49: The (He)art of Book Publishing Excerpt: Land a Traditional Publishing Deal — Q&A with My Editor at Portfolio/Penguin Random House

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of the only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to day three of Book Ninja. I almost couldn't sleep last night out of excitement to get to talk to Natalie Horvichevsky, my editor at Portfolio Penguin Random House. I am really excited about today because I've never thought to ask any of these questions of Natalie or anyone working at a big house. It always felt like a little bit of a mystery to me. And once I did get my book deals, I felt like, okay, that's great. That's all I need to know. Don't rock any boats, you know, But I think it'll be really fun. So a little bit about Natalie. Natalie has been an editor at Portfolio, which is the business imprint of Penguin Random House, for over five years now. Before that, she worked at a literary agency for a year and a half. And on a personal level, Natalie is incredible. I could not have written this book without her. It would be a far different book, and it's a far better book because of her. I was blown away this time around by how hands on she was and how much great feedback and what a collaborative process writing the book has been. Because of Natalie and my first book, I just did not have that experience at all of someone paying such close attention. They kind of just said, cut 30,000 words and then we're good to go. And my dad and I did most of the editing. And in this case, Natalie has such an interesting process of shaping the book at every stage and working with me on it. And so it's just really blown my mind about what's possible in terms of working with an editor and with traditional publishers in general. So Natalie, welcome To today's Book ninja session.

Thank you for having me and thank you for that very kind intro. It's been a pleasure working with you as well.

I told Natalie a few months ago I don't ever want to write a book without you.

Watch out. Natalie, can you share a little bit about what your role as an editor entails all the way from the start of a potential proposal to the end?

Sure. I am an editor at Portfolio, as Jenny mentioned, and in my role there, I look to both acquire projects for our list, generally about 10 to 12 new books a year. And my job is to champion and shepherd them the entire way through the editorial process to publication. So essentially that starts by looking for potential book projects, whether that's working independently or working with literary agents who are often pitching me their clients. Looking at really deeply at the book publishing space. I work primarily for a business book imprint, but I think that that can be narrow. It's not the kind of books that you would be reading in a college classroom, but rather I like to say that it's anything that can any kind of book that might have an impact on your professional life. There's everything from books on technology to business narratives, entrepreneurship, leadership, management careers, workplace culture, to being even personal development and time management. So once we work to acquire the books, I am kind of producer social worker of the books alongside the author. And like Jenny said, use the word collaboration, which I think is really kind of the verb that I would use to describe the work that we do, which is working really closely with the author through all stages of manuscript writing, from figuring out what the best outline is, the best structure, the best organization of the chapters, figuring out the positioning of the book through the difficult months of writing and editing to get to the point where you have the best possible product to share with the world. And along that way, also working not only on the content, but thinking about what the best package is for the book, what the right title is, figuring out the best cover to attach to the project, making sure that the descriptive copy that we use, both for retailer listings, for example, what appears on Amazon and what we're sending out to the media or other influencers, represents the book correctly. So it's often a pretty long process. I would say that from the time we sign a book to the time a book comes out, it's generally 18 to 24 months. And at the end of the day, I think my goal is to make sure that the author.

Has written and produced the best possible work that they're capable of and that we Positioned it to enjoy as much success as possible in the breeding world.

I think Portfolio does such a great job of that that every team member pays so much attention at every stage. And it's funny because people sometimes criticize traditional publishing for being slow, but I felt crunched for time every step of the way. You know, over those two years, I never felt. I mean, of course you and I ended up pushing the launch date back six months, but we needed to. And I think you and I realized you were absolutely right that it needed every bit of those extra six months. And so it's really interesting to hear how much consideration you put into every step of the process.

And I would say that it's not just. It's not just the editorial work that takes time, and it certainly does. Oftentimes when you're at the beginning of the process, it seems so overwhelming to think that your book might not be out for another two calendar years. But editorial work takes time. But so does getting the sell in process correct, which is one of the great assets that we offer as members of Penguin Random House. We're the largest book publisher in the world right now. Penguin Random House releases 15,000 new books annually. There's a lot to consider when it comes to distribution, to making sure retailers, both big boxes online and brick and mortar and independence, have the book in stock the way they need to, that it's properly distributed, and that it's properly seated in the media early as well. And all of that does take some time. Although I do want to say that like all businesses, we're always concerned about our efficiencies and looking to improve them where we can.

One of the million dollar questions for you is what do you look for when making an offer, when giving someone a book deal?

Good question. There are four major elements I think that I look for. Other editors might have slightly different variations on the same theme, but I'm certainly looking for an idea, a fresh idea. I want to see a clear thesis and a clear big question that you're looking to explore in your work. I want to know if it's based on original research or particular experiences you've had.

