Episode 20: Book Editing

In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers, editors Sarah McGrath and Lee Boudreaux walk us through the art of book editing. 

Lee Boudreaux is an executive editor at Doubleday, specializing in fiction. She edited James by Percival Everett and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, and also has the great pleasure of working with such writers as Claire Lombardo, Kate Atkinson, and Margaret Atwood.

Sarah McGrath is Editor-in-Chief of Riverhead Books where she works with many award-winning writers, among them Liz Moore (God of the Woods) and Miranda July (All Fours), who both had bestselling new books in stores this summer, and Rumaan Alam whose new novel Entitlement comes out later this month. She and her family have lived in nearby Glen Ridge for over a decade.

Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.

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The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.

The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.

Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.

Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.

Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids’ Room!

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Transcript

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Watchung Bookseller's Podcast, where each week we bring you conversations from our bookstore's rich community of book professionals who talk about a different aspect of the book world. And if you are new to our podcast, thanks for joining us today. I'm Kathryn, and I'm here with my co producer Marni.

Hey, Marni. Hello. And today we are celebrating our 20th episode.Uh, so Marni, what have you been reading these days? I just got a copy of Lily's book, Last Book's Owner, Lily Braun Arnold. She's one of our booksellers and this is her debut novel. It's coming out in January of 2025 and it's available for pre orders.

So, uh, hop on the website. You can order that and have it ready for you in January. Pre orders are very helpful for authors. It helps them get better placement. So it's really important to do that. What do you read? I am finishing Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo, and this book was edited by one of our guests today, Leigh Boudreau.

And interestingly, she and our other guest, Sarah McGrath, have edited nearly all of my favorite reads this year. Yeah, so today we're talking about the role of editing with two masters of the craft, Leigh Boudreau and Sarah McGrath. Leigh Boudreau is an executive editor at Doubleday specializing in fiction.

She edited James by Percival Everett and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmas, and has also the great pleasure of working with such writers as Claire Lombardo, Kate Atkinson, and Margaret Atwood. And Sarah McGrath is editor in chief of Riverhead Books, where she works with many award winning writers.

Among them, Liz Moore and Miranda July, who both had best selling new books in the store this summer, and Raman Alam, whose new novel, Entitlement, comes out later this month. She and her family have lived in nearby Glenridge for over a decade. Enjoy the conversation. We'll be back afterward to fill you in on what's coming up in the store.

Hi, Leigh! Hey Sarah! It's so great to do this with you. I'm excited to do it with you. I've been a huge admirer of all your books for so long. Oh my gosh, it's mutual. I spent the year reading your books, I feel like. I've spent the last several years reading your books. I feel the same way. My entire To Be Read pile is just like Sarah Riverhead, Sarah Riverhead, Sarah Riverhead, six feet deep.

I've known you for such a long time and we started doing this around the same time, but I don't know every detail of how you got here. So why don't you tell me how you came to be Sarah McGrath, editor in chief of Riverhead. Yeah. Gosh, I've been doing this for, like, 25 years? Maybe it's more than that. I began in magazines very briefly.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting. I thought, because in college I was really involved in my, like, weekly newspaper, news magazine, and I thought, like, that was the next step. So my first job was at Newsweek magazine, which at the time was a very important publication. Yeah, it was. And it was like a competitive job to get and I was so excited.

It was not the right place for me, but I am so grateful that I had the experience of being at the place that wasn't the right place for me. And I say this to young people all the time, like having the wrong job or the almost right job is actually very valuable. So I, I left that. And I went to be an editorial assistant at Knopf, and when I took that job, I had people that I'd sort of known from earlier in my life who were saying, you know, Oh, well, you're going to Xerox all, all day long, you're going to do nothing but Xerox.

And it wasn't untrue because that was the era before attachments and you couldn't just print it out. But Xeroxing things that I wanted to be reading felt like I had come home, right? And I like knew very, very quickly that it was the community that I wanted to be a part of. Yeah. And then I moved through, I was at Knopf for a few years, I was at Scribner for a lot of years, and I came to Riverhead in 2006.

And I've been there ever since. Wow. Did you grow up in New York? I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey. Oh, no kidding! I did not know that. Yeah, yeah. So I lived in Brooklyn for a bit. We moved, you know, to this area like 11 years ago, I think. Did you ever think about being a writer? So when you were doing Newsweek and going into like journalism, did you ever think you were going to be on that side of the desk or you always knew you wanted to be on the editing side of things?

No, I'm hesitating because I had a conversation with a college friend the other day who was like, Remember when you wanted to write? And I was like, I literally do not, no. Um, I very quickly felt like editing is the way I do it, and I think the way you do it too, is a very creative endeavor, and it, it scratches the creative itch for me.

It feels very engaging and I love it. Maybe if I were not so satisfied with it, I would feel like an itch to write, but tell me your trajectory. So my trajectory, I mean, first of all, I'll say I'm one of the people who never wanted to write going into editing because I think the writers are like these magical creatures.

