[John DeRosa] What time do you typically wake up? What does the first hour of your day look like?

[Adam Kane] I get up anywhere between 6:30–7:30 AM each day. It depends on how late I was up the night before. The first hour of my day is typically spent scanning the news, reading headlines, maybe reading something from the Strategy Bridge, or something professionally related to the book industry.

[JD] Are there any daily routines or rituals that start your day?

[AK] Making coffee and making sure I read something related to work. I don’t mean a manuscript or a proposal — something related to the publishing industry. This helps me frame my day in a business sense and get into that mindset.

I work from home so I don’t have the benefit of the water cooler conversations. No one — except my dog — stops by my office during the day so I try to make sure I keep up with that on my own.

[JD] You work from home. Can you describe your writing space there?

[AK] It’s pretty Spartan right now. My writing space is a spare bedroom on our house that I have converted into a home office. It has a few book shelves. They are filled with books mostly related to my dissertation. Everything else is packed right now or put into storage as we are getting ready for a move. Before it was filled with books, bookshelves, and a chair in the corner to sit in when I need to get away from my desk to read. My writing/work space is powered by a Macbook Pro with an external monitor. My writing space is also my work space for my day job. It is probably not ideal. Who wants to spend extra time in the office?

[JD] Still writing your dissertation?

[AK] Yes, still writing.

[JD] Can you describe your writing routine?

[AK] Non-existent right now. Most recently, when I was making decent strides on my dissertation I wrote in the morning. I tried to put in two hours of reading, writing, or editing on the dissertation. If I had time in the evening, I made sure I read what I wrote for the day. That’s how I made the most progress. Since we have begun getting ready to move that has gone out the window.

[JD] How close are you to the end?

[AK] I hope to be done in October. I’d at the least I would like to submit something to defend even if I have to revise and not formally submit until the spring of 2016. It’s put up or go home time.

[JD] How do you gather information for your writing? What does your note taking system look like?

[AK] I do most of my work electronically, but I use a combination of index cards and Zotero (created by George Mason) to keep my notes straight. Sometimes I will write long hand on my trusty yellow pad; it’s never far away. If I have a sense of where I want to go though, I can compose at the keyboard too.

[JD] You are gathering most of your information from traditional books?

[AK] Not exactly; my dissertation is a biography of James H. Carleton, a 19th-century frontier army officer. I have 12GB of source material to work with, which is stored in DropBox. Most of that space is taken up by scanned frames of microfilm or photos of physical records from the National Archives and other institutions scattered from New York to New Mexico.

[JD] What about your routine as an editor?

[AK] My editing for work is much different than editing for myself. My title is Acquisitions Editor. I spend a good deal of time looking for authors, building relationships, and evaluating manuscripts. It is often less about editing initially and more about the subject matter and content evaluation. When someone sends me something on an interesting topic and needs some work before peer review, however, I do work with them. I see good projects all the time that would get sacked in their original form if they went out to readers without some additional effort and editing. If there is potential there, I will work with the author up front to whip it into shape to make sure it is in the best possible form for a peer review.

[JD] Can you describe the submissions that catch your eye as an acquisitions editor? What are some common things that encourage you to look into?

[AK] The number of projects an acquisition editor sees is substantial. At the University of Oklahoma Press, we see about 500 submissions a year yet we publish only about 85–100 titles a year. That will give you a sense of the rejection rate. That ratio is common everywhere.

The first thing that stands out for me is the topic and the way your submission is packaged. Every press provides useful submission guidelines. Authors should follow them carefully. If you do not have a relationship with an editor already, then you’re trying to get noticed. As an author, you’re asking an organization to enter into a business relationship with you and invest in your work. Similarly, it is important for anyone submitting a manuscript or proposal to recognize the interests of the publisher they are approaching. For example, if you send me a wonderful collection of poetry, I don’t have a use for that. It might be terrific, but we don’t specialize in poetry. If you send me a really good memoir on your experience in Afghanistan or Iraq — I have a really good one on Vietnam I am looking at now — or anything military history related, I am going to take a look at it.

If your manuscript appears well written in terms of prose and your bibliography and notes are solid, that’s a good way to get noticed. Unfortunately, I also have to make sure your sources are not from Wikipedia or some shady online outlet. I mention that because it is increasingly common to see in manuscripts. Ideally, everyone would understand that those sources present a problem. There are plenty of credible online resources to tap into regardless of the time period you are focused on. Every acquisition editor will evaluate how you have gone about your work as a historian and as a writer. Reviewing what aspiring authors have used to put together your writing is an easy first cut for acquisition editors who see a number of projects a year.

