Posts Tagged ‘acquisitions’

Acquisition meetings: Carina Press style

I do love meetings at Harlequin HQ. I usually end up off my chair laughing or at the very least learning new romance concepts (How do you spell monogamous ménage again?). So when the opportunity to join the Carina Press Acquisitions Team came up, I jumped at the chance. Not only does the team have a reputation of giving good meeting, the “overheard” tweets from them are always pure gold.

Por ejemplo:

#Overheard at Harlequin It’s not your typical dom/sub relationship. @carinapress

— Malle Vallik (@MalleVallik) January 10, 2013

“It’s a lightsuspense w/paranormal elephants. I mean elements”. <-overheard in acq meeting. Paranormal elephants wld have been awesome!

— Angela James (@angelajames) June 19, 2012

Overheard at @harlequinbooks HQ: “Back to erotic Christmas.” (in a @carinapress meeting of course!)

— Harlequin Books (@HarlequinBooks) July 20, 2012

(To get a glimpse of “overheard” tweets all around the romance mothership in real time, follow @carinapress and @harlequinbooks on Twitter. And if you’re so inclined, follow me at @pattyanasco too!)

Fun times aside, acquisition meetings are usually filled with discovery. Every week, I learn more and more about the different books we publish and watch how the rest of the Acquisitions Team respond passionately (for good or bad) to their assigned reads. My personal preference is contemporary or erotic romance so hearing Jenny talk about Eleri Stone or Malle discuss New Adult teaches me a bit more about genres I should start reading!

Another thing I particularly enjoy about Acquisitions is that we are free to talk about books we love using terminology not used anywhere else in Corporate America/Canada. Just yesterday, while giving feedback on an erotic romance submission, I mentioned that it was “accessible BDSM, which I never thought I’d say”. There were nods around the room (after, of course, a bit of laughter) but they got it.

So to my Carina Press family, thank you for welcoming me into the fold so warmly. I’m having such a great time being a part of the team and am looking forward to more reads. Maybe sometime soon I’ll get the chance to use “more naked cowboys” in my feedback, yes?

*****

Patty Anasco is Assistant Manager, Site Operations for Harlequin.com when she isn’t busy reading submissions or losing to her mom on Words With Friends.

What’s in a title?

Would Gone with the Wind be half as popular or widely read if it had been published under its original title, Pansy (the original name for Scarlett O’Hara)? What about The Great Gatsby? Would it be considered a classic today if it was still called Trimalchio in West Egg? Probably not, because no one would’ve bought it!

I have this topic on the brain because I recently had to brainstorm new titles for a Carina Press book with another member of the team. Good lord, it’s tough! Trying to find something that relates to the story but is also clever and unique is both daunting and frustrating. It’s also given me a whole new respect for authors who struggle to find the perfect combination of words to encapsulate their story.

Part of our job on the Carina Press team is to make sure the fabulous books we publish have equally fabulous titles. Yes, it’s important to create beautiful covers and compose compelling cover copy, but choosing the best title for a book is another key ingredient in its overall marketing plan. In fact, it may be the most crucial part, because it could mean the difference between the book’s eventual success or failure.

The first things we see on our acquisition meeting agendas are the title, genre and word length of the manuscripts. We also hear a bit about the story and characters, but that comes after we have already formed our first emotional reaction to the title.

Have I let someone else volunteer to read a manuscript because I thought the title sounded cheesy or cutesy or just plain clichéd? Yes. Do I still take on some books despite the cringe factor of what they’re called? Yes, but I have to say I’m a lot more excited to dive into a story that stimulates me or attracts my attention right from the start.

So what makes a good title and why is it so darned important? Well, before you can regale readers with your amazing voice and vivid characters, you need to get them to buy your book. Your title should be simple, brief, audience-appropriate and above all else, interesting! Oh, and it should sound good out loud. Making it memorable will also help readers remember it for future word-of-mouth possibilities.

Think of titling as an introduction to your book, an opportunity to get across its promise in the mind of the prospective reader. If you’ve written a medical romance, don’t choose a title that makes your book sound like a steamy romantic suspense. This will only anger readers and make them feel they didn’t get what they thought they would.

