I had the honor of getting to write
Ask an Art Book Editor, Volume 2 for the
Chronicle Books blog the other day (companion piece to
Ask an Art Book Editor and
This is What Your Art Book Proposal Needs). Folks write in with questions about publishing in general, and art book publishing in particular, and I respond (as best I can!). Reposting it here for your reading enjoyment--
Who buys art books? Second
question (maybe harder): why?
While
there is, of course, always an art audience for art books (for example: a
fine-art photography audience for fine-art photography books, a museum-going
audience for exhibition catalogs, etc.), what particularly fascinates me is the
even bigger audience that we can potentially reach with our publishing. If
you make art books that are essentially democratic and populist in nature, then
you are suddenly inviting a whole lot more people to the art party. What this
can mean is that people are coming to art books who don’t necessarily think of
themselves as “art people”—perhaps they’re drawn to the subject matter, or are
fans of the author on social media, or perhaps the book is just so visually
striking or physically exciting as an object that they can’t resist picking it
up in the store. Those are all very real reasons why people who may or may not
self-identify as “art book buyers” buy art books.
What did you study to become a
publisher? What’s your opinion of publishing graduate programs as a way
for recent graduates to get a start in publishing?
I
have an undergraduate degree in Communications and a master’s in English
Literature. Those are both pretty good general qualifications to work in the
publishing industry—though I have to admit that publishing was not what I had
in mind when I got either one. Since I work on art books, the one thing I might
change if I had it to do all over again would be to get some art school in
there somewhere. But, then again, that just goes to show that if you have
a good basic grounding in your education, you can be self-taught and learn on
the job when it comes to category expertise. I don’t know any cookbook
editors who went to culinary school, and while most humor book editors are
quite funny people, they certainly never went to school for funniness.
I’m
a big fan of graduate publishing courses, and also of publishing internships.
If you want to get started in publishing, either a publishing course or an
internship can be a great way to get around that age-old job-hunting paradox
of needing to have experience to get a job, but needing to have
a job to get experience.
What is a typical day in the
life for you at work?
Honestly?
Email and meetings. A big part of book editing is project management, and a big
part of project management is email—making sure everything is moving smoothly
and everyone is on track, tackling problems and questions as they arise,
sending materials back and forth with authors, and much, much more. We also
meet a lot with our teams here in-house, both to work on the projects currently
in the pipeline, and also to develop and acquire new projects. I also meet with
current authors, if they’re local, a fair bit, and am constantly meeting with
new talent, agents, and folks with ideas to discuss new projects and the
possibility of working together.
People
have an image in their minds of the editor sitting there marking changes onto a
printed manuscript with a red pencil, and, yes, on occasion I do actually do
that—but I have to chuckle to myself almost every time I do, because I always
think “Ha! I’m doing that thing! The thing people think book editors do all day
long!” In reality, because I work on art books, the editorial process more
often involves printing out a whole bunch of images and spreading them out on
the floor than it does getting out my red pencil.
Is there a “special” library
you all have to enjoy?
We
have a book room of our current books for when we need to grab copies to look
at or send out to people. We also have an amazing archive room with a copy of
every single book Chronicle has ever published going back to the 1960s. But,
beyond that, all our desks have bookshelves, and almost every person in this
building has their own little library of books at their desk that pertain to
their own job. So I’ve got shelves of art books—both ones I’ve worked on and
ones from other publishers—some of which I reference frequently, and others I
just like having nearby because they make me feel inspired.
What’s the most rewarding
aspect of your job?
Hands
down, it’s the moment when the advances come in. Advances are finished copies
of the book that are fast-tracked to us from the printer as soon as the
printing and binding are done. It’s the first time we get to hold the finished
book in our hands—this thing that we’ve been working on, often for several
years. It’s the moment when, all of a sudden, you get to see the fruits of your
labor. And then as fast as you can, you send them off to the author. Getting to
write someone a note that says “Here is your book,
congratulations!”, getting to see how it all came together and now
there is this amazing thing that didn’t exist before—I’ve done it hundreds
of times and, let me tell you, it never ever gets old. It’s a thrill every
time.
Photo by Irene Kim Shepherd