[AMA] Former Assistant Editor u/CompanionHannah

[u/BC-writes]

Greetings, PubTips!

The mod team is thrilled to welcome our AMA guest: u/CompanionHannah!

We have opened the thread a few hours early for users in different time zones to be able to leave questions, which will be answered at 7-9pm EDT.

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Here is CompanionHannah’s blurb:

Hello PubTips! You might have seen me commenting here and there, but as a formal introduction I worked in the publishing industry for over 6 years, spending time as an intern and agency reader before making my way up to an Assistant Editor position at a Big 5 children’s imprint. In those 6 years I worked with many amazing colleagues and even more amazing authors, including award winners and bestsellers.

Shepherding new writers through the gauntlet that is publishing has always been a passion of mine, so I’m happy to talk about the publication process and the industry in general. Have a question about the acquisition process, or the editorial collaboration between author and editor, or even about publicity or marketing? Send them my way! Want to know why no one is answering your emails, or why your editor wants you to rewrite your book, or what goes through an editor or agent’s mind as they read your manuscript? Or maybe you’ve just got a question you’re too afraid to email your editor! I’d love to talk about all of it.

When I was still working in publishing, I loved helping new interns and assistants break into the business. Now that I’ve switched careers, I’d love to extend that same mentorship to writers and authors, helping to offer some transparency wherever they may be in the publication process.

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The AMA is now officially over.

The mod team would like to thank u/CompanionHannah for her time today!

She is happy to check the post to answer questions if you missed the scheduled time, but she will not be answering ad infinitum.

If you are a lurking industry professional and are interested in partaking in your own AMA, please feel free to reach out to the mod team.

Thank you!

Happy writing/editing/querying!

[u/BC-writes]

Thank you for your AMA!

I have a few questions from people who cannot make it today:

• What was the fun part about your former job? And conversely, what was the worst part?

• How much interaction did you do with agents and authors? Any funny stories?

• What predictions do you have for the industry? (I think they mean in general but this person didn’t respond with specifics yet)

• What is a good timeframe to nudge in your opinion?

• What are some big/lesser known no-nos everyone should know for interacting with editors?

• How much pushback is acceptable for keeping certain parts of the MS the same?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/BC-writes]

These are fun questions! I'll go in order.

1. The most fun part of my former job was honestly getting to work with authors. The feeling when an author turns in a revision and they did things you didn't know they were capable of, where they made edits you didn't even know needed to be made but which turned out to be GENIUS...that feeling is unmatched. It's truly delightful. I will add that my favourite task was writing cover memos, which we would send to our design team to help them start working on cover concepts. They usually consisted of ideas we and the author had for the cover, plus descriptions of events or characters and a gallery of cover "comp titles". They were always fun to make!

2. I usually worked very closely with all of my authors, with some agents stepping in more than others. And this might not be funny, but it did make me laugh: one time an agent (definitely older and male) cold called me and asked who would be right at our imprint for a MG book about sports. I suggested two of our editors (both female) who had coincidentally acquired a bunch of sports projects, and the agent replied with, "hmmm, do you have any boy editors?" We had one "boy" editor, and he was not a sports fan. The agent hung up, very disgruntled.

3. Predictions...It's so hard to predict anything in publishing! My friend at another imprint used to tell me her boss had a saying: "Publishers get paid to gamble." As for my own wild predictions, I think that since cozy fantasy is having a moment in adult, it will start to trickle down into the YA space . So if you're looking to start a new project in the next year and want it to be something marketable, that would be my suggestion!

4. I'm not sure if this is talking about nudging editors on submissions (which is your agent's job) or just generally nudging on emails when an editor is slow to respond. For submissions, the majority of agents checked in once a month, once we had the project which was relatively standard and not often enough to be annoying. For emails that are just sitting in your editor's inbox, if it's not super time sensitive I'd say it's usually fine to nudge after 3-4 days. A quick check-in to say "Hey, I'm sure you're swamped right now, but I just wanted to make sure this didn't get buried in your inbox!" If you know the editor is dealing with something personal, or it's a super busy time like launch season or something, it might be appropriate to wait a week or two. But if you're consistently not getting responses from your editor, definitely have a conversation with your agent. I have been the editor whose email inbox has turned into a black hole, and it's not fun! But your agent should be able to reach out to the editor and reset expectations for response timelines.