Either on your own or as a member of a large organization. I want to know if it is overturning something that's been long accepted about how the world works in one way or another. I'm definitely looking for clarity of idea. I am looking for platform. I'm looking to understand why you are the right person to represent this set of ideas to the world. What's your authority have you previously been published or previously communicated these ideas in print or online? Have you appeared on TV or radio speaking about this topic or in conferences? And I am looking at things like social media reach as well. Have you developed a following for your idea set on Twitter, through an email newsletter, through blogs, things like that? Related to platform? I'm also looking for what I call development of a tribe. The platform can be thought of as slightly more quantitative. Tribe is more qualitative. This is a have you already connected with an audience to an audience with this idea set already? I think that you really need to make sure that it's not just an idea that you are interested in and that your editor is interested in, but there are a group of people out there who are already kind of looking to you as a resource on whatever big question you are trying to solve. One of the ways that we kind of look for tribe certainly is following and engagement. So something like a mastermind group or even this call shows me that there is a tribe who cares about work that you're doing. And I think the last is voice. How does it read on the page? Is your work engaging or trustworthy? Is it exciting to read? Is it informative? If it lacks any of these, that doesn't mean that it's a sure fire rejection. Perhaps you'd want to consider working with a writer to improve that. But I think voice is extremely important in nonfiction and it can sometimes be overlooked because people look so much for the idea set and the structure and the platform. But to really break out and to have an impact on a national and hopefully international conversation, you need to have a distinct voice. So those are the four elements that I'm looking for. Different books that we acquire might have more of one than the other. Or it depends on the book, it depends on the kind of the subgenre. But generally I am looking to have a good sense of what each of those four elements is in any proposal that I consider.

It's so interesting to hear it laid out clearly that these are the four pillars. What do you do? So if someone has three of the four and one isn't quite developed enough yet, let's say platform or tribe or even their voice, like you said. Do you ever say to them, go work on this and come back in a year and we'll take another look?

Definitely.

I think that's certainly something that I would say. I try to be as transparent as possible if I think a project isn't right for us at this moment but might be in the future and recommend Some ways that you might bulk that up. So as you're saying, if somebody comes to me with a really great idea set and a good voice, but their platform isn't there, I might tell them. What would really help me be able to consider this more critically and with a possibility towards publication is if you use the next few months to really connect with other thinkers in your space on this, to start writing more about this topic and posting it on, for example, Medium or on LinkedIn or even Facebook to generate a following. I think that there are absolutely activities you can do to build any one of those kind of four factors.

What percentage of successful book deals would you say come from literary agents? Let's say a friend of a friend introduces you to an author and you proactively finding an author and pitching them?

That's a good question. Right now, the majority of our works do come in through literary agents. I would say 70% of the books that I work on have some kind of representation. But sometimes the representation, sometimes the first time I'm hearing of that author is when they come in to me via an agent. But sometimes it's actually the case where I've already known about the author and I've been pursuing them and they have an agent or we've hooked them up with an agent, or they're kind of a friend of a friend of the house as well. So that's kind of not a very clean cut distinction. But I'd say about 70% have some kind of recommendation, and 30% are people that I've approached who don't have representation. Either they choose not to, or I kind of got to them before an agent did.

Natalie and I were both at south by Southwest this year, and it was fun hearing about your scouting missions, that your sort of ears were parked for people you might want to make an offer to. And I feel some people maybe don't have an interest in writing a book. But for others, and probably a lot on this call, that's the dream. Like a publisher, an editor comes up to you and says, we want you. What's your process when you are proactively looking for someone?

In that case, I'm kind of trying to save those four elements, if I can spot those fairly easily from understanding who this person is. A lot of times it really is by looking around at networks of people who I already know. It's knowing that I have an author who's, let's say, speaking at some kind of sales summit, and he's on the docket with four other authors, two of whom might not have book deals but have been doing either research or writing a series, a blog series on a topic that I find is particularly interesting. So that's kind of one way that I look for people is if they're already connected to somebody that I work with or somebody that I know of who can in some ways too help vouch for them professionally and offer introductions.

What about self publishing? I feel it's gone in waves. Okay, the word on the street used to be oh, don't self publish first, because if it doesn't do well, you'll never get a book deal. But then in later years it's actually been, it's worked. For some people where they self publish, the book does really well and they get noticed. What's your take on self published works?

It depends on what your goal is with the self publishing. I think if you're self publishing to get the attention of a publisher, that's not always a surefire way. We certainly picked up books that have been previously self published that have shown kind of great self publishing success that we believe we can bring to an entirely new and bigger audience audience with our packaging expertise, our internal expertise and our distribution power. That is one way that we sign people up. But if you're writing a book to self publish solely to try to draw the attention of an editor or publishing house, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that as the best path. But if it's important to you to self publish a book to establish authority in other ways, perhaps you're trying to grow your business and it's important for you to have some kind of collateral material out there, but it's not quite ready to be a book published by one of the big five publishers. It can be a useful exercise. I'm not opposed to self publishing and I'm looking to self publishing, looking to see what the big category leaders are, even on Amazon that might be self published to see if perhaps we want to pick that book up or work with the author in the future. But like I said, it's not the best or only way to get the attention of a possible publisher.