Titles may not be copyrighted, but choosing one that’s original is a better idea than going with something generic-sounding. If you’re unsure whether a potential title has been used before, do a quick search online. You want people to find your book when they type in the title, not somebody else’s from 1983.

Choosing the right title also plays a huge role in tempting a prospective reader to hit the buy button. This is even more important when it comes to ebooks. Once your book is for sale on an etailer’s site, it’s not just the story of your heart anymore. It’s a marketable commodity, a product, and should be treated as such. That means that in order to make your book appealing to potential buyers, it has to have a title that reflects the value of what’s inside the pages.  Remember: you only have those eyeballs for a few seconds, so it’s important to ensnare and engage them immediately.

I thought I’d finish up with a list of my top 5 Carina Press titles so far (in no particular order). They all possess that something-something that makes me want to read the book, even if it’s not a genre I typically immerse myself in.

1. The Debutante’s Dilemma – alliterative, elegant-sounding.
2. Rakes & Radishes – unexpected, whimsical.
3. Trash Course – clever connection to editorial.
4. Overdue For Pleasure – to the point, sexy, fits editorial.
5. Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep – makes me think of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – intriguing, unique.

So what are your favourite book titles? And why?

How do acquisitions work?

Every so often we have someone ask, via interview, at conferences, or during conversation how our acquisitions process works at Carina Press. I’ve often wished I had a handy link that I could just say “go here for all your answers” because it’s not a short answer. So now I’m going to create one and give you some insight into our process, which will also help you get a sense of timeline as well.

To start, all submissions run through our submissions@carinapress.com email address. Even when a submission is sent directly to a freelance editor from a returning or referred author, the submission is forwarded to me at that address so we can track it in our system, and have a record of all submissions.

Once a submission comes in, it’s entered into the system. Generally, submissions get assigned to an editor for reading within 2-3 weeks of hitting the inbox.

Submissions are assigned based on a preference basis. This means I keep a spreadsheet (a very thorough spreadsheet) of editor genre preferences. They’ve indicated if  a genre is preferred, something they’ll read or something they don’t want to see. This allows me to match up editors and manuscripts, so no editor is reading a genre they don’t enjoy, and they are often reading genres they love. Additionally, I check in with the editors every few months to see if they want to make updates or changes, or if they’d like to see more or less of a genre. Also, I should mention that editors are paid for each step of the process, so we’re not asking for free labor from our freelancers and they have incentive to meet the deadlines (and incentive to read, read, read your submissions. It’s a win all around!)

When editors indicate they’re ready to read submissions, I send them out in batches of ten. Editors then have a week to respond with a preliminary report (of a few sentences to a paragraph for each book) based on a read of no more than 3 chapters (and often much less, as they get good at weeding through submissions). Do they recommend rejection, a full read or a look by another editor. Sometimes it’s a genre they enjoy, but a particular book is not for them but seems to have potential. For instance, we had a recent submission of dark urban fantasy that the original editor found a little too violent, but recognized as good writing, so she suggested a second editor have a look. That ended in an acquisition!

Once the editors have returned their prelim reports, they have two weeks to return reports on any manuscripts kept for full reads. Based on those reads, they recommend either acquisition, rejection or revise and resubmit (we’ll talk about revise and resubmits in a later post).

Manuscripts recommended for rejection get filed by me for response, unless the editor has worked with the author in the past, then they may send the response. Those recommended for R&R will get responses from the editor. And those recommended for acquisition get moved to a special folder and put on the agenda for our weekly acquisitions team meeting.

At the weekly meeting, I present the editor’s recommendation report and an acquisitions team member (comprised of people from marketing, production, promotion, sales, community and editorial) volunteers to read it. From that time, the team member reports within 2 weeks at a team meeting what their recommendation is. If the team member didn’t like it, it’s given to a second team member to read. Two people must say yes (the editor being one and a team member being the second) before a manuscript is acquired, but a manuscript isn’t rejected or sent for R&R without at least two acquisitions team members looking at it first, to give it a fair chance.

If you’re counting along at home, this means that once the manuscript reaches the acquisitions team, it can take up to 4-5 weeks (depending on when the report is received, especially if it’s received the day after the weekly meeting) for it to go through this step of the process. Acquisitions team members also report on the manuscript, and offer feedback.