And of course, now that we work so closely with them, we know how much. Work goes into it, and it is 99 percent perspiration, 1 percent inspiration. But I just thought, well, who could ever do that? I was so happy to be as far in the background as they could put me. I just wanted to be standing there, like, on the edge of the pool, while the writer did his or her amazing thing.

So, I just loved to read, had no idea. How to get a job in publishing from this tiny little town in Virginia. Went to college, was an English major. Again, no notion of actually working with books for my whole life. Worked as a paralegal. Just kind of fell into that like a friend was like, I'm leaving to go to law school.

Do you want to apply for my job? And I said, okay, sure. So I did that for a while. And then thought, Lord, do I not want to go to law school? And I moved with a friend down to Atlanta, and I was like, they've got some very small publishing companies there, and I'm sure that'll be great, and I'll do that, and then maybe one day I will grow up and work for Algonquin, which was in North Carolina.

And that was as far as my vision extended. And then my roommate's mother gave me a book. That was called Jobs for Bookworms, like the most random thing. And there was a chapter in there about this thing called the Radcliffe Publishing Course. And I thought, Oh, I'll go do this six week summer course. I'll learn what publishing is.

And my full expect, well, I actually did. I came back home to Atlanta after that thinking, you know, I've learned a little bit of something. And it was kind of a six week course, half books, half magazines, but it did expose you to jobs that were not like just editorial. Like, I think a lot of people don't even know what jobs there are in publishing other than being an editor.

Like people sell, um, sell those books in countries all over the world and there's a publicist working on it and there's a cover designer and a marketer and there are all these other jobs that get to touch the books that aren't just writer and editor but I did that course and then I was like oh now I know these other people my age who are going to move to New York and I came up here and lived like on a floor in Brooklyn.

I didn't even have a bed. I literally just slept on the sofa cushions on the floor with these four 22 year old guys and got a job at Double Die which is funny because that's where I work so I had I started as an editorial assistant Double Day. For about eight months, moved with my job over to Random House, was there for nine years, went to a very small publisher called Echo, because I wanted to see if it was different working for a small place versus a big place.

Went to Echo for nine years, and then a little bit of time at Little Brown, and then ended up back at Double Day, where I started in, what was it, 1995 now? It's amazing when we say these, when we Numbers out loud to have done it for 20 years 25 years or 30 years. So that's how that all came to be Yeah, that's funny at that.

You ended it back where you started I I didn't end up with the same imprint, but I did end up back at the same company Yeah, right. And so we're at the same company. We are although And two different so for a long time we were doing very similar things But we didn't know each other, and we were occupying similar spaces.

I think we actually have kind of similar taste in books. Uh, which is why I love all your books. I was going to say the same. Um, yeah, it took a while for us to get to know each other, and now we're, now we're both here. That's right. Yeah. Neighbors, colleagues, fellow commuters, dog owners, the whole nine yards.

Watchung customers. Absolutely. Yeah, so, is it like what you hoped it would be? I would say it definitely is. I love it. I love editing. I love that so much. If they, my husband will look at me working all weekend and say, can't you give that to your assistant to do? Or haven't you gone far enough that you don't have to do that all the time?

I'm like, no, this is the part I don't ever want to give up. I'm going to give up other things, but not the editing. So I love the puzzle solving of it. Yes. Yes. And it is creative, like you say, right? It's like, Okay, what's so amazing is it's like you read a book you love and then you get to talk to the author and ask them whatever question you want to ask them, right?

And that is, that is just such a privileged position to be in. Amazing. So I love that. I loved booksellers and getting to go out there in the world and go to all the different bookstores in different places and talk to the booksellers and Getting to know the authors is amazing. Getting to learn about something different with every book you publish, things you never knew you were interested in, and then suddenly you're like, I know all this stuff now about making cowboy boots, you know?

I mean, just, I think it's such an interesting job for a generalist. Yes. Where you just like, to kind of participate in other people's experiences and learn about any number of things. Is that what you found it to be? Yeah, I mean, the act of working with authors This is my favorite thing. The text but also the author and especially that sort of that beginning connection where you understand from the author like what they're trying to achieve but they are able to sort of say to you this is what I'm trying to do and then you know together you make sure that the book is doing what the author, what they're trying to, wanted to be doing.

And I love that. It's different every single time. It's different even by the same author. Like it's still a totally different experience. Yes, and people are surprised by that. You think like, well, you know, to edit this one author is to do this checklist of things. There's no checklist ever. I mean, it's very much about connecting with the book and, and sort of feeling out, you know, everything from, you know, is the pace right to are the sort of the emotional beats hitting to is it clear enough?

What would the Metaphors are the, you know, or what actually happened to her or whatever. But I, yes, the fact that it's different every time, solving those problems, and also there's an element of the job in this way that is like a bit of a psychologist, right? Right, like how you get the writer to do their best work is gonna be different depending on who they are, what they need, what they're struggling with.

Right. But yes, the bookseller community, the publishing community, yeah. is the nicest thing. It's just, it's, I can't imagine working in a different industry because of People, the people and the sort of the shared passion. And there's just all so interesting and committed to sharing stories and sharing words and yeah, right.