Where do you hang out online when you're looking for potential authors or just trying to keep track of the industry like business thought leaders, let's say.

So Twitter certainly. I'm a big fan of Twitter. Found some authors on Twitter or at least met good people by watching conversations and participating in conversations. Reddit medium, definitely. And a lot of the daily news and business publications. I read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, Slate, the Atlantic, New York magazine is a popular one around here as Wired, Fast Company, Inc. Forbes, Fortune, and a lot of their respective social media outreach as well. And hbr. I think a lot of it is reading other publications, especially online magazines.

I love the way you described looking for a unique idea and possibly even something that overturns the status quo. It actually came up I was just interviewing Ryan Holiday for the podcast. He's another portfolio author and we both said our books changed so much from what we pitched to portfolio and what they're ending up to be. And we're both so grateful and they're so much better than they were when we pitched them. But I'm wondering, it has struck me many times, actually, I've just never gotten a chance to ask. It seems like you're also willing to put some faith in a really rough proposal that you sort of you are somehow able to see some potential and are willing to work quite a bit on shaping an idea until pub date. And that that's interesting to me that it doesn't have to come to you fully baked and perfect, even unbeknownst to the author.

I would add that sometimes even unbeknownst to the editor, we're certainly looking for a kernel of that fresh idea set. But along the way, once you move out from what is often a 20 page sample proposal or sample chapter to a bigger work, you necessarily run into some kind of bigger questions that you might not have had at the early stage of proposal writing that hopefully through a really vigorous collaboration between author and editor, you get to a place that's bigger and better than what either of you had expected at the outset. Simon Sinek was here a few months ago explaining talking to us. He's done two books with Portfolio and has some more on the way, telling us that he really appreciated the willingness to do the digging with him.

It's really tough, I think, for both author and editor when you're in the trenches, sometimes working through a manuscript or chapters that an author's been living with for possibly years, that the editor has been reading for weeks or months and trying to figure out how to get it from a B to an A. It's tough work, but we think it's really important work. We don't want to put out something that's just good enough. We want to make sure that the books.

That we're working together to publish are going to really stand the test of time, are going to be books that aren't just timely but also have elements of timelessness in them that can really help people from the moment they come out into 5, 6, 15, 20 years down the line.

One thing I found really rewarding was that you and the team allow for creative tension. That yes, it'd be nice if we agreed 100% of the time on every single element of the book and the COVID and the title and package, but that there is some amount of back and forth and collaboration, like you said, that just trying to get everyone on the same page. I think sometimes people worry about traditional publishing, that they're gonna, like, lose all control. And I think in the end, that creative tension makes for a much better product. But both sides have to be willing to dig in a little bit and hash things out. And I would say you and I were on the same page 85 to 90% of the time, and there'd be 10% that we would talk through. And then sometimes three drafts later, I would be like, aha, I totally agree with what you're saying, you know, on these last. Or we would find an even better solution that we wouldn't have thought of if we hadn't disagreed, you know, for a few months there.

Yeah, I mean, to totally valorize Brene Brown. Like, we want to be in the arena. We want to work with authors who are willing to be in that arena too. You know, who have expertise and have background, but who are also willing to understand other points of view and know that you know your audience in a way that we don't know those people that you speak with every day. And also that it needs to be something that the author is comfortable and really happy to be out there and speak about for the foreseeable future. You know, I don't. It's a custom job on every book. I would hate to hear anybody say, you know, I came in and portfolio turned out this kind of product. It's not an easy in out procedure. Every book really is a very personal project with its own struggles, challenges, and own high points. And I think it's really important that we remember that on every book we work on.

Can you share a little bit about the life of a book and your role in that from the book deal to. Or even the proposal stage to finish product?

Sure. So often books start as book proposals. If we're working with an agent we're considering one that often comes in pretty fully formed from an agent, or if we're working from authors we've identified, I might kind of provide some guidelines. What I'd like to see is, for example, a detailed outline, a sample Chapter or two, and a comprehensive.