If those basic parameters are there, I will dig a little deeper into the submission. If it is well written and can cogently take a reader from point a to point b to explore an argument in between, I will look at arranging a peer review. That usually entails two or three other outside readers.

[JD] How does your routine change on the weekend to decompress?

[AK] I have been lax on my own writing lately. I have focused more on my family and getting everything together for our move. The biggest challenge when it comes to work and the weekend is walking by the office door. I often do work for a couple hours on Saturdays even if it is checking email or reading a manuscript that has piqued my interest during the week. Otherwise, if we are coming up on a publishing deadline and I need to get something to production, then I will do some work on the weekends.

My routine is going to change drastically in a month. I am going to be back in an office full time for the first time in about four years. I will be curious to see how my routine changes. I think it will change for the better. Right now, as far as routines go, it is a mess. One of the things I realized as I read your other interviews was how much my routine had gotten thrown out of whack.

[JD] Was there a routine that you saw in those interviews that you would like to replicate yourself?

[AK] One of the challenges of working from home is that it is easy to roll out of bed and go straight to work. Taking the time read each morning and treating it like a commute so to speak is important. Having a coffee while sitting on our patio or anywhere other than my office is something I would like to get back to — making sure I got back to that hour in the morning that I was doing something related to my own writing before heading off to work. That is what I would like to build on.

[JD] What has piqued your interest for reading lately?

[AK] Right now everything getting packed, outside of books for my dissertation. I have gone back to reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. That is something I can read in the evening that helps transition my mind from work to leisure. If you can consider Alistair Horne’s A Savage War for Peace as a light transition, that’s open on my in my Kindle app at the moment too. The real evening mind candy right now, though, is The Mote in God’s Eye by Niven and Pournelle.

[JD] Is there a genre of reading you prefer?

[AK] It is mostly military history and a little bit of fiction. I read older fiction like H.G. Wells, or Niven and Pournelle; those are good examples of what I read for leisure.

[JD] How do you find what to read?

[AK] It can be referred. I have a box of things like that tucked away that I plan on reading when we get to Oklahoma. Being in the book business you obviously get to know a lot of authors with other publishers too. There’s no shortage of interesting books out there.

[JD] What is the book you’re most likely to give as a gift or one you’ve given as a gift the most?

[AK] Surprisingly, perhaps, I rarely give books as a gift. I did, however, purchase one recently to give to my youngest stepson who is entering the Army ROTC program at the University of Oklahoma. It was an older book, Ripcord, by Keith Nolan. One of the soldiers killed on Ripcord, Lt. J. Robert Kalsu, was a University of Oklahoma ROTC alumni. As my stepson enters the program, I hope to encourage him to understand the history of the institution to which he plans to belong; for him that begins at the battalion level at Oklahoma.

[JD] What’s your drink of choice?

[AK] Sidecars, made with Cognac.

[JD] Have you spent weeks at a time to perfecting them like Ty?

[AK] I’d like to say I nailed it the first time, but there are so many ways to make that cocktail. It took more than a few attempts to find a the preferred formula. Really, though, I’m more inclined to experiment with different coffee beans and brew methods when it comes to perfecting a drink of choice.

[JD] Where’s the most adventurous place(s) you have been?

[AK] Istanbul. Back in the 90’s I spent several days there. It was an adventure even then. The diversity of the city and the layers of history that exist there are pretty incredible. Turkey in general in the 1990s was a fantastic place.

[JD] If you had a short layover in Istanbul, what place would you recommend visiting?

[AK] You would have to see the Hagia Sophia or the Blue Mosque. They are within walking distance of each other near what used to be the old Hippodrome. They are so unique.

[JD] What bold steps would you like to see the MWG take?

[AK] There have been many good suggestions by others already. I would like to see the authorship of the Guild grow and for the group to become a larger springboard to promote its author-members. Anything the Guild can do to break down barriers and facilitate relationships with publishers is a good thing.

[JD] Adam, I think your contribution here will be of interest to the Guild and its readers so I appreciate the time you have taken this morning to disrupt your routine.

Follow Adam, John, and the Military Writers Guild on twitter. Cheers!

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