And I feel like everybody in publishing could have done something else and made more money. Right. So I remember there was, when I was an editorial assistant or assistant editor, something like that, some other person at that same level was like, well, I could go to business school and make more money. And I was like, I think all of us could, like, we're obviously all doing this.

People choose publishing. I think. the way writers write because you can't imagine not doing it because you would be so sad giving that much time and effort and emotion to something that wasn't as fulfilling. So it's such a self selected group of people who would, like again with editors, we'd rather be inside on a Saturday reading a book for the fourth time and that isn't something everybody wants to do, you know?

So it's like I've had two assistants who worked for me for a long time and left after five years because they didn't realize it didn't get easier or better. They left the industry. What would you say? would surprise most people about what we do. A shocking number of people, including writers, think that we sit at our desks all day and are either reading or editing.

And how many days a week do you sit at your desk? Zero! Okay, that's what's so weird. We both work 40 or 50 Our jobs, during which we never edit a word, nor do we even read perspective books, the submissions, right? We do none of that. God forbid we have to explain what we do. It is, it is like the reading and editing all done on our own time is, is like our hobby.

And then we have these office jobs where we communicate with everybody else. In the building, who's going to be working on that book, whether it's the art department, or a copy editing department, or convincing people to let us buy a new book, or trying to come up with what to do with the paperbacks because we've got a new hardcover by that writer coming out.

There are all these projects going on, and all at different stages, right? Because we've got books we're trying to buy, books we're editing, books that are appearing in hardcover at that Moment, or three months from now, or something like that. Or even a year from now. Paperbacks of the things that just came out, and sometimes you want to reinvent those books a little.

Sometimes you think, you know, we almost had it right, or, but like, with a different cover, we might be able to broaden the audience, or reach the people we didn't quite reach the first time. Or maybe I'm even gonna describe it a little differently, because all of the reviews called it funny, and I called it heartbreaking, so maybe I'm gonna lean into that funny description, right?

Yeah. 50 things going on at once, at different stages of being, and then we go home and we're like, Oh, I've got 30 new things this week to read and decide if I like or not. Yeah, and two 300 page books that need to be edited page by page. Yeah. Do you edit on paper or electronic? But I was gonna say when you were describing that like the you know, there's the books you're publishing There's the big books you're doing paperback, there's the books you're buying now.

I often feel like I'm existing in like different points in time simultaneously. There's the like Yeah, like you don't know what year it is. You're like, I am in several years right now. Which one are you in? You know, like this, this version of me right now is planning for the future and like trying to figure out what are we going to be publishing next year or the year beyond because of course, you know, It's like 10 to 12 months from when a book is ready, not just acquired, but ready to actually coming out.

And then there's the me who's like, this book is coming out in two months. And you know, are we, are we connecting with the booksellers or whatever? Maybe not two months, maybe it was more like six months. And then there's, there's the taking care of the books that are already working and keeping them going.

But I was also going to say, I get asked a lot about what do I do all day? And I, sometimes I feel like the answer is just like, I type. Staring at a screen? I write emails, but a lot, a lot of that time is thinking about and deciding and then like working and working over how to sell the book, by which I mean like how to talk about the book, how to define it, how to describe it, how to package it, right?

There's like this Just because you have a book that you love, like that's the most sort of dangerous moment. You're like, oh my god, I have this thing and it has so much potential. And I have to find all the levers to pull to make sure that it not only gets out into the world, but Reaches people and like gets that level of excitement where enough people are going to find it and oh my god It's all gonna come down to that one marketing line.

I'm gonna write it right now. And how many times am I gonna revise it? Yeah, that's the part of the job actually that surprises me that I love so much I would never have thought that I was gonna be a person who liked the sort of like the we have an amazing marketing department I am NOT in the marketing department, but there is you know There is an element of marketing in like how you're positioning a book.

And that begins even from the moment that you are considering buying it, right? Like, who is this for? Right. And how will I let them know? Right. How are we going to find them and let them know that this even exists? Yeah. Right. So being a lever puller, understanding that, I would never have thought I was was gonna be good at that or like that either.

I'm a very good editor. No, I don't know if I am! I never thought I'd be good at the public speech. Okay, I always think of the editors as the, as the, again, we're sitting on the back bench where we like to be. Very few of us, I think, like being up in the front. We're kind of, we're not the people who were looking for that at all.

And I remember thinking when I had to get up, And talk about a book in a room with 50 people and let them know what's coming next year and I talk about a novel for the first time, I thought, oh, they are going to send me packing the minute that happens, but I feel like the passion comes through, right? We have lots of people helping us come up with the right way to talk and actually I find talking about something multiple times, it's like you begin to learn.

You begin to learn what's working and I thought sometimes we get to talk about, Oh, what are you excited about? So many times that we've realized what's working by the time we have to kind of do it professionally. And then there are other times where you, or like when we all work from home for two years.