Author bio, marketing platform and publicity ideas as well. Once we determine that it's a project we'd like to move forward on, we would probably have a phone call or a meeting to determine if each side feels comfortable with one another, if each side wants to proceed. Once we sign up a book, the author then usually goes off to write. But we are not kind of sitting on the other end, just waiting for them to deliver a book a year later. Often we're looking, we're working with them to refine the outline, expand or contract it as needed. As we've often discussed prior to even buying the book, we're looking at early chapters, we're providing high level feedback and we want to have a pretty open flow of communication about the work, editor to author, and vice versa until we get to a first draft that we're happy with. Once the first draft comes in, though, that doesn't mean that it's off to the copy editor and the author gets to take a nice vacation. As much as they would love to at that point. I think many times when the draft comes in, that's when the hardest work starts. And we often go through several editorial rounds, both structural and line editing at the end to tighten the book, refine it, make sure the language is correct, make sure the voice is consistent, avoid repetition, basically get the book as good as possible, make it the best book the author can write, and at that point the book enters into the production process.

That's when the book goes to the copy editor and later goes to layout. The interior design is set, the book is typeset, and we have first pass pages. And again the author and the agent are in close. Author and editor, pardon me, are in close communication throughout that entire point. During the point where we're editing the book after the first draft is delivered, we're also having serious conversations, often with the editor, the publisher, associate publisher, marketing, sales, about the title and the package. So for your book, Jenny, the title was pretty straightforward, but we definitely did our rounds on the subtitles and we had a few subtitles that we all like, but then they didn't quite work either. The sales feedback wasn't as positive as we wanted to or was just a little off. So we definitely did our rounds when it came to developing the subtitle and also the COVID And the editor is really involved in those conversations, as I was saying before, kind of like as champion as the author's supporter and social worker in house for the conversations that the author might not be present for, but Also having conversations frequently with the author to make sure that we're all on the same page about that positioning.

Yeah, the subtitle was a great example of. We kept changing that over many months where either once either a portfolio or I would say I don't love this or we thought we landed on one and maybe you guys got feedback from the sales team. It's still not clear enough that it's for career and that I'm so thrilled with what we ended on. But it required us both. We just hadn't gotten it yet.

Emails, Google Doc chains back and forth, and finally several in person meetings until we got the right formula.

Right. I know, it's so crazy. I learned a ton from you during the editorial process because I think we went five or six major rounds and just for everyone listening, this was so interesting to me that in the first rounds Natalie did not copy edit whatsoever. Now, as a former newspaper editor in high school, that she wasn't. She is an editor and I was always tempted to. I would print out the first draft and I would sort of go to town not just looking at the overall structure, but also kind of doing copy edits because that felt comfortable. But Natalie, you were like so great about saying, okay, this first read is just the highest level structure. Do we have the right four parts to the book? And in the case of my first draft, no, we did not. We needed to take one of those parts and make it the whole book. And that was your feedback. And then we got to the next edit and you were looking at, okay, do we have the right chapter structure, essentially. I mean, I'm simplifying here, okay, and you still weren't line editing and you still weren't giving feedback on the specific stories and examples. And then maybe in the next round you were saying, okay, here are all the little stories and examples or supporting evidence, or maybe you need to stop citing so many other people. And that we got deeper and deeper until the last edit where you did do more of the line editing. But it was just very fascinating to me to see how you really kind of held back on some of that stuff until later in the process.

I will say that I had to train myself out of that. When I first started editing, I really wanted to fix every comma on the first read. But I would quickly realize that the manuscript that I would hand back to an author would be just like this horrible looking red line thing. It was in some ways not seeing the forest for the trees. One of the important things that I've learned and hopefully when the authors that I work with look back on it, is that working on books requires trusting the process and trusting the fact that you're engaged in this conversation together on the page and that you sometimes need to hold off on making certain edits or recommendations until you have your foundation entirely right. It's like building a house. First you have your blueprints, you have your detailed outline. Then you start with your foundation or your parts in the right order, or your chapters in the right order. Then you start building up. You get your plywall. At the very end, you're putting in the windows and shining those. And that is when the ultimate kind of line by line, word by word editing comes in. But the hard work that most readers will never see, but that's so, so important to the final success of the book is the stuff that we do in those early few rounds.

Let's talk now about the launching phase, and I have two questions here. So one is that we see a lot in the blogosphere about making the lists, and everyone's trying to make the lists. So I'm curious how much you care or try as a, as a publishing house of making the list because I've heard comments that you more care about the Long Tail strategy. So that's part one and then part two. I've heard for many years now that it's like the ultimate black mark on an author. If they launch a book and it doesn't sell, it's like you're essentially doomed from publishing for the rest of your life, at least traditional publishing. So I'm curious if you could address both of those.

