4.08.2005
Picador editor enthuses about trade paperback originals
I met with Josh Kendall, an editor at Picador, yesterday at the Dey House. After shoving my 162 pages (Part 1) at him, he sat there smiling at me as I stumbled through what I suddenly realized was supposed to be my "pitch." Need to work on that. Anyway, he added mine to his pile and seemed interested in what I'd said about the book. He suggested reading Mason & Dixon, and the way he talked about it made me realize I will have to read that. He talked about Picador and mentioned they publish trade paperback originals, and I perked up. "That's what I want," I said. "That's really great to hear," he said. He said they are doing very well with them and he thinks "they are the future of literary fiction." Really nice guy who gave me about 20 minutes at the end of what had to be a long day for him.
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4 comments:
Good! I believe Dan Pope's ('02)novel was published as a Picador paperback original. At least, that's how I read it, and that's how it appears on Amazon.
Yeah, kclou, he mentioned Dan, which made me wish I had known Dan better while he was here - more than just to share a nod and chit-chat while drinking beer somewhere.
I hope to post some comments here later today from that talk. The trade-paperback discussion was interesting. Also interesting was his allusion to the fact that several Iowa alumni have dumped the same agent, but he wouldn't reveal who that agent was.
He talked a lot about agents with me, too. He suggested expanding the agent horizon to include ones that have never landed at the Cedar Rapids airport. He said I ought to pick out half a dozen of my favorite books, ones that are similar to or have influenced mine, check the acknowledgments for the agent's name, and write to them. I was impressed by the simplicity and good sense of this idea. He clearly thinks there are a lot of good and not-so-good agents out there, but stopped just short of naming names.
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