This piece is built on my experience working with Judy Juanita, whose Virgin Soul was officially published (Viking) last week – to great advance reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal.
Judy had contacted me after receiving strong interest (proving that it is possible to land an agent without connections) from Bonnie Nadell of Hill Nadell Literary Agency in LA (www.hillnadell.com) and a request for severe cutting. Judy hired me to do a read-through and recommend the slashing with a maximum estimate of $1000.
Though Judy had shown me the two page letter from Bonnie, I thought it best to hear from Bonnie in a live conversation, so I called her for direction and found her very receptive to my input.
Judy and I spoke at length after I was done reading and marking up a hard copy (at a cost of less than $900). She undertook the excising, character refinement, and a bit of restructuring that I recommended.
Bonnie accepted the revised manuscript and sent it off to acquisition folks at major New York publishing houses. All four rejected the project, but each wrote a full-page letter explaining why – something I had never expected from the industry. I’m sure their extended responses came because of on-going relationships with and respect for Bonnie.
They all said the same thing: the ending didn’t work. This was a concern we had discussed before resending to Bonnie, but Judy felt it placed the story in the context she wanted to emphasize. This points to authors having to give up a “position” in order to reach their market – which can be a very delicate issue.
Judy and I talked through the issues of why the ending hadn’t satisfied the acquisition folks, then together we reworked the last nine pages in detail to shift the orientation. (Editorial note: your opening and closing are important for pointing the reader toward what you want them to learn/experience/take away from your book. But it may not suit the marketplace reality … ) We were still a few dollars under the estimate by the time we were done.
Bonnie sent it out to Viking and within three weeks Judy had a generous contract, which I found remarkable given the current state of the industry.
The publishing process took a bit longer than it might have because several important actors in the Black Power Movement were mentioned, so Viking’s lawyers had to review it to protect themselves from liable. Then Viking changed the original publication date of August in order to balance their spring list. (Publishers allocate funds for advertising, so that and balanced content impact the decision of when to publish each book.)
I have not yet seen the book and I have no idea how much text editing Viking’s staff editors invested, so I’m looking forward to reading it again. After the book was sold, I asked Bonnie what she had seen in the original manuscript, since there were hundreds of pages of fat that she wanted removed. “I liked the voice of the character.”
Until next time, delight in the process …
Download PDF: A Client’s Process From Manuscript to Major Publication