Well, I'll start with the New York Times listing. From a purely consumer standpoint, let's say somebody looking at New York Times bestseller list, it's important to note that nonfiction books are categorized either under the nonfiction list itself or under advice how to. And in both of those business, books are competing with history and you're competing with Ron Chernow's Hamilton on any given week, or you're competing with what to expect. When you're expecting books that enjoy huge audiences in the US and always have, it's really hard to get onto the list. And I think that authors sometimes focus on that to the detriment of their long term sales. You're absolutely right in saying that we're looking for Long Tail. You see books fairly frequently that have kind of orchestrated or specifically organized themselves to have really, really powerful first week on sales, which certainly is important, but then they kind of burn themselves out on getting all these people to buy 7,000 copies of their book the first week out. And it doesn't carry. Either because they get a little tired of pushing the message or because the book in the end might not actually be all that.

Useful or as great as everybody working on it had hoped that it would be. Those certainly aren't the only reasons that books make a list and fall off. But I think it's far more important to write a book that will sell as well three years later as to have a book that hits the times list straight out.

I'm so with you. That was the case for me with Life After College almost by the letter. I got so burnt out right around the launch and I quit my job. So I almost immediately turned my focus to earning a living instead of promoting the book because I wasn't going to see that money for a long time. But then a year later Target bought 15 doll and that was just so surprising to me. And then it continues to sell today because it's evergreen. So that was definitely on my mind too with Vivint that I think the goal is write as timeless a book as possible, knowing that.

Some references will inevitably become out of date.

Right. To speak to your second point though, about what happens if your first book doesn't quite sell to your expectations. I wouldn't say that that is a death sentence. If you have another book in you, publishers are always going to look for new ideas. It could be from authors who have already tried once and didn't quite work. There are a lot of reasons that a book might underperform, if indeed it is underperforming. Maybe the package wasn't exactly right. Maybe the timing of the publication. Maybe it was a little ahead of its time. Maybe it was coming out in a sea of competing books and one just happened to get more media. So I think that if a proposal comes in to me from an author who had a previous book that maybe didn't sell all that well, but I like the idea set. I think it's strong. I think that they've continued to show a commitment to growing their platform. They have a good voice and they have a tribe that's with them. I will consider that book.

That's very encouraging to hear.

That's awesome. What would you say? Let's say you were sitting in front of an author who was on the fence about whether to self publish or go with a traditional publisher and there may be a big name. There are some James Altucher, he's self published and he talks about that. So there are some big Advocates for that. What would you say to someone about the benefits of going with a traditional publisher? And let me just say, for me personally, I'll always do it, so you don't really have to convince me. I'm curious to hear, in your words, what the benefits are.

I think the benefits really are having the support of a longstanding organization that does this every day for hundreds of thousands of authors. I think at the end of the day, the people that work in book publishing love books and want to be a part of the tradition of. Of communication through books. I think that one of the things that we offer, in addition to distribution and absolutely extraordinary design and marketing departments and publicity departments and knowing all of the major media outlets and the producers that can get you on morning shows is the fact that. And I can just speak for myself as an editor, is that at the other end of the phone and the email, whatever, you have a person that deeply cares about you and your book.

That there's somebody in it with you who not only has skin in the game, but also has a deep emotional and mental commitment to helping you write a book to the best of your abilities. I think if you're kind of torn between that, I think that self publishing can be pretty lonely sometimes in terms of really just being able to work out those kind of existential questions in your writing, doing it yourself or with somebody that doesn't do this all the time and has a really good sense of what the book market looks like and what competing books in the category, how they're structured, how they're made, why they sold or why they didn't. I think that traditional publishing offers a lot of that and I think that that's still a valuable resource for quite a few authors.

Absolutely. I hit a complete wall. I thought I was going to self publish. Life after college. I wrote it in 2008. I was all set to have it come out spring of 2009 for graduation. I hit such a wall. There is no way I could fathom having to hire all the professionals that would have been needed to get it to the finish line. And there's something so nice about being able to share the baton, if you will, that when you had the book, I could relax for a minute. When I had it back, it was my turn to work. And that, like you said, even the production team and the copy edit and the design. And I would also add two other things, which is. And again, this is for. To me, it's just an absolute privilege to work with a traditional publisher. And it's not a guarantee. None of us are entitled to that. I will always take it if I can too, because for me, I think it also depends what kind of career and business somebody wants. But the first question people often ask is, oh, who's your publisher? And so I like being able to say yes. This was an idea that Penguin Random House vetted and selected. And the alumni group is quite nice. So getting to interview Ryan Holiday is really easier, I think, for him or other people even to say yes to the podcast when they can see, oh, we're like alumni of this group. So I would say those are some of the intangible benefits too, that are actually quite helpful.

There is kind of a sense.

That I do agree with sometimes don't agree with at other times of publishers, trade publishers being curators and gatekeepers. That is not to say that they're not fantastic, high quality self published works or works by any presses or academic presses. There certainly are. But as you're saying, we as an imprint do about 60 to 75 new hardcovers a year. We have hundreds of authors who we work with on multiple books. At this point. It really has become something of a community and an alumni network where not only do those authors find themselves in conversation with one another because they might share a publisher, but we then become involved in this really interesting community of thought leaders, if you'll excuse my use of that word.

