Twenty-two years ago, I was trying to get my debut novel published. It was turned down more times than I care to remember. In the end, I paid a freelance editor to give some advice. After some rewriting and deleting, she suggested it was ready to submit. She advised me to try Ian Watt, publishing editor at HarperCollins. Evidently, HarperCollins was the only publisher of historical fiction at that time.
Watt worked with me. He gave my shaken confidence a boost, suggested some changes, which made sense. After some months, he said he was ready to take the novel to the publishing committee. Exciting news.
Two days later, he rang me, his voice shaking, and told me he wouldn’t be able to take my novel to the committee. He’d just lost his job and had 24 hours to clear his desk.
Evidently, HarperCollins’ main office in New Zealand was moving back to Australia and only a junior editor was to be left here; she would have to steer my novel through. Watt felt confident she’d love it.
She didn’t. The Denniston Rose was turned down yet again.
That was the moment when I decided writing novels was not going to be a future for me.
A few weeks later, Watt, who was still, no doubt, coping with having no job, rang me. He said he thought my novel deserved to be published, and suggested two avenues, both long shots, but worth a try. One was a South Island publishing firm that specialised in South Island history. Unfortunately, it didn’t publish fiction. The other was Random House, which published New Zealand fiction but not historical.
I decided to try Random House. The publishing editor was Harriet Allan. She liked the novel and told me she was feeling “bullish” about it and that, since Random House planned to expand its list into crime, perhaps it might take a punt on historical fiction, too. The publishing committee went ahead with caution. It printed 1500 copies. Then, when orders poured in from bookshops, another 1500. By launch day, The Denniston Rose had been reprinted five times. I was fortunate to be at the beginning of a sea change in this country’s reading interest.
Allan and Watt were experienced publishing editors. They knew the sector and the readership. They sensed New Zealand readers were ready to read our own stories in fiction, and that authors were ready to write them. The Denniston Rose became a huge success story for Random House and I became a novelist.
Allan was my publishing editor for the 10 novels that followed. They all benefited greatly from her wisdom, sharp eye for what worked, knowledge of the sector and long experience in the trade. A great many of my colleagues – senior New Zealand authors – share my admiration for her skills. The publishing editor is the personal interface, if you like, between the full publishing business and the author. She takes our concerns to the committee and tries to justify their views to us. A delicate tightrope to tread sometimes, especially over cover images.
Inconceivably to me, Allan, like Watt before her, has just been made redundant by what is now Penguin Random House. Whose groundbreaking novel will go unpublished, I wonder, now that Allan is not there to recognise its importance and guide it through? I know the book trade is under pressure, but to lose such knowledge is surely a terrible mistake.
Surely by now, administrators in all sectors should realise that if they axe those with the knowledge, they will shortly be rehiring them (or more likely lesser mortals) as necessary and highly paid consultants.
Jenny Pattrick is a New Zealand author known for her historical fiction.