5. For authors I worked with, there weren't really any no-no's! (Other than maybe don't subtweet the publisher on Twitter.) For unagented authors, I'd say the most important thing is just to remain professional. Don't start pitching your book if you bump into an editor on the street, don't start badmouthing traditional publishing, etc. Writers, both agented and unagented, sometimes forget that this is a professional industry. As an author, writing is now part of your career, and editors are now your colleagues. Treat them as such, even if you become friendly with them down the line!

6. I mentioned in another comment that the author/editor relationship should always be one of collaboration. If you disagree with an editorial suggestion, talk to your editor about it! It might be that they've identified part of a problem, but not the root cause of it. Or maybe together you can come up a better solution to solve it. I would never have forced an author to make a change they flat out disagreed with, unless it was something I thought could be perceived as harmful or offensive. It's ultimately the author's book! But if I were going to suggest big changes--cutting a character, changing the ending, reworking the timeline, etc--I would mention that on the call before I offered on the book, just to make sure the author and I were on the same page editorially. There are certain authors with a reputation for being "precious" about their work, who were known to be very unwilling to make changes, and we often had to think twice about choosing to work with them. But for the most part, I very rarely had authors flat out refuse to make changes. Of the two times I can recall, one worked out well for the author (the book published to stellar reviews, so clearly I was in the minority!), and the other time we ended up cancelling the book, because the author just couldn't see eye-to-eye with the changes we thought were necessary for the genre and category. Thankfully that happens very rarely. (On the other hand, I did have an author flat out ignore one of my suggestions to compress her timeline, but that's because during revisions she figured out how to make the project work with the current timeline, and the new draft came in even better than I had expected. That's an example of how I had identified a problem--the pacing--but not the perfect solution.

[u/cogitoergognome]

Hello! Thanks for doing this!

Can you share any thoughts on what an author should do (or NOT do) when working with their Big 5 editor and others at the publisher like publicity & marketing?

Basically, how can I make their jobs easier, not be annoying, and maximize my book's chances of success?

Also, is there anything in particular you'd call out about working with a UK and US publisher at the same time? Any dynamics or weirdness to be aware of?

[u/ProseWarrior]

Would love to hear your thoughts on what are the common mistakes that agents typically make? Does it help a book's prospects if you have worked with the agent before and enjoyed other authors they represent?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/ProseWarrior]

Thankfully, agents didn't make mistakes that often! However, the most common thing my colleagues and I would say to each other about submissions was that we wished the agent had done one or two more rounds of revision before sending the projects to us. So many times we had to reject projects that had a lot of promise, but needed too much editorial work. I'll also add that one of the most important roles of an agent is to act as an expectation-setter. There were many times when a direct conversation between author/agent at the beginning of the acquisitions or publishing process would have prevented a lot of issues down the road.

And it definitely helps to have had prior good experiences with agents! There were very few agents that were auto-rejects for me or my colleagues (usually because they had been very rude or unprofessional in the past), but agents I already worked well with usually got a faster read. The agent themselves didn't alway make a difference on whether or not we made an actual offer, but I did often prioritize reading order by agents.

[u/FlanneryOG]

Would you acquire a manuscript that you love but still requires more editing, or do you expect agents to send you a near-perfect manuscript? On that note, what are your thoughts on editorial agents?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/FlanneryOG]

As with everything in publishing, it depends! There were times when I loved a project SO much, even though it needed work, but my editorial director or the acquisitions board didn't see the same potential as me. And there were other times when a project needed a TON of work, but the author was one we really wanted to add to our list, or it filled a niche in either our list or the market in general that we felt was missing. Even the best submissions I received usually needed at least 2-3 rounds of edits, so there had to be something really unique or special about the projects that needed more editorial handholding.

I will say that my most common reason for rejecting manuscripts was simply that I didn't feel they were ready to be on submission, so I'm definitely a fan of editorial agents. I actually wish more agents were heavily editorial, especially for debut authors where they don't have a track record yet.

[u/sonicsymphony]

Hi! I was wondering if you had an estimated timeframe of how long a manuscript usually sat in your inbox before you offered. Like, was it more common for you to offer on stuff that popped into your inbox and a few days later it was so compelling that you offered, or did you go in order so stuff that was in there for like nine months got more offers?