I was aware of the fact that I never got to tell people about my books over and over again. And so when I went to present them the first time, I was like, wow, they're getting the rough draft. And they used to get my Well, I could tell people were tuning out when I said that and I stopped saying it. But I would have thought that was going to be a tricky thing about being an editor.

You don't realize you've got to wear a public hat in addition to being that person in the back room with the pencils. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yes, that's the other misconception. We're not just reading all day. The editing does not consist of copy editing. Right. Not, maybe there's some of that, but that's not the job.

Right. There's somebody else doing that job. Right. This is much more conceptual. And, yes, there is, it is your job to be the public face of the book. And if you're an introvert, which most people who like publishing are, it doesn't necessarily come that naturally. I think, you know, you get better at it the more you do it.

And because you're doing it not, you know, It's not about me. It's never about me. I would not be comfortable with it if I was getting up there and like, let's talk about me, but it's not, it's for the book, which I love so much and I believe in, you know, I've never, now that I'm in the stage that I'm at in my career and you as well, like I'm never in a position where I'm actually asking people to believe in a book that I don't believe in, right?

So I just have to convey my passion and my vision for it and hopefully they agree. So another. The thing people probably don't know about the editorial job. So when you start and you're an editorial assistant, like you said, you're making a lot of Xeroxes and we were taking phone messages, which again, never, that isn't a thing that happens.

But so you're doing all that kind of administrative work and you're learning all the different departments that work on a book and so forth. And then you get to kind of keep going up the rungs of the ladder until you get to maybe suggest a book to buy and maybe the company lets you buy it even though it's probably going to be a small book if you're a young editor.

You know, it's not something you're sort of like, do I get to do this now? Have I earned that? Right? And then where we both are now, we're probably getting authors we would have dreamed of publishing crossing our desk. And it's like, ooh, I'm going to be in a highly competitive situation to try to win this one that everybody wants to publish.

But early on, that was like, oh, I'm really getting to do this. It's such an important moment. And you may or may not even be publishing the thing that you think is going to be your thing. Right? But it's just like, oh, I do get to plant my flag here and be like, I think this is something worth having out there in the world.

And I keep feeling like that's, that's a thing that I keep relying on. Probably more than I should. Almost like I can sometimes be three steps away from like, Who is the audience for this? And how are we going to reach them? And what are the comp titles? Comp titles are like the bane of my existence.

Because I don't actually, I mean, we don't use them the way I, I think comp titles are useful just in terms of the, Sort of saying, what kind of reader am I going to go to? Yes, if you love this, you might love this. You don't have to be able to draw a line from this author to this author in any quality of their writing or their storytelling or their identity or their background or anything.

It's like, what kind of media are you going to get for the book? What kind of shelf is it going to be on? Which bookstores, right? That's the part of it that where you're basically just trying to make a case to everyone who's listening to you of sort of who, how to sell the book, right? But I think CompTitle is a great book.

term that gets used. Sometimes it means like number of sales. Sometimes it means initial printing. I'm very bad at coming up with them. I mean really bad at coming up with them. And I bet you do the same thing where it's like, if you found a book you love, hopefully it's like nothing else you've read.

Right? So it's like we start from the position of, I have found something for which I hope there are no comp titles. And now let me try to come up with three of them to convince you. The business manager or somebody that like it's on that piece of paper where they told me to write it down But none of us are taking it that seriously All right, because i've heard reagan arthur was great at this a boss and and fellow editor at another job She was great at being able to leap into somebody else's presentation and kind of say oh if you loved blah blah You'll love this and i'm like, oh my god, that was so useful in one sentence.

She kind of said Summed up, the feel of the book, the mood of the book. Oh, if you just finish this, you will absolutely, you know, love this writer over here. It's like book selling. And that's what booksellers do. That's what the booksellers do. And of course, the editors are talking to all of our sales reps who then have to go out there in the world and have very, very minimal time to talk about what's coming.

And it's helpful for them to be able to say, if you loved Miranda July last summer, this is a book you should read also. Or, you know, when they're selling to the bookstores, you should stock five copies of this instead of just one copy of this. Because it's going to be like, you know, whatever, whatever the mood I'm trying to, to evoke.

And I do probably still buy books thinking, Well, it just deserves to be out there even more than I know how I'm going to sell it. Sometimes it takes me a good couple extra beats to get to that. How are we going to sell it? How do you think about what to, what to, what to read, what to acquire, right? What to, what, what submissions to get excited about and like when to pursue something and try to publish it?

I, okay, I often don't even read the cover letter that comes with something, right? Although we all have agents we've worked with many times and we know we're going to love their taste, right? So like certain people you just know you're going to like try to look at that on the train ride home that night because you know it's going to be good.

Whether you end up Loving it or buying it or not. But I will just dive into a book and I'm just looking to be surprised about anything. There is no book on any subject that I am not interested in. I have nothing in my like absolutely not column except for non fiction because I'm just better at doing fiction and I enjoy it more so I've just kind of gone all the way in one direction.