Yeah, no, it's true. So that's really fascinating to hear that as an imprint you do about 60 to 75 a year. I'm curious what your ratio, let's say even for you as an editor, if you just guesstimate how many proposals you see compared to what percentage you make an offer to.

5 to 10%, I would say.

Yeah, we see a lot of proposals a year.

And there's all different reasons we might not take something on. It might be an absolutely brilliant book, but not in our strike zone. Or one of the aforementioned factors might need some shoring up. But we publish a small number of the proposals that we actually see. Even at the number of 60 to 75 hardcovers a year, how do you.

Choose which editor gets a book or even sees a proposal?

A large part of my job is making myself known to agents and to other people who might bring books my way. So a lot of it is outreach, making sure that people know these are the books that I published in the past. These are the kind of projects I'm looking for in the future and why that might be different from other editors who are working in similar Spaces. So we have six acquiring editors at portfolio right now. Some of our tastes definitely overlap.

An agent or an author might feel comfortable submitting to several of us. In which case I like to think that we're really collaborative here. If somebody has a book that I'm like, oh, I would have been the perfect editor for that. Yeah, well, so is Nikki and Stephanie. Two of our other editors are also going to be amazing editors, editors for this book. So I think part of it is just being able to develop your list over time. The more books you publish, the more people kind of see the categories in which you excel.

Natalie, is there anything I missed that aspiring authors should know?

Read a lot.

The best way to figure out what you might want to write or what you definitely want to avoid is to be well versed and, and read books yourself. Editors are big readers. We love when the authors are big readers as well.

Okay, this came up the other day. There's this paradox of reading a lot where on the one hand I'm so with you. I love, love books. Going to your office is like Christmas because I usually leave with a book that I wasn't expecting. But it can be this juxtaposition because it's reading a lot. But then it's easy to feel like, oh, everything under the sun has already been written or simultaneous to think one has an original idea. And given the pace of information exchange in our society now, that same idea can come out even while the project is in process. Any thoughts on how to reconcile this?

I mean, that's tough, but I think the important thing to know or to keep in mind is that even if you shield yourself from kind of participating in reading, that doesn't mean the rest of the world is doing it, including large swaths of your readership who are reading several books a year. I think it's important to know different sides of an argument on any given topic and see how those are being explored in books. Nobody's going to have your precise filter, your experiences, your examples, your point of view, your voice and your platform or tribe. So you know, all of that is self determined. But I think that it. You'd be doing yourself and possibly your readers a disservice if you kind of held yourself back from reading widely in this space.

That makes sense.

I think your editors are here sometimes too to, you know, to let you know. Like actually this sounds kind of similar to the. The same example is used in XYZ book. So it's not just kind of.

A challenge that you have to face alone.

What do you think an author can do to submit the most successful first draft knowing that it's going to be pretty rough?

Have conversations with your editor early in office? I mean, I think that sometimes people think that.

They should go off and write in an attic office for six months and come back and hand something over to their editor. And the work starts from that kind of clean point. And that just terrifies me.

Early.

About direction, about sticking points, about examples you may or may not want to use, and seeing sample chapters, definitely having those conversations early so you can clean out any kind of cobwebs that might creep up in the course of writing.

That makes a lot of sense to.

Also come with an open mind. At the end of the day, though, it's going to be tough to get there. And it can be sometimes demoralizing to be edited.

As positive as everybody always tries to stay through the process that our interest, like yours, is to make sure that we publish the best possible book.

That was always, again, part of the reason I never understood why traditional publishing gets so much flack. Because it's this case where both of our interests are exactly aligned. We both want to make the best book that's timeless, that sells a lot of copies, like we both have the exact same goals. So it's not this adversarial thing that I think sometimes it gets painted to be.

Are there any other mistakes that authors, new authors or aspiring authors can avoid that you see frequently that you're giving the same kind of feedback on for people?

Good question. Let me think about that for a second.

I think.

Sometimes people hold things back because they're afraid to discuss them with their editor or maybe their publicist. More information does not hurt us. We'll let you know if it's too much, but I think knowing if you're at any sticking points or knowing the more you tell us, the more we can help you in any part of the publishing process? I think that sometimes the idea to kind of keep it all in and go, okay, everything's fine, I'll just turn in a manuscript. Six months. Even though I'm terrified sitting at my computer every day right now, I'll get over.

Doesn'T have to be that way. And I think that's one of the reasons that your editor is there to work with you through any of those tricky spots in writing a book.