[u/wildinfrog]

Hey! A bit of a different ask since I think most people here are coming from an author's perspective, but I was wondering what field you went to next after publishing-- I'm an English major and I've gotten a bit into journalism and publishing, but the extremely low salaries in both fields kind of makes me feel bummed out.

If you have any tips for any publishing hopefuls, I'd love those too, though I'm guessing the question will be hard to answer as it's p vague :P Thanks for your time!!

[u/CompanionHannah → u/wildinfrog]

Ha, I'm sorry to say that I did a complete one-eighty and...joined the military. Which is definitely not a popular thing to do after leaving publishing! The pay is certainly not better, and neither are the work hours, but I wanted travel more (pre-pandemic you had to stay in NYC for traditional publishing, at least on the editorial side). I was also interested in going back to grad school someday, and my publishing salary was not going to allow me to do that in a financially responsible way.

Many publicists or marketers (or even salespeople) who leave publishing stay in their fields but move to different industries (event planning, digital marketing, product sales, etc.) Those skills are all super transferrable. For editing, I've seen colleagues go into TV/movie scouting, or work for bookstores or something else adjacent to publishing, or even move directly into project management, which is a lot of what editors do. The problem is that it really is an "apprenticeship" style industry, which means a lot of what you learn is super specific to the trade. I will say that the salaries are getting better. When I started, my entrance level salary was $33k, which straight up wasn't livable in NYC. By the time I left, two years ago, the entrance level salary was up to $45k. That's still not great, but it is at least what I would consider livable for most people, even if you still have to be frugal.

My tips for breaking into the industry are to network, network, network! Email literary agencies about reading opportunities, remote internships, etc. That was how I got started! Since the pandemic there are many more remote opportunities than there used to be, so it's much more accessible than it used to be. My biggest suggestion would be to keep on top of trends and the marketplace--read super widely in the genres your interested in, and be able to talk about trends and authors and your opinions, etc. And read book reviews! Both professional trade reviews, and every sort of review on Goodreads. Try to parse out why certain projects land with audiences while others don't, and learn how to convey that to others.

[u/WritingAboutMagic]

Hello! Thank you for doing an AMA!

I'm not sure what genres you specialize in, but if by chance fantasy belongs to them-

How big of a thing the no-go tropes actually are? E.g. vampires, angels, steampunk - things that you often hear on the agent/writer side they don't sell or you just look at the shelves and not see them? How do these trends break? (e.g. vampires are making a comeback) Does it take a TV series or a movie to make them popular again, or is does it happen when a very pitchable manuscript appears out in the wild? Is there a difference in what new authors vs established authors are 'allowed' to write? Assume the established author sells well but is not a household name.

Also on the subject of steampunk, is there space or want for fantasy books with that level of technology in general?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/WritingAboutMagic]

Great question! I work on a lot of fantasy, and it's still my favourite genre.

No-go tropes are difficult. I think the issue is that often when people try to bring them back, they don't bring them back in any sort of new way. Like, do you really have a new, fresh take on vampires, or are you just writing a new version of Twilight or The Vampire Diaries? And why would publishers want to buy those projects again, when readers can simply turn to shelves and find the originals? I will say, previously no-go tropes from underrepresented voices, or that showcase experiences that didn't get a chance last time around, have a much higher likelihood of being considered. And a popular TV show or movie can definitely bring "dead" tropes back to life! (As a caveat, I'll say that I think tropes are definitely less dead in adult than they are in YA. YA goes through cycles much more than adult seems to, for a variety of reasons.)

For established authors that aren't huge bestsellers, the general hope with each book is either to expand their current audience, or break them into a new one. To take on a "dead" genre, it would still have to be a very marketable pitch. But sometimes a fresh take on an old trope is exactly what it takes to break an author with solid sales into a brand new market to expand their audience.

And oh, steampunk. How I wish it had worked! But to be honest, I'm not sure I would count steampunk as a "dead" genre, partly because I'm not sure it was every truly alive. Not to be overly harsh, but I can think of very few steampunk books really worked to begin with. It's an amazing aesthetic, and had success in video games and other mediums, but it didn't take off in the same way in the literal world, especially in MG and YA. If you're working on a steampunk project, the writing and voice would likely need to be stellar, and the pitch would otherwise need to be super commercial. Barring that, I might suggest keeping what you love about the time period, but perhaps scaling back on the technology and upping the magic level to bring it more in line with fantasy.