But I just dive in and then I want a sentence to surprise me. You know and sometimes that is on page one. I remember when I was reading The Sisters Brothers a billion years ago but there was a line, this is not going to sound funny, there was a line about emulating a one eyed horse. And I was just like, what the hell is this book up to?

Like, it was the craziest line and it was a, it was a western. It was like what the Coen brothers would have done with a western and then like that same year the Coen brothers actually did a western. I had to come up with another pitch. Um, but it was just such a wild sentence. So I, I keep reading for something like that and it usually happens soon, right?

And I have, I have a bad habit. I bet you do too. of reading more than you probably should, like you know you're not in love with it. It hasn't made you go zing yet, but you're like, I'm sure I was just distracted on that train ride. I'm going to read another 50 pages or 20 pages or something. And it's like, actually, we kind of know when we feel the zing, actually pretty soon, because we're simpatico with that writing and that voice.

And so it's never about what's happening in that book. It's always about the sentence that made me go, Wait, what? What did you just do there? That was amazing. Yeah. And then you end up reading a book that you're like, Even if I wasn't going to get to buy this book, I know I would finish this book. Right.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. And how do you go about it? Do you have any organized structure for No, no, definitely not organized structure. And I try to push out of my head other people's voices, other people's opinions. I don't wanna know who else is considering it. Yeah. I don't wanna know. I just wanna read it in, you know, the vacuum of my head.

Yeah. And, and just really like be able to take the temperature of my reaction to it. Because what I'm trying to figure out is, you know. How strongly, how much, like, electricity is there in my response to it, because I'm gonna then need to be able to get that response of other people. And there's lots and lots, most submissions are quite good, right?

And I read them and I think, someone should publish this. But I don't know. I'm only gonna think that I should publish it if there's something about the combination, it's chemistry, it's like the combination of me, and this author slash book, and my imprint, and that I feel like we're gonna be able to do something with it, like, One plus one is going to equal more than two, right?

And if it's not, then maybe it's better for someone else who's like, I really need a World War II romance. Here it is, right? I'm not doing that. I'm not trying to like fill a slot of a certain kind of book. I'm just looking for the electricity. That's the same way. I always thought of it. It's interesting to hear you say the electricity.

I always thought it was like, The electrical pulse that needs to travel all the way down the wire through all those telephone poles through other wires because it starts with us. It goes through everybody in our company and the pulse has to stay strong. The company then has to take it out there to booksellers and to the book reviewers.

The pulse has to stay strong. All of those things happen. It has to get to people walking into a bookstore who haven't already heard of it and the book has to Jump out at them, the reviews have to have caught their attention, a bookseller needs to have put it as a staff recommends or upfront somehow, so like, it is, I think of it the same way.

The electricity, how strong is that instant reaction we're having, and to push the other voices out, because there is nothing more boring, especially with fiction, as to try to get a community opinion on it. It's the worst. There, no book should please ten people. I know publishers who work by committee like that, I don't know how, I can't, we don't do that and I don't know how to do that.

It's just like you want, I am always looking for something idiosyncratic and something that, again, surprises me. It seems new, it seems fresh, it seems something. Yeah. Everybody who doesn't think that funny thing was funny, or that that sad thing was sad, or that that long book was too long, like I, I want in the editing to answer every question about, or things exactly as they should be.

But as we're just reading something and reacting to it, I don't need X number of people to hand in their ballot on it, right? I think, because we're trying to find the other people who will like it. So even, even among our own salespeople, it's like, Sometimes you read a book and you think oh my god I cannot wait to get it into so and so's hands just because you know, they're gonna love it, too Right and you need to know you need to feel that you know exactly what to do with this book I often this is the thing I most want to explain to agents and certain new authors that like I say no to a book Mm hmm.

I'm not Judging the book. Right. It's not, I'm not giving out grades. Right. This one's worthy, this one's not, you know. That's, they're all worthy most of the time and I'm just identifying the ones where, where I feel like I can, I can add something. But you were talking about the, um, like how fast reading more than you need to.

Yeah. And that was definitely true at the beginning of my career, but I find the longer I do it, the less I do that. Because I know if I don't feel at a certain point, and I don't know what that point is. There's no page. There's no page number. No, it's just like I feel like I've been here long enough. Yeah.

It's like being at a party and you're like, I'm having a great time or it's fine, but I could leave now. It's like they don't want you to publish. Yeah. The book. Like you, they, they would, if they knew. You deserve an editor who is bananas about your book And can't stop talking about it The only time I can read more of a book than I need to is when I know it's not right for me for some reason like it doesn't feel like the book that I'm gonna be able to but I like it, you know and so I'm like I Someone else is going to publish this book and I'm going to like, cheer for it.

But then that's, that's an indulgence on my part. I'm not, I'm not doing that. Like, let's see. I just like want to keep going. You just want to keep going to keep going. Yeah. But that doesn't happen that often because I don't have time. I know. I was going to say it's such, it's such a bad habit that I haven't broken yet.

And then I am just slow getting back to people on things. And I was like, Oh, why did I read quickly? But then I don't get the, get it off my desk. I think, I think that the best thing for my sort of reading and decision making has been. That every year of my life, because of adding children or, you know, responsibilities at work, I get busier.