I'll share with everyone two points of feedback that I learned from Natalie. One was in my first draft, I referenced so many other authors. She was essentially put this in very nice terms, but it was more like a report than my own ideas. And so I thought that was really interesting that you were kind of like, okay, you're the expert. Own your ideas. It's okay to make them your own. And that was really helpful. And then stories. Stories are my Achilles heel of writing. I just don't grab it. I'm much more apt to create a checklist or some kind of, like, the tools, the tactics and templates. And so I struggled with that. But I was so glad throughout the process, every time you said, this needs an example, or please flesh out this story. Now, as people are reading the book, they're writing to me, and they're saying, I feel like I'm following all these characters in a movie. And like, oh, it's. The stories are bringing it to life. And that just surprised me because also, sometimes I read business books, and they seem very formulaic in terms of story, but you somehow helped us get pivot to an okay place, which I was really grateful for.

Well, you also had all these fantastic stories. You had them even if you didn't necessarily think to integrate them initially, the way they wound up being integrated in the final product. But people really do learn best through stories and something like this, where every single one of the people that you profiled in this book.

Has a narrative arc to share, sometimes several rounds through, kind of a challenge, a climax, and a resolution. So I think it was really valuable. I think that we were able to work together to get to a point where those stories serve to highlight the lessons that you had already laid out.

There was one example in the Diminishing returns section. We were really late in the editing process, and I think you had written this note like this. Could you just. One more example. And I remember reading it like, oh.

Who can I possibly reach? This is a very specific problem someone needs to have had, which is that they stayed for too long in a situation and. And passed the point of really when they think they should, because as you and I both discovered, most pivoters were, like, pretty happy with when they left something. And so I found Melissa Ansmann, who is a friend of mine, and I've known her through blogging. I'm so glad her story's in the book. I. When. When I interviewed her, I was thinking, you know, I was, like, tired, not in a bad way, but just, like, at the end of the line of being digging deep to find new stuff and new people. And as soon as I got off the phone with her, I was like, holy cow. Like, we really. She used such powerful language that this, what had once been a lifesaver became an albatross. And there's no way I could have described diminishing returns any better than that. And I'm so grateful. And that came very late in the game and I wouldn't have thought to do it myself.

Okay, so we have a question from Caroline, who said, this is so helpful. Thank you, Natalie and Jenny, I'll soon begin the process of looking for an agent, and I'm wondering if you have any suggestions about how to find an agent and what to look for in him or her. How much weight does a specific agent have in terms of placing the book.

The number of literary agents.

Nonfiction Business specific nonfiction is not as big as the pool of literary agents that do fiction. It definitely helps to do your research by looking on websites that recommend.

Agents to query and for what topic and to go on their website. You know, one place to start is by looking at the acknowledgments of books that you really like, seeing who represents them, and visiting that agent's website. You know, and even starting by saying, I love this book. You are their agent. I have this idea, this proposal, or this manuscript that I think you might enjoy because of XYZ and start from there.

Great. Leona asks, are there certain experiences, industries, or books that are underrepresented in book proposals and that you're always on the lookout out for?

I love this question.

Me too. It's a good question.

The two books that I have told agents and just people I've met lately that I'm looking for are books for new managers, especially millennial managers. I think that there are a lot of really wonderful management books that were written in the 80s and 90s that have not aged tremendously well for people working in a new mobile digital economy. So I'm always looking for good books for new managers, particularly people who are in their 20s and 30s that talk about the.

Difficulties and the great joys of managing in a really real and relatable way. So that's one book that I'm looking for.

Fantastic Startup stories from Company founders is a big one that have applicable takeaways for other entrepreneurs.

And generally stories of women in business.

Women in the business audience are underrepresented as authors, so they comprise about 45% of the total readership, the total reading audience in that category. So there was a lot of talk actually at the south by Southwest that Jenny and I attended about gender and racial bias in hiring. Would love to see a book maybe on that topic. And with some, you know, real solutions as well.

But books by female. By women in business, for women in business.

I think is an area that we haven't finished really exploring yet.

These are great. I already have people coming to mind for you. I noticed the same thing when I was doing my podcast. I mostly interview business and career authors, and I started to have so many men, and I'm like, I know I wasn't doing this on purpose. I just. So many of the books that I'm reading in the space are written by men, so. And I love men. I just was like, oh, I gotta work a little harder to kind of keep this balanced. John asks, do authors ever resist your suggested changes? And I have a big smile because no doubt there were times we went back and forth. So please enlighten us.

I get really nervous if somebody reads my comments and revisions and accepts them wholesale without pushing back on at least some of them. You want to see that dialogue. It shows an investment in the idea set.

So, yeah, people have definitely resisted edits. And many times, in fact, the specific edits they've resisted, we've had deep conversations on. And what's come through at the very end has been a better solution than either what came through in the original draft or in the edit that I was recommending.

