Publishers, agents take center stage at Manila International Lit Fest

More often than not, when people come across a book they love, they end up worshipping the person whose name is found on the book’s front cover, the mastermind that orchestrated the story. 

 

What readers tend to overlook is that somewhere inside that book they loved so much, the mastermind they worship takes a paragraph or two to give credit where credit is due, thanking a slew of people who have invisibly but powerfully helped him put that book together.

 

These are the editors, publishers and agents — the unsung heroes that have more to do with our favorite books than we know. This year’s Manila International Literary Festival, The Great Philippine Book Café, saw these supporting cast members take center stage as the important roles they play in the process of writing were underscored.

 

Two sessions took place on the festival’s closing day featuring a panel of industry insiders made up of Ravi Mirchandani, Atlantic Books’ editor-in-chief; Rachel Kahan, G.P Putnam’s Sons’ senior editor; and Priya Doraswamy and JayapriyaVasudevan, partner agents at Jacaranda Press, India’s leading literary agency.

 

Under the moderation of award-winning local novelist Jose Dalisay and National Book Development Board executive director Andrea Pasion-Flores, they discussed everything—getting a story published, selling books, and the importance of finding the right agent and publisher to be able to do both successfully.

 

Publishers as tastemakers

 

“Publishers are tastemakers and always have been,” stated Kahan, summing up the many responsibilities of publishers, which include everything from sniffing out a good story (typically sent to them by literary agents), editing that story, marketing the book, taking down pirates and copyright violators, and holding the author’s hand through bad reviews. According to Kahan, two things come into play when she decides what book to publish: “First, it’s about the book — whether it’s good and worthwhile. We also look at certain cultural trends. Publishing does not take place in a cultural vacuum, so what’s going on in the world and what people are interested in are always relevant. But first and foremost, we really do look at whether something’s good. I always try to keep a certain level of quality control in mind.”

 

“Those books that are phenomenal change the landscape around them and it’s very, very hard to tell what those books are going to be,” Mirchandani added.

 

As the publisher behind the wildly successful Man Booker Prize winner The White Tiger, he drew from his own experience as he shared: “It was enormously exciting. I had no [inkling] that it would win the Booker Prize, or sell a million copies or change the fortunes of the little company I worked for. I didn’t discover the book — publishers don’t often discover books — but I remember the point in which it discovered me.”

 

Both Kahan and Mirchandani also recalled the more adventurous aspects of their job, particularly where marketing a book called for extra creativity. “It’s one of the things I love about my job,” shared Mirchandani as he shared the different marketing strategies his team used to promote books, some of which include allowing readers to climb into bed with the author at a book signing, hiring a Hannibal Lecter look-alike, and giving out free bacon sandwiches at the London

underground.

 

Kahan, on the other hand, had once turned to the unexpected, that is, knitting clubs, to promote a novel. “We’ve done all kinds of interesting launches. If you have a book that has particular hook to it, you can be very creative with the marketing,” she said.

 

The Internet as marketing tool

 

Kahan and Mirchandani also acknowledged the growing role of technology in the marketing and promotion of books. “The landscape is changing,” said Kahan, who admitted that they’ve recently been using the Internet in a lot of their promotional efforts, with great success.

 

“The Internet has changed the reader-author-publisher relationship because readers can now connect with an author in a way they never could before,” she stated. 

 

Kahan also pointed out how the Internet not only revolutionized the promotion of books but the actual act of reading them, through the proliferation of e-books.

 

When asked to comment on the hot debate between digital vs. print books, Kahan had one thing to say, “Anything that gets a lot of people to read more is a good thing.”

 

Doraswamy and Vasudevan also recognized the importance of the Internet in their roles as agents, admitting that they tap into the online following of their authors when publishers fail to provide them with a viable marketing plan, which, they say happens more often, too often in Asia than it does in the West.

 

“Rachel and Ravi mentioned that it’s the publisher’s job to do the publicity, but in Asia we can’t depend on them. We [the agents] really do cut in and encourage the authors to do as much as they can on their own. Publishers in India and Singapore have no publicity budgets at all, so the more proactive an author is, the more likely they are to sell copies of their book.” stated Vasudevan.

 

Agents as mediators

 

As it is, literary agents have the more complicated task of  making sure the writer can focus on the craft by acting as a buffer of sorts, facilitating the relationship between writer and publisher. “A writer’s time should be spent writing, and not on other stuff,” Vasudevan quipped.

 

The agent’s role, they said, is like a balancing act: “As agents, we get [crap] from both sides. The writer will say ‘Oh, I went to the bookstore and my book is not there. What are you guys doing?’ and that’s one aspect of it. Then from the publisher’s end, they’re like, ‘It takes time, tell your author to chill.’ We have a lot of issues with writers and publishers when it comes to marketing and PR,”

Doraswamy said.

 

Ultimately though, their loyalty lies with the author, even if it means having to ask and negotiate for certain things that they know the publishers will hate: “When we tell [publishers] we want a marketing plan and budget, it drives them crazy…but we’ve actually lost authors because they felt the publisher is not doing enough for their book…So what we do is, we tell a writer to take that money from the publisher and hire a PR person or somebody with market savvy. That way, we’re not holding the publisher responsible for marketing,” she added.

 

Just when a literary agent’s job couldn’t seem to get any harder, Doraswamy shared possibly the most difficult aspect of their job: “Now here’s the reality, and again, a hard job for us…[telling] a writer that [the book] is not selling because people are not interested in it. As an agent, that has been the biggest challenge.”

 

Mirchandani said he encourages writers to face low sales and bad reviews with a positive attitude. After all, “There is no book that everyone likes.”

 

The local scene

 

A fine point surfaced when a participant brought up the concern that literary agents virtually don’t exist in the local publishing scene. In this case, what is a young, aspiring writer to do?

 

The panelists recommended attending critique groups and writing workshops, not only for the obvious reason of learning new writing techniques and improving the craft, but also because they can be a venue for any aspiring writer to meet their future supporting cast—the editors, publishers and agents who will make sure they put together a book that they will be proud to have their name on the cover of, and may even be worshipped for. –KG, GMA News