The busier I get, the better I am at this decision making. It's one of those things where if you have a lot of time, you're like, oh, let me just fill it with, you know. I agree. After I had my daughter, I remember pushing her in the stroller and sticking a manuscript in the, like, you know, sack under the stroller thing and pulling it out every time she went to sleep.

And I was like Obviously I'm going to want to buy this book, like what other test do I need? I'm like finishing it on like one handed while pushing the stroller over here. So yeah, and that's, that's exactly the kind of reaction we are looking for all the time. And yeah, and being able to sort of know that.

And, you know, falling in love with something you didn't expect to fall in love with is so the reason we all do it, right? Well, so, do you have an example of a book that you published that you are sort of like that's been a big hit but you, you know, you didn't necessarily, 10 years ago, you didn't necessarily think you would have published it?

Okay, I feel like, I feel like, honest to God, I feel like most of the books I've published I've done that. Have you ever been a success? I'm like, damn! I've done like, like, you know, Madeline Miller in Song of Achilles. Like, I was bidding on that book with like one other person. Like, that was not a thing.

Anybody was like, that's definitely a bestseller. But like, an author I have on my list right now, he's a Canadian author named Michael Crummey. I love his work so much. He has published five or six novels. So I, I am not introducing him to an American audience. He's But he writes these books set in Newfoundland in like the 1800s.

And the first one was about a brother and sister who were orphaned and have to survive. And they're like eight and 10 years old. And it was just this brilliant survival story and kind of this Adam and Eve story. And it was just mesmerizing. And then he's written a second one. And I'm trying to convince him to write a third one.

If you're listening to me, Michael Crummey, I'm still expecting this to be a trilogy. And the new one is kind of a Cain and Abel story again, set in Newfoundland. One of these tiny little towns on this cove. And nobody would have told me, boy, Lee, that's what we're looking for. Go out and find one of those, you know?

But it's just, his language is beautiful. And he is going to be a writer more people know about at some point. And I desperately hope I'm getting to publish him when that happens. But that's a book that I absolutely like. It just deserves to be published. And I'm not even gonna make a claim about how well we're going to make it do beyond what his very good publisher did before.

It's just like, it just, It belongs on this list and we are gonna give him that spot even though we could make an argument for 20 books are all looking to have that spot, you know, but I I love that I was able to kind of be like no, we're just gonna Michael sit right there. Okay, because that's your seat and we we decided that.

Yeah. Yeah One of my favorite things is, though it's very exciting to find a new author and a debut author that you feel like, Oh my god, it's the beginning. It's the beginning of something amazing and potentially huge. But the thing that gives me the most joy is that trajectory of the author that you have been working with for a number of books.

It's like you're just, you're steadily building the house, right? And the foundation that you laid with the first book, whether it was a novel or a story collection or whatever, right? That you, you know, you knew at that point, I'm in it for this book, but I'm really also in it for all the things that come later and it's so easy to feel guilt free about everything that you're investing then.

I don't mean money, although also there's money, but like time and energy and hope, right? Because then you can like withdraw from that investment later with the other books. I have a new author that I feel that way about right now named Honor Jones, but I feel that way about Honor the way I felt when I first read.

Britt Bennett, who, that was, I acquired her first novel, The Mothers, but it coincided with, she was also writing nonfiction, I haven't watched her nonfiction yet, but I was, so I read The Mothers, and I was blown away, and then I read her nonfiction, and I was like, hold on, she can do everything, she can do everything, and so it was really easy to say, like, this is, this is it, and then we were able to really lay a foundation with The Mothers, and then when she did The Vanishing House, which became sort of a phenomenon, we were able to It was just a continuation of that arc.

I know you have a lot of these authors too, where you're developing them over time, but it's It's amazing when you can feel the wave cresting, right? When you're just like, and every book gets better, and you're just like, I can't believe I'm here for this whole ride. It's amazing. And finding debut authors is amazingly fun.

I don't know, everybody's coming to it fresh and it's so much fun working with somebody who's thrilled their book is actually going to be a book. I mean, you probably have a lot of writers like I do who like really didn't know that thing they worked on for 10 years was ever going to see the light of day.

Right. And to kind of watch that process happen is amazing. I was once in a bar with one of my writers and he got recognized and it was the first time he'd actually been recognized. And it was an amazing thing to see where he was just like, could not have been. Prouder that this moment had finally happened.

Yeah, yeah. Well, a couple of your authors who I absolutely loved personally are Clara Lombardo. Oh, Clara! So, both of her books. And, um, of course, Lessons in Chemistry. Who doesn't love Lessons in Chemistry? I have no Lessons in Chemistry was like a I love it as a book, but it also is such a great It's a debut novel!

It's a debut novel! Yeah. You published in sort of midlife and it's became like the book of the, of like a two year period. Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. That's one of those things that you're, again, sort of sitting on the sidelines and you're like, I cannot believe I'm watching this happen. And that was a book, boy, reading that you felt like, this could talk to a lot of people, right?