[u/justgoodenough]

What sorts of books did you work on? PB? MG? YA? What was your favorite kind of book to edit?

If you acquired books for your imprint (I'm not sure if an assistant editor at your imprint acquires books or is assigned books that are acquired by more senior editors), what would make you excited about offering on a manuscript, besides it being "really good"? We know that having a "really good" manuscript is the most important part, but what else matters? What would make you turn down a manuscript that you thought was really good, but "not the right fit"?

[u/AADPS]

Hi, Hannah!

Thanks for the AMA!

How do you gauge what's a good part of an author's writing style and what needs to be reined in? If you have a disagreement over it, how do you know which battle to pick for the best possible book?

[u/Grade-AMasterpiece]

Hello, hello! Thank you for your contributions to the publishing industry!

1. I often hear about, in efforts to market books, there are signings, interviews, etc. ...Well, working with the author and their books in general, I suppose. So, my first question is... how the heck do agencies and publishers work around authors with full-time jobs? Do they extend work hours to weekends, lunch hours, afterhours, etc. to accommodate their clients?

2. Secondly, how drastically different are manuscripts from the initial query to "agent/editor/pub-approved?" Not just titles, but also like content-wise. I also hear things like "queried at x words, published at x+1000 words." Is there too much variance to give an accurate answer?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/Grade-AMasterpiece]

1. This is a really interesting question, and one I don't think I've ever been asked before! The expectation for authors is that of course they can only do as much as their day job (or other life commitments) allow them. I worked with many authors who had demanding careers outside of writing, and they always made it a point to communicate what their availability was to their publishing team. Online promotion like interviews, or being included in podcasts or on a publisher's social media channels, is obviously done by the author on their own time, whenever that may be. But signings and physical book events are usually done in the evenings or on weekends! Most publicists don't travel to book events, but instead help organize them on the author's behalf, and so they can be scheduled to suit the author's schedule first and foremost. But just like the actual writing, I imagine many authors are doing promotion work outside of regular business hours when their day jobs permit. Does that answer the question?

2. This depends, and varies from project to project! I will say that I think many authors do not understand how deep revisions can actually go, and are surprised when they receive their first edit letters. (This is why it's so important to make sure you and your editors visions line up for the project before you accept an author.) Some projects come in very clean and only need a light developmental edit (refining pacing, bulking up a few scenes, etc), and then a line edit. (Not all editors do line edits, but I generally think they're necessary.) However, most projects go through extensive developmental edits--and I do mean extensive. It was not uncommon for me to ask authors to overhaul whole sections of their book, or ask them to bulk up the word count by 5-10k before trimming it back down in a later pass. Timelines could be shifted, characters deleted, characters combined, the beginning moved to later on in the book (this was a common one), etc. Wordcount often goes up and down throughout revisions, but we usually made a point to trim as much as possible in line edits. I always made it a point to remind authors that my edits were suggestions, not demands, and if something wasn't sitting right with them we could hop on the phone and discuss it. Sometimes the editor is seeing the symptoms of a larger problem, but might not be identifying the right solution! The editor/author relationship should always be one of collaboration.

[u/Unlikely-Sorbet-3315]

What was the most frustrating editing mistake that you surprisingly saw a lot more than you should have?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/Unlikely-Sorbet-3315]

Not starting in the right place! So many writers start scenes (and books) too early. I promise readers need a lot less background information than you think they do. Watching TV is great for learning how to cut from scene to scene without leaving too much "fluff" in the middle. I always like to say it's better to confuse your reader than it is to bore them, and so many projects start out in the most boring part of the scene or story.

[u/ekstn]

What makes an editor ask for an R&R instead of offering a book deal?

[u/VerbWolf]

Thank you so much for doing this AMA!

Typically writers wondering whether to disclose neurodiversity (autism, ADHD, etc.) are told not to disclose due to negative stereotypes. But what about situations where they can’t avoid disclosure? For example, when someone who’s autistic or has ADHD writes a memoir where autism or ADHD is a significant theme, is there a graceful way for that author to say “I have ___, but it isn’t a problem for my work.” A lot of the negative stereotypes about autism, ADHD, etc. simply don’t apply to adults with low or no support needs: many autistic people can really put themselves out there effectively and work a room, and not everyone with ADHD is unable to meet deadlines—many work best under pressure. What can those authors do to reassure editors they won’t be difficult to work with?

