writer telling another about a specific situation, and the writer passing that info along to his or her agent. In fact, whatever the circumstances, I see nothing wrong with writers asking their agents about specific editors.

Are you saying if the agent doesn't know the editor, then there's no reason to send in the book?

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Not saying that at all. We can't expect every agent to know every editor. The always submit works to editors they don't know, and we as writers have to rely on the agent's and agencies expertise and track record.

I think it's a good idea, popmuze, and certainly don't see how it could hurt.

Probably no single one of us knows enough about what specific editors are looking for at any given time - but if we all shared what we knew when we knew it, surely some of it would be helpful to somebody.

For instance, for a single period of three weeks last year I knew exactly what two specific editors at Bloomsbury were looking for (and it certainly wasn't something you'd guess), I knew what a new editor at John Murray was hoping to find to expand their range, I knew about Harper Collins, Orion, Hodder Headline and one specific editor at Penguin. Now, of course, all that is useless - they'll have all found what they were looking for and moved on. But if I'd been a member here then and posted what I knew (no breach of confidentiality involved) mightn't it have been useful to someone who happened to have written exactly what was being sought?

Of course, the agent argument still applies - none of these people would have looked at unagented submissions, and by the time an m/s made its way upstairs to them from the slushpile the moment might have passed. But I'd say:

1) Even a good agent is always on the look-out for the kind of inside info I'm talking about, and I can't imagine mine minding if I said 'I've just heard X at Y is desperate for something like this, should we try them as well?'

2) Even from the slushpile, one might make quicker progress if one were able to tap into a specific demand. Your query would be addressed to a very specific person and would use the exact phrase of what you know they're looking for - it's possible (maybe unlikely, I don't know) that a clued-up assistant would look at it quicker than others in the pile because they know it's what the boss is looking for.

I don't know enough about the industry to know how helpful all this would really be, and certainly don't know the US publishing scene at all. But if that's the kind of thing you had in mind, popmuze, I don't see the harm in it. If we had a thread like that, I'd certainly post in it whenever I heard anything that might be useful to others.

Louise

popmuze said:

I don't agree with the idea a bad agent is worse than no agent. Unless your agent is an out and out crook.

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I have to disagree.

A bad agent might submit your ms. to the wrong publishers. Or the wrong editors with that publisher.

Or they might outright *lose* your manuscript. (Without telling you, of course.) They might fail to follow up with editors, or just disappear for five or six months at a time. They might actually OMG make a sale, only to give away all kinds of rights. Or fail to get you the right deal for your manuscript.

And years later, after they accidentally sold your ms to a real US publisher, they might decide that foreign rights are just too much trouble, and throw out any firm offers for those rights sales.

In short, a bad agent can waste your time and money. A bad agent really is worse than no agent at all.

eqb said:

I have to disagree.

A bad agent might submit your ms. to the wrong publishers. Or the wrong editors with that publisher.

Or they might outright *lose* your manuscript. (Without telling you, of course.) They might fail to follow up with editors, or just disappear for five or six months at a time. They might actually OMG make a sale, only to give away all kinds of rights. Or fail to get you the right deal for your manuscript.

And years later, after they accidentally sold your ms to a real US publisher, they might decide that foreign rights are just too much trouble, and throw out any firm offers for those rights sales.

In short, a bad agent can waste your time and money. A bad agent really is worse than no agent at all.

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QFT.

I've had two agents that are 'good' agents for other people but were 'bad' agents for me. One insisted that we needed to revise a project before sending it out. So I waited 6 months for revision notes. Never got them.

My other agent disappeared for months at a time, wouldn't send me information when I requested it, and basically acted like I was bothering him/her when I'd call to check in on submissions. I could go into greater detail, but let's just say that this was definitely a bad, bad agent for me and hindered my career quite seriously.

At least with NO agent, you can send your stuff to anyone you choose! If you met an editor on the elevator tomorrow and they said "Send me stuff!" you could. With a bad agent, you basically sit and hope that they'll actually make an effort into putting your book out on sub. And watch the agency contract you sign, because some of them are really grabby.

Good agent = awesome.

No agent = at least you are still in control.

Bad agent = No control, no hope, and no communication.


Yeah, I'd pick no agent over a bad agent. This could be why I'm already on my third agent. In two years.