So, so I've published many books that became like a surprise hit. I don't mean I've had many big hits. Surprise hits. I'm saying most books you hope they will get out there and then sometimes the fairy dust gets sprinkled because a lot of books we do everything we can for and they don't go where you want them to.

I mean, like, let's just say that might be another thing that people don't know about the editorial profession. 99 books out of a hundred. Don't do what anybody expected them to do. Not just hope they would do, expected them to do. And we do the same amount of work on every one of them. Everyone gets a cover that we put that much thought into.

Everyone, I bet you edit the exact same way. Oh, yeah. There's no difference. It's gonna take all of those hours, whether you think it's gonna be a bestseller or whether it's a first time story collection that you absolutely know is not gonna sell more than, you know, 8, 000 copies on a lucky day. Also, can we correct the assumption that how much work goes into a book or how much sort of expectation is directly linked to how much the advance is for?

Because that's not true. I mean, it's about the energy that is going into every single book. We're not, like, there's no hierarchy. And watching a book A book come from behind at the house, whether it's yours or somebody else's is so exciting because that is the proof of the pudding. Here it is, a book that people are falling in love with, and it is just rising to the top, you know?

It is getting all of the attention, people can't stop talking about it, and now it's got a wider road to travel than it did when it was bought, when it was purchased. First talked about when any of this stuff happened and that is, I think, what everyone is in it for, to watch. Things happen organically. It can't, and you cannot spend enough money or time on a book to make it work.

No. If it's not working, you can't. There isn't, there isn't anything you could do. If, if there was something we could do, we'd all be doing it. And we'd have hits all the time in a very predictable manner, and there would be no uncertainty whatsoever. So it, it really does. And books get affected by the moment they come out in totally bizarre ways.

A book can hit, A mood that you didn't know was going to coincide and become a hit. And a book can miss out or be overshadowed by a national moment, by headlines, by a mood, by anything, by world events. And you're like, well, there goes that, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah. But okay, I want to hear about some more of the authors.

I've spent my whole summer, again, like Liz Moore. Miranda July just became the book of the summer. I was traveling around with Claire Lombardo to various bookstores early, mid summer, and all the booksellers were talking about was Miranda July. Did you feel that when building in house? Yes, when you were talking about sort of watching a book rise and rise and rise from within, that is an example of that.

So, All Fours is this, this like tender, hilarious, It's a story of a woman in perimenopause sort of upending her life and it has connected with an enormous readership. To the point that there was a, maybe this is my favorite media piece of late, there was a New York Times piece about the fact that so many women are reading this book that there are like chat groups, text groups among these women sharing their feelings about this book.

Um, and that is sort of what was happening within our company too, before it got to that Miranda July is an established writer and artist and multimedia, so it's not like she came out of nowhere, but this book is really the culmination of so much work on her part. It's just really, it's a phenomenal book, and it's been really cool to see, you know, it's one of those things where you have the, the orders and the expectations from the accounts based on how many copies are there, last books in the mail, you know, and the lead up to the release of the book was just this constant revising of that, but there's this groundswell, there's this earthquake happening over here among actual readers, and you know, Revising those orders.

And so yes, it's very, it's very fulfilling. And I feel like that's a great example of a book that caught the national mood. And even this summer, sort of a certain collection of books like Claire Lombardo's, The Same As It Ever Was, A Woman in Midlife, kind of exploding, um, She has a, she has a tendency towards self sabotage.

Life events are coming along and she's about to trip into that again and you get her whole backstory of what makes her the way she is. Sandwich, of course, Miranda July. For a minute there, I was like, it's like the summer I turned 50, you know? And so it's like, this is interesting that there are all these seasons.

Summer Reads, again, that booksellers could not stop talking about, and it's about women at a different stage of life than the usual sort of thing you've got to read over the summer, where it's all kind of, you know, the 30 something looking for magic to happen in these ways, right? It's like, look at all these unhappy women in their 50s.

My time has come, right? And it's funny when you get to watch something hit a mood like that. I remember when we published Circe, Um, dovetailed with the Me Too movement, and the first time I heard Madeline talk about it and said she was typing Cersei and then listening to like Me Too TV coverage in the other room and realizing she was telling the woman's side of the story that you'd never heard, I was like, what just happened up there?

You just married? What I thought was, you know, we did Song of Achilles, and then here comes Cersei, and I, you know, it's a woman's story, and it's the Odyssey instead of the Iliad, and I thought like, oh, this has all sorts of potential to build on Song of Achilles and get Go kind of bigger, but when I watched the author kind of marry it to the moment we were living in, it was suddenly like, hello.

Something magical just happened there with that combination of things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do think there's, there, you're right, there's like, there's a moment and there's a national mood, but I also think that when you have a book that. really, really succeeds for a particular readership. So all fours for, for all, you know, every woman over 40 or Madeline Miller's, you know, Madeline Miller started a trend, a genre.