It is never fun when somebody tries or somebody disagrees with all of your edits. That's happened too. But I think generally it tends to be something where we agree on 70% the author agrees on, maybe 70% of what I'll have written back, 20% will fight over and come to or have, pardon me, quality discussions about agreements on. And then 10% might be something where the author goes, no. Actually, in my experience, in my conversations with authors, this is really important. This is the way we talk about this issue. This is the way that this is a solution that needs to be presented and that winds up staying, despite what might have been my initial hesitation over it. I think a really healthy dialogue is good, but it does scare me if somebody comes in and says, I've accepted all of your edits, it's a clean manuscript.

Yeah, that's actually interesting to hear you say that. And. And I think what makes it a true collaboration is that both sides have a final trump card where both parties can allow the other to say, no, I really feel strongly about this and be able to give those concessions in moments, too, and trust the other person. Yes, I trust if there was something you just were like, no, I just feel so strongly or something that I did that there was room for that. And we ultimately both felt like, okay, okay, yes, we've been heard, we've hashed this out, and I now defer to the other person.

At the end of the day, though, I understand and I believe very firmly in the fact that I am an editor. My job is to make your product the best possible product and that it is your book. Your name is on the front cover, your name is on the spine. It needs to be a product that you are ultimately extremely happy with and able to stand behind.

My intention of my edits is always to strengthen that position, but at the end of the day, it needs to be your book, your words, and a product that you're really happy with.

Last question is from Leona, who asks any lessons learned from the book packaging and book cover process. I'm curious to hear you answer this because you've done this so many times now.

Ooh.

That really is. Every book package is a custom job. We start with looking at the title. Sometimes we have to throw the title out and start over again. We think about the subtitle, we think about the category, whether it needs to be a literal illustration, an abstract illustration text only, what we think that the primary readership will best respond to, whether it's kind of a serious looking coverage or something a little more playful or whimsical. There's no hard and fast rule for book covers other than to avoid excessive busyness, which is what we sometimes see when we sometimes see in book covers. We have an extremely talented art director that we work with who works only on our books, and he has a wonderful staff of his own. They work with a ton of freelancers and, and really talented cover designers as well. So it's a process on every book. It's really rare that we come out of an initial meeting going, oh, perfect. We know exactly what this cover should be, and it's executed the way we're all expecting it on the very first try.

But I think ultimately I'm looking at my bookshelf right now and it's not. None of these books look the same. There are serif fonts, sans serif fonts, really bold blue backgrounds, white backgrounds.

Subtitle on top, subtitle on the bottom, a big cover quote from somebody or a really, really stark cover. Every book is treated individually. We just need to make sure that it is something that is really compelling both on the bookshelf. Because people browsing in bookstores is still a huge, huge way that people discover new books to buy and to make sure that it Also works as a thumbnail and an image people can share online.

Yes. That's what is so interesting, that it's not just the author and the editor deciding on the COVID Sales reps also have an influence that there are sales reps at Portfolio who are selling the book to Barnes and Noble to big retailers and that they have a sense too for what works for their big clients and then for it to be conveyed in a thumbnail as well. There's so many different interests to consider.

It's the thousand angels dancing on the head of a pin, for sure. When you're trying to do book covers, there's a lot of points to hit and people to, if not please at least convince, I would say. And Jenny brought up a really salient point that I missed, which is the importance of the sales team and the buyers.

We have a huge sales team here at Penguin Random House who are selling books to the book buyers, the representatives from Amazon and Barnes and Noble and books a million and all the indies who are seeing at the same time the books that everybody else in the space is also pitching to them. So it's really important that we get a sense of what that we take their feedback seriously as well. So the buyer from BNN comes back and says in the career show space, we really see that this works and we think that this cover would be a turn off to buyers in our stores. We will take that seriously.

Awesome. Natalie, this has been so helpful. Thank you so much. I think for a lot of people, traditional publishing is an intimidating, often mysterious force in the world. So I'm just very grateful for you to take this time and give such wonderful insights into your role and huge congrats on all that you're doing, all the books that you're shepherding into the world.

Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun. And if there's a thought I could leave you with, it's that traditional publishing should not be seen as a monolith. And it's one of the reasons that I have been in business with publishing is to, I think to combat some of those misconceptions or the lack of transparency that our industry has.

Has been known for. I think it's really important to have these kind of dialogues with potential authors because at the end of the day, the best thing you could possibly do is publish more great books together and continue the conversation.

Yes, I love it. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you for all that you do. And portfolio is just crushing it. So I also have to say thank you for bringing us all the amazing business and career books that you do. I think you're single handedly giving the Pivot life through all the books and authors that you support. So thank you again for everything and for believing in Pivot since day one.

Absolutely can't wait till the release.

Me too.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter. Enny Underscore Blake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.