After we’ve agreed to make an acquisition, I assign it to my list of calls/emails to make. I generally make these every 2 weeks, unless there’s an urgent deadline on a manuscript. If an author is in the US or Canada, I make the offer call. If an author is outside US/Canada, I send an offer email. And from there, a new process begins!

So, if you’ve been counting along, you can see how we come to need 12-16 weeks for some submissions. The process can be prolonged in several places: if the original editor recommends it be seen by a second editor, if the acquisition team needs more time or a second reader, if anyone in the process (the editor or me) needs more time in the process. The reports I’ve mentioned along the way, those are what I use to evaluate and send rejection letters. Sometimes the editor has included critical advice I think it will benefit the author to see. Sometimes the reports’ language is meant for my eyes only. We’ve discussed rejections in detail here and here.

And now you know the secret, behind-the-scenes acquisition/submissions process. Did it answer questions or raise more?

September submissions update

I spent the past three days going through submission reports from our freelance editors and sending out the dreaded rejection letters to just under 200 authors. While this definitely isn’t my favorite part of the job, I do get a sense of…accomplishment from knowing that we’re not leaving these authors waiting and wondering. This time around, I took advantage of the wealth of insight and knowledge in the editors’ reports to tweet 20 common things we see in manuscripts and reasons we reject them (via my personal Twitter account). Though I did do a blog post about this a few months back, I got some requests to put the information I tweeted into a blog post, since it was a bit different and expanded, and I’ll try to do that within the next week.

In the meantime, I have some info to share

*As of today, everyone who submitted on or before August 9th has received a response from us. We’ve been saying our response time is 14 to 16 weeks and, for the most part, with the exception of a handful of submissions, we’ve been doing much better than this. I’m really pleased with how we’re turning submissions around and I hope the authors who’ve sent in manuscripts are as well.

*Approximately one-third of the people who received rejections yesterday received some type of personal feedback, even if it was only a line or two. Some received several paragraphs of feedback.

*To date, we’ve acquired just under 200 titles for scheduling into Summer 2011

*The majority of those are romance or a subgenre of romance but also include women’s fiction, mystery, science fiction, urban fantasy and fantasy in the non-romance genres.

*Approximately only 15% of those 200 titles are erotic romance. Of that 15%, half have already been released. So less than 10% of our coming catalog is erotic romance. For those worried we were going to dominate our catalog with erotic romance. (and yes, we are still seeking and acquiring erotic romance)

*One non-romance genre we haven’t acquired in that the editors continue to try for is thriller!

*We added three new freelance editors last week, for a total of thirteen. That means, that right now is a really great time to submit your work for consideration.

*Unfortunately, we’ve changed the way we track submissions so I haven’t figured out the best way to acquire total submissions and rejections, as well as updated percentages. However, my mental math (admittedly not 100% accurate) tells me we’re hovering around 1800 total submissions. Our slush acceptance seems to be holding steady around 5%, but we’re seeing a lot of existing authors submitting and contracting new work. Our numbers are slightly skewed, as well, by the 14 titles we’re re-releasing from Jennifer Greene. With all of that factored in, acceptance is around 10% when you include returning authors and agented submissions.

*Yes, we do reject both agented submissions and return authors.

* We are still very enthusiastically acquiring in all fiction genres with the exception of YA/children’s books.

Now, what questions do you have for me about submissions and acquisitions?

Signs Amy Loves a Submission

by Amy Wilkins, Harlequin Digital Content team member & Carina Press Acquisition team

A couple weeks ago I read a Carina Press submission that I loved. It may be my favorite of any Carina book — and surprisingly, it was a from a genre I don’t normally read. Yet I knew within the first couple chapters that I loved it — and here were the signs….

1) I start writing the blurb as I read it. Are you one of those people that when you love a book you want others to love it just as much? I am, and it shows in how enthusiastic I am to write the book blurb for it. While reading the book, things jumped out at me that would be great for the book description: Phrases that show the author’s voice. Ways to describe the characters. Which plot elements could hook the reader. I was excited about this story, I wanted to start a blurb that would excite readers to pick it up, too.

