A Little Godiva Goes a Long Way  
What publishing assistants do,
and how you can help them do it
© 2005 by Nadia Cornier and Deanna Carlyle

This article first appeared in the May 2005 issue of Romance Writers Report.

Have you heard the one about the kid in the mail room at Random House UK who sent out company-wide emails all the time and was finally asked if he had a manuscript? Or about the would-be-agent who, relegated to the mail room, is rumored to have done his first multi-million dollar deal while sifting through his boss' slush piles? In this industry, you often have to start at the bottom and work your way up. It's today's motivated assistants who will be tomorrow's power brokers, not to mention these assistants often hold your tenuous career in the palms of their hands today. So, a little sucking up is not always out of order (We're thinking chocolates... Godiva is always a classy choice).

There are dozens of people behind the scenes who work on your book in some manner before it hits the shelves - and these people deserve to be noticed and applauded for their efforts. But since summer is coming, and chocolate tends to melt en route, we thought it might also be beneficial to talk about other ways to make life a little easier for the assistants you may come into contact with. Because, while some assistants may not like chocolates (and this does not apply to the authors of this article, who have worked as publishing assistants, and who will always like chocolates) all assistants would be content to be treated with professional understanding and respect - which is almost as classy as Godiva.

Agent Assistants
For anyone who has sent an unsolicited (gah!) query to an agent - you've probably encountered an agent's assistant without even knowing it. An agent assistant - sometimes a paid position, sometimes a glorified intern - is responsible for opening the mail, sifting through the rubbish (or rather, panning for gold), and making sure the good stuff gets under the agent's nose. An agent's assistant often goes through fifty pieces of mail a day: opening, logging, reading, rejecting... so, there are a few things that you can do to make this assistant's job a little easier.

Don't wrap the SASE around your query letter before you stick it in the envelope to mail it - the envelope always gets ripped up when slit with a letter opener, causing the assistant irrevocable trauma. If you can bear to part with your manuscript, send a business sized envelope as your SASE instead of requesting your manuscript back (it takes longer to process and return a full manuscript and will probably cost you more in postage than it does to make another copy of your partial).

If you're already working with an agent, remember your agent's assistants when it comes to be holiday time (or when you make an important sale)! One agent assistant told me that she received a lovely card at Christmas time from an agency client and was shocked that the author would even remember her name.

Editorial Assistants
Editorial assistants have a million things to do. Well, at least it seems like that. Susan McCarty is an editorial assistant at The Berkley Publishing Group, where a typical day looks like this: "I support two senior editors who have a lot of different projects, from literary fiction to thrillers to romance and young adult novels. I spend a lot of time keeping their projects and my own on track. I read as much as I can fit in. I do typical administrative office work. I edit projects. I spend time answering questions for authors and agents. It's a great job because there are always a million very different things to do. I'm never bored." - Never bored and never a minute to rest.

A lot of editorial assistants are in a position similar to Susan's. In addition to being an assistant to a senior editor, they have their own duties and sometimes their own acquisitions to fit into an already jam-packed schedule. This is why it's so important to anticipate their needs. Kerry Donovan, an ed-asst with Penguin Group writes that "one of the most important things authors can do to make an editor's job easier and more efficient is to meet deadlines and communicate with us ahead of time if they anticipate any delays or problems with the writing."

What are the long-range benefits of meeting your editorial assistant's needs? Chances are she will be promoted. In fact, an assistant editor often gets promoted to acquiring their own projects, and as they acquire more projects, their client list grows, and as these projects do well, so does the ed-asst's position in the house improve.

Subsidiary/Foreign Rights Assistant
Often an agency will work with or hire a person to handle the subsidiary rights for agency clients. A big part of the Sub-Asst's job is to make sure that other people are aware of a new project or sale. In addition to posting a new deal on Publisher's Marketplace, Sub-assts often send notices to foreign agents, film/tv agents, and other literary scouts.

You can help this type of assistant by providing your agent with a brief bio, a short (short) blurb of your book, and making sure they have a link to your (updated) website. This is often some of the information your sub-asst will send to other scouts when they are shopping around subsidiary and foreign rights. Why is this important? Not only does it help you expand your market (i.e., make more money) but it helps you build your name recognition within the industry.

One sub-asst told me she once had to deal with a client who, 'wanted to know why I hadn't sold her book to a film company yet.' It just isn't that easy. Just like in the publishing industry, literary scouts for film companies may go years without seeing any of their recommendations come to fruition, so your best bet is to be optimistic without overly high expectations. Subsidiary and foreign rights are a nice coup, but they don't always happen.

Personal & Virtual Assistants
A personal author assistant (either in person, a 'PA', or a 'virtual' assistant, a 'VA') helps an author accomplish tasks that the author can't fit into her schedule - like mailing promotional materials while the author meets a looming deadline.

Virtual assistant, Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing, told us that authors can make her job easier by being "clear about their needs and [knowing] exactly what they want to achieve. The more information they provide me about their project, their qualifications, and the direction they want to go into, the more I can help them."

Since a virtual assistant often works from home, she sets her own schedule and is considered a business owner. If you strongly feel that you can manage your own marketing/promotional campaign, a virtual assistant is a less-expensive alternative to hiring a publicist, but do make sure you look for a VA or PA who has a marketing or publishing background - and expect to provide them with plenty of direction.

Marketing, Promotion & Publicity Assistants
At small publishers, assistant jobs in marketing, promotion and publicity are often rolled into one. I remember when I (Deanna) worked as a marketing assistant at a small non-fiction publisher. My duties included writing newsletters, catalogs and ads, placing these ads in magazines, coordinating the printing of catalogs and brochures, ordering mailing lists and arranging mass mailings, writing press releases, assembling press kits, sending out review copies, cold calling the review media, writing marketing plans, designing flyers, arranging trade show shipments, attending trade shows and ... are you tired yet? I know I was.

What would have made my job easier? I wish authors had given me more to work with - more association names, more niche market ideas, more contacts of every kind.

I would also have liked to meet authors in person. I remember one time when I worked as promotion assistant at HarperSanFrancisco, an author wandered into our department by mistake. I recognized him immediately from the author photo I'd filed along with his manuscripts, and I said, "Robert Johnson?" He was so pleased I'd recognized him, his whole face lit up. But he wasn't half as pleased as I was to finally meet a real author.

Jessica Luhrssen, copy department assistant at Penguin, expresses a similar sentiment. "It would be nice to meet them every now and then and put a face to the book... . Occasionally we have had 'meet the author' gatherings within the office that are nice. It adds a personal touch to the job. There are a few bestselling authors who send gifts over the holidays and/or throw little thank-you parties when their latest novel hit the bestseller lists. Though not necessary, we are always grateful to receive these gestures of gratitude."

What else can you do to show your appreciation? "It is always good