What The New York Book Editor Told Me

By the time I arrived at the big LA Children's Book Conference we had already received a couple rejection form letters on "Birthday Snow,'' - the manuscript we decided to send out first. It was also the manuscript that the NY Book Editor would be critiquing - face to face - later in the conference.

"Birthday Snow,'' is a nice mother-son story that got the feel-good response we hoped for when we tested it with children and parents.

I found the LA conference to be a dismal event. There were probably about a thousand people attending - more than four times the amount of new children's books that would be published that entire year. And the trend was decidedly less books published as each year passed. So not all were happy campers.

One after one the publishing house editors/speakers went to the podium and told their sad little tales. Basically, the book business was being run by the marketing departments. If the marketing department didn't buy in there would be no book. And an editor wasn't going to take any chances because one too many non-sellers and they would be out of a job.

So if you were a celebrity, or you had a string of successful books already or you had a dynamite marketing hook you could get a book published. There rest of you, well, good luck in the slush pile.

The feel-good stories that year at the conference were the pigeon on the bus and how to be a pirate books. The author of the pirate book was on a panel and she told of the enormous length of time - years and years - it took to get it published.

During the entire event only one speaker ever mentioned self-publishing. That was an editor in a break-out session. He made passing reference to "The Christmas Box.'' the all-time, self-publishing success story. He said he didn't know why but it just kept selling so anything was possible. I was beginning to think maybe it was the book editors that were the problem.

So Kim and I arrived for our critique. Across the table from us was a professional-looking, early 30-something editor from a big publishing house. She was very nice and personable. After we exchanged pleasantries she looked down at her roughly written page of notes.

I can't remember exactly what she said but it went something like this:

"Well it's good that it's about snow. You can sell a snow book."

Michael LaLumiere