Tags: publishing

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The Enigmatic Role of Literary Scouting in the Publishing Industry

When it comes to publishing, there’s quite a bit that goes on behind the scenes, unseen even by other people in the industry. Literary (or book) scouting is a very specific niche of the industry that often gets overlooked—even as a publishing student, it wasn’t until I got a job with a scouting agency that I fully started to understand what the job actually entails. Over the past few months, I’ve gotten an inside look into the world of scouting and the impact that scouts have on an international level. So, in the spirit of more transparency in the industry, here’s a quick run-down on scouting.

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The Marketing Plan: Setting Your Book Up for Success

Marketing plans are a foundational document that make sure the entire process of publishing a book is cohesive, intentional, and appropriate to the audience and the goals of the book. The marketing plan is referenced in almost every other stage of the publishing process, so we have to be careful and put a lot of thought into the decisions we make because mistakes could cascade throughout the process and cause problems later.

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The Shelf Debate: How We Choose Your Book’s Forever Home

One of the most carefully considered decisions in the early stages of the publishing process is how to classify and categorize a book. These decisions are often the cornerstone of how a book finds its way home to readers who will most appreciate it. It’s a delicate balance between enticing readers to pick up just the book they’ve been waiting for, and gently signaling what readerships might not enjoy the book so that readers don’t end up feeling tricked into purchasing something that isn’t what they wanted.

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The Acceptability Clause in Publishing Contracts and Its Controversy

The acceptability clause allows publishers to determine whether a submitted manuscript is acceptable. For authors who don’t have any legal knowledge or literary agent to help them negotiate the contract, they are often left to do their own research or accept what’s offered to them. This leaves the author with very little power over the development of their work, resulting in a generally unfavorable opinion of the clause.

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What is an Editorial Letter?

Assessing the structural integrity of a house is what developmental editing is to a manuscript. When doing a developmental edit, an editor will organize their thoughts and notes into a cohesive document called the developmental editing letter, or sometimes just the editorial letter, which will then be sent to you. What can you expect from the editorial letter?

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