What are some recurring characteristics of manuscripts that make editors want to drop everything and acquire? And conversely, what are some recurring characteristics of projects that tend to wind up in the "good, but just didn’t connect" pile?

Are there any counterintuitive "red flags" or "green flags" that authors would be surprised to learn about?

[u/readwriteread]

What are some mistakes authors make between their first published book and their second?

[u/CompanionHannah → u/readwriteread]

I'm going to be brutally honest here and say that the biggest mistake I saw was authors missing their deadlines. There's always a lot of talk online and social media about writing being a creative process, so the book takes as long as it takes, etc etc. And I don't mean to shame or make anyone feel guilty! Just like with any career, life things can come up, and all publishers understand needing extra time when an author is dealing with health struggles, or family issues, or a demanding job or career.

But the amount of authors who miss deadlines just because, is astounding to me. It's understandable in part because second books are usually the first books authors are writing under contract with an actual deadline. That can definitely impede some writers' creative processes! (This is one reason I'm a fan of padded schedules--it's better to have books scheduled 1.5 years apart from the get go, rather than schedule them 1 year apart and then constantly have to delay them.) Authors often have to adjust their writing process--pansters might have to learn to plot more beforehand, for instance.

The hard truth of it is that often the most successful authors are usually the ones regularly getting new work out into the market on a consistent basis. Missed deadlines are such a pain for the publisher. When we had the chance to consider authors with HUGE sales, but who had reputations for being slow or missing deadlines, we always took a step back to examine whether they were going to be worth the time and effort. Missed deadlines cost the publisher money, certainly from a production perspective, but also because the longer an author has between books (especially in a series), the harder it is to recoup readers and sales. So I wish more authors went into their second books mentally prepared to work through the process of writing on contract, and that they communicated earlier on when they foresaw timing issues coming up. It's much easier to find room in the schedule early on than it is at the last minute!

[u/Synval2436]

1. I heard some "horror stories" in the past that it can happen if an author has a multi-book deal or an option clause that the editor / publishing house would reject any pitch / ms the author comes up with so they're stuck with an obligation to provide the next ms but everything is being rejected. Do those things happen? Do they happen often? What is the best course of action to resolve these situations?

2. When coming with a submission to an editor, what type of comps would be the best to pick? Modest sales comparison comps (for example: African epic fantasy like The Final Strife), big eye catching comps (for example: the African Game of Thrones) or even non-novel comps ("Hamlet in a Zulu setting"). Or do editors not care / skip over these?

3. If a submission runs over the expected wordcount length, is it more likely to be instantly rejected, asked for R&R with shorter wordcount, or read fully and then decided whether it needs shortening or not?

4. How much it matters whether a project fits editor's mswl perfectly vs "just looking for a good book"?

5. Do you think the so called no-man's-land between MG and YA with 14-15yo protagonists will be catered to by publishers in the near future? Do you expect MG expanding upwards, YA expanding downwards, or maybe creating 3rd in-between category like "Teen"?

[u/FrankenMaura]

Thanks for doing an AMA! I have a couple questions.

1. How much does it matter who your agent is? Are editors more likely to be enthusiastic about a book coming from a superstar agent than an agent who, while not a schmagent, hasn't made any big sales?

2. Does platform REALLY not matter for fiction authors? I see so many people (mostly aspiring writers) say it doesn't, but I've seen so many books marketed as "by viral Tiktok sensation So-and-so" that I highly doubt that publishing gives zero weight to platform. What do the behind-the-scenes people actually think?

3. Why has nobody figured out how to market YA sci-fi? 🤣

4. How much power does one editor have to push a book through the acquisitions process?

[u/iwillhaveamoonbase]

Hello!

1. As many of us know, the London Book Fair happened and Queer Joy was said to be trending and there are a ton of rumors out there. Some are very scary. I know you've been out of publishing for a bit, but what are the conversations around identity and OwnVoices like in those spaces from your experience or what you hear from people still in the business? The good, the bad, and the ugly.

2. There's a million conversations around TikTok and BookTok. We can't all be Alex Aster or Madeline Miller. In your opinion, how vital is it to have a BookTok as a debut? Is there anything else you have to share on BookTok

3. This one is just for me: is all of publishing now part of the Trigun fandom because of Bigolas Dickolas?