2) I forget about all the other books I want to read. I’m the sort of reader who always has 2 or 3 books on the go. A couple on my e-readers (yes, I own two!) that I keep in my purse, and another on my nightstand. And those are just the books I’ve actually started reading, not to mention all the ones waiting for the future. It takes a strong story to make me forget those other books on my TBR list.

3) I don’t dare skip any of it – even if I stay up way too late to finish the whole thing. Imagine me the night before the next Carina acquisition meeting. I had about 400 pages (resized on my Sony Reader so that probably seems like more than it actually was) left of the manuscript to read. By page 150, I was sure I was going to want this book to be acquired. I could have skipped ahead to make sure the book didn’t fall apart half-way through or the ending was completely bogus. But by then I loved the story so much that I didn’t want to miss a single moment of these characters. So I kept reading waaaay too late – and had to drink way too much coffee the next morning as a result.

I’m sure I’ll be back on the blog in a couple months when this book is about to be released to tell you what it was about this particular submission I adored. But until then, why don’t you tell me your top signs that you are loving the book you’re reading?

~Amy

Early influences

The Sergeant's Lady cover

Hi, I’m Susanna Fraser, and I’m delighted that my debut historical romance, The Sergeant’s Lady, is available on virtual bookshelves this week.

One of the many things I love about working with Carina is their enthusiasm for historicals that travel off the beaten path in one way or another.  To name just two examples, there’s Liz Fichera’s Captive Spirit, featuring a Native American heroine in what is now Arizona at the very beginning of European contact, and Carrie Lofty’s Song of Seduction, starring musicians in 1804 Austria.

The Sergeant’s Lady takes place in 1811-12.  The hero is English, the heroine, Scottish.  So far, so typically Regency, right?  Not exactly.  The vast majority of the action takes place with Wellington’s army fighting the French on the Iberian Peninsula.  And the hero, Will Atkins, is a common sergeant.  Not a long-lost heir to a title, not a gentleman slumming, but an outwardly ordinary man who ran away to join the army as a youth out of an abiding curiosity to discover what lay beyond the hills surrounding his native village.

Why did this story call to me?  I believe its roots go back to the very first romances I read back in high school: Sunfire YA historicals and traditional Regencies.

For those of you who don’t remember the Sunfire line, each book featured a sixteen-year-old heroine living through a compelling piece of American history, anywhere from Jamestown right on up to Pearl Harbor.  I liked them better than contemporary YA romances because instead of just going to high school and hoping a boy would notice her, like I was doing myself, the heroine got to do big things and witness important events.  Her choices could have life-or-death consequences, and the book almost always ended with her engaged to marry the hero.  The stakes were higher, there was scope for adventure, and I loved that.

Many Sunfires featured romance across class and/or cultural barriers.  I honestly never even realized this before I sat down to write this blog post, but all my favorites featured an upper-class girl with a more “blue collar” boy, from genteel Marilee falling for her brother’s indentured servant at Jamestown to spoiled Amanda learning to be strong and self-reliant from farmer boy Ben on the Oregon Trail to society girl Nicole daring to love steerage immigrant Karl on the Titanic.  (If you’re thinking that sounds a lot like the James Cameron movie you’d be right, but the Sunfire book predates it by a decade or so.)

At the same time I was buying almost every Sunfire as soon as it came out, I was starting to read traditional Regency romances because they were the only adult romances I could bring home without my mother looking askance at the covers.  I enjoyed the picture they painted of a world so unlike my own and was fascinated whenever they hinted at the big events going on then, especially the Napoleonic Wars.  My favorite heroes were soldiers. If a book was actually set with Wellington’s army in Spain or at the Congress of Vienna or in Brussels during the run-up to Waterloo, so much the better.  Those books were rare, but they gave me the same adventure and high stakes that I loved in my Sunfires.

The Sergeant’s Lady is a good bit sexier than the books I cut my romance-reading teeth on, but other than that, if you tossed my favorite Sunfires in a blender with my favorite trad Regencies, you’d get something very like The Sergeant’s Lady.  Aristocratic heroine and common hero finding love and adventure in a dangerous world, but also having to defy the strict social conventions of the Regency.  And maybe it’s not all that surprising that I’m still telling the same kind of stories I fell in love with as a teen.

