My “Business” is Now Yours

In the past week or so the appointment of two new editors at major publishing houses caught my attention because both are journalists of distinction according to those who know them well.

I am not one of these. Bill Hamilton and I may have overlapped a bit at The Washington Post in the early 1980s and maybe not. Robert Messenger was the books editor at The Wall Street Journal. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him.

In recent years Hamilton was the Washington editor of The New York Times, a leadership role in the bureau in what was surely among the most intense periods in the history of news. He was a stalwart and highly respected. I will not go further than that because I’d have to ask the vast staff there and I am not in a position to do so.

I know that as the books editor of the Journal, the reviews Messenger commissioned were literate, usually thoughtful and always right-of-center, reflecting the fact that book department reported to the editorial side of the paper which was “conservative” — a concept we can all agree that has grown muddy lately.

Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Messenger, you have not asked for my advice and can certainly ignore it. But I did what are you are doing 36 years ago, leaving the Post to become a senior editor at Random House. Here are some thoughts to help you get started:

1-Book publishing is a business. So is journalism especially in the last decade or two when times have been tough as advertising sharply declined and digital behemoths on the internet became increasingly powerful. Traditionally, the news side collected the news, and the business side sold the ads: church and state it was called.

In the books business, the editor acquires a book which usually means negotiating with agents on the terms and after overseeing the writing of the work there is the publishing process: dealing with the sales and marketing teams on their priorities, advising on publicity and mediating with authors whose understanding of trade requirements is generally modest.

Books are a business in which you can be a world class editor but often the success of a project is determined by its sales and not its quality.

Soon after arriving at Random House I was saying that at a newspaper, the job is to get the story, write it and go home. In publishing, the story gets acquired, the story gets written and then you and your colleagues need to sell it, preferably door to door.

2-Do everything. I’ve concluded that I was able to make the transition from newspapers to publishing because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, and no one actually told me. So, I did everything until I was told to stop; that means everything involved with the manuscript and everything I could think of about how the book should be published. I used my publicity contacts and marketing ideas. I even helped with the seating arrangements at bookseller dinners.

Eventually I learned the contours of other peoples’ roles and that they want to be allowed to perform them. Support rather than supplant.

3-Take the books seriously but not to the point where you lose sight of their potential. On one of my first days at Random House. The late great editor at Knopf Ashbel Green showed me sales numbers on many of his important non-fiction titles.

“Are you really telling me that Moshe Dayan’s heroic life story barely exceeded four figures in sales,” I asked? Yes.

There’s a relevant adage. Just because there are 50 million bedwetters in the United States, you will not sell them books about bed wetting.

Be realistic.

4-And finally, the job of a literary agent is to represent their client’s best interest and rarely yours. It is not personal. A number of agents over the years came to believe I didn’t like them (which was occasionally the case). But on the whole, these are people as devoted to the book universe as you are. Their role is just not the same as yours.

Books are wondrous things as history has demonstrated. Joining the publishing field is a privilege. Do remember it is a business and you are now, for better or worse, what used to be called a businessman. In our gender- fluid world that characterization may be adjusted.

Welcome.