Right. God, you look at a bookstore now and it's like, what? I think that Miranda may have started a genre too. I mean, you know, Claire's book and, and, uh, Sandwich were obviously already happening, but then you also have the thing where Where you have people who love a book and they go into a bookstore and they're like, I love this.

What else? Right? And then if you have an array of books that are, that are, Similarly satisfying to readers, and you're going to have booksellers recommending them, so. So everyone who's listening, start a front table. The summer I turned 50 is what we're calling it. Alright, are you editing this summer? Are you sitting here in the dog days of August with a big manuscript on your desk?

I just printed out a new manuscript that I'm going to. It's an Emma Stroud book. I'm not going to spoil anything about it yet. But yeah, I'm actually, next week is pretty slow. I maybe want to, you know. There are like two slow weeks in publishing, the last week of August and like the middle of December, and this is one of them, so I'm counting on it, please don't send me any submissions.

Good for you! Okay, I always say I'm gonna be super productive in the like, one slow stretch of August, and then I realize my metabolism slows down, as the industry does. And then, like September comes, it's back to school season, a million submissions are on our desk, I'm like, why didn't I edit that last week when I could have?

I get motivated, you know, like you get a teenager who's like afraid of their b They're like strict parents. I'm afraid of future Sarah. Like, future Sarah's would be so mad at August Sarah in September. I love that! That is so good. Because I'm going to have all these submissions and I'm going to feel like excited about them and want it, but if I haven't met this deadline, you know, then I'm going to have screwed myself, so.

And actually editing when you've got the time to edit is such a pleasure, as opposed to when you know you've got to sort of get something done by Friday, so I should just Getting to sit down with not much interruption from the email and spend time. Definitely. No, I'm hoping to have no emails. So, are you editing right now or are you looking forward to big things happening in the fall?

I have two novels. Sitting on my desk that I should be editing right now and and authors. I'm gonna do that immediately after this podcast and then fabulously Okay, Margaret Atwood who I lucked into working with right? She had a legendary editor who had been with her forever retired a few years ago And I now get to hang out with her and her crew She's working on a memoir and she is currently sending it to us chapter by chapter like from the arctic circle When her internet works.

Wow, she is The best much. She's writing it the Arctic Circle. She is the most productive human being on the planet. Like she just doesn't stop. So yeah, it's coming chapter by chapter. She's up to her mid thirties, everyone, you know, . So, and it's awesome. So like, what a treat that occasionally that just pops up in the inbox and it's like, here I go reading this.

Mm-Hmm. that nobody else has seen out of the blue. So yeah, I'm gonna do a little bit of that because yeah, it gets busy again in September. Mm-Hmm. , which is fun and exciting in its own way. Yes. So much. I don't know. It feels, the world feels just filled with potential as you come back and Yes. Dig back in.

The return of hope as Michelle Obama says. The return of hope. It's a very, very palpable thing these days and we will be participating in it as well. But I've got to give one more shout out to the last Riverhead book I read and I don't think it's yours but is it Becky's? Is it Danzy Sama? Oh yeah. Okay, I read it because Ann Patchett could not stop Talking about it.

And Patchett has been hand selling it. Yes, she has. It's not even out yet. It's a September book. It's a September, yeah. Amazing. Yes, I mean, Dansy Sana is a is a classic long term author, but this is really her masterpiece. And of course, she's married to your author. I know. Well, you're going to have a hell of a year, aren't they?

I know, I know. Yes, James is incredible. Congratulations on that. Thank you. So nice for both of them. I know, really exciting. So, Danielle, thanks for the chat. This has been so much fun talking to you about all this. Yeah, I'm so lucky to, uh, to be able to do this with you. Sarah and Leigh, for being on our show and for helping create these amazing books.

Listeners, you can find all the books they've talked about in our show notes and at watchungbooksellers. com. We've already launched a busy fall season of author events. Tonight, September 10th, join us in celebrating the latest book from Ian Frazier, Paradise Bronx. And Thursday, September 12th, the Montclair Public Library and Partners for Health hosts Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty by America.

On Saturday, September 14th, we're hosting best selling novelist Laura Dave for a meet and greet book signing of her latest novel, The Night We Lost Him. In addition, the Kids Room continues to host children's author events almost every Sunday, story times on Monday mornings, and monthly book clubs for readers and young adults.

And speaking of book clubs, we've started two new book clubs at the store. I'm hosting a club to discuss the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, and Asia is hosting the Thought Daughter Book Club. Be sure to sign up and get your books in the store. Details on all of our events Links can be found in our newsletter, show notes, and at watchungbooksellers.

com. The Watchung Booksellers podcast is produced by Kathryn Council and Marni Jessup, and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, New Jersey. The show is edited by Kathryn Council and Bri Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Colenny and Derek Mathias. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Monique, art and design and social media by Evelyn Moulton.

Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff. Thank you to the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids Room for all their hard work and love of books. And thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please like, follow, and share it. You can follow us on social media at Watchung Booksellers, and if you have any questions or ideas, you can reach us at wbpodcast at watchungbooksellers.

com. We'll see you next time. Until then, for the love of books, keep reading!