What about you?  Do you still look for stories that remind you of the books that sparked your love of reading and of romance?  And do you enjoy historicals that take on unusual settings and themes?  What are some of your favorites?  Or is there a unique setting you wish an author would try?

Please visit Susanna at her website or on her blog, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

2 for 1: Texas Tangle and Sea of Suspicion

If you follow along on the blog, Twitter or Facebook, you already had the chance to see these two covers. I posted them on the Carina Press fan page a few weeks ago, and linked to them from here. These are two very different covers, by two different cover artists. But both beautiful and appealing.

First is a contemporary western menage (cowboys, ladies. Yee haw!) Texas Tangle by Leah Braemel, cover art by Angie Waters. The second is Sea of Suspicion, a romantic suspense by Toni Anderson (oh how I love the blues of this cover. Love them). Cover art is by Frauke of Croco Designs. I’m also including, as a bonus, the cover copy (pre-copy editor) for both titles.

Texas Tangle by Leah Braemel

Contemporary western menage

Coming June 2010

Thanks to her cheating ex-husband and her thieving brother, all horse breeder Nikki Kimball has left is a bruised heart, an over-drawn bank account and an empty home.  When sex-on-legs Dillon Barnett and his brooding foster-brother Brett Anderson start showing more than just neighborly attention, Nikki is intrigued…and a little gun-shy.

Dillon and Brett have a history; back in high school, the two friends fought a bitter battle over Nikki.  Now, ten years later, Brett still longs to be the man in Nikki’s life, but he’s determined to stand back and let Dillon win Nikki’s heart.

Society says Nikki must choose between the two men she loves. Is Nikki strong enough to break all the rules in order to find happiness?

***

Sea of Suspicion by Toni Anderson

Romantic Suspense

Coming June 2010

Marine biologist Susie Cooper traded her life in America for a dream job on the rugged Scottish coast. Now all she lacks is the right man to start a family with. After their first meeting, she knows sexy Detective Inspector Nick Archer isn’t what she’s looking for. He’s the type of guy whose idea of commitment is staying the whole night.

Nick has returned to St. Andrews for one reason only—to fulfill his vow to find his wife’s killer. Relentless in his twelve-year quest for justice, he has no problem using Susie to get close to his primary suspect: her boss. But the passion between them smolders, and as it ignites, Nick finds himself torn between his past and his present—with Susie.

When one of her boss’s students is murdered, Nick’s investigation draws Susie into a web of madness and betrayal. They will have to learn to trust each other if they’re going to catch a killer…and come out of this alive.

The Bloodgate Guardian by Joely Sue Burkhart

How would you like to see a combination of cover art and cover copy to end the work week? This is pre-copy editor cover copy, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek!

Photobucket The Bloodgate Guardian
By Joely Sue Burkhart
Fantasy w/strong romantic elements

Worlds within worlds await through the Maya Bloodgate….

Dr. Jaid Merritt doesn’t do digs. The last time she ventured into the jungle, someone died. Now she’s content to decipher Maya glyphs from pictures sent to her by her famous archaeologist father. But when he goes missing while trying to perform a ritual based on her translations of an ancient codex, Jaid must put aside her fears and travel to Guatemala to find him.

After misusing the Bloodgates to bring his twin brother back from the afterlife, the Maya priest known as Ruin was cursed by the gods to stand as the guardian for all time. He was unable to stop Dr. Charles Merritt from opening the gates, and now demons roam this world. The last thing he wants to do is hurt the beautiful woman who is somehow infused with his magic, but if she uses the codex to retrieve her father, Ruin must do his duty. And this time, he won’t fail. Even if it kills him. Again.

Cover Art: Parker’s Price by Ann Bruce

Here’s a contemporary romance cover by an artist you haven’t seen on the blog yet for any finalized covers, artist John Kicksee of Kix by Design. Don’t you find yourself longing for the days of summer when you look at this cover? Is it beach season yet?

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Cover art: Savage Sanctuary by Jacqueline Barbary

Here’s cover art to one of several m/m titles we have coming in 2010, Savage Sanctuary by Jacqueline Barbary (if you visit her site, she has an unofficial blurb that tells more about the book). This cover art was designed by Angela Waters and is completely suited to this book and the characters. Savage Sanctuary will be available for purchase in June 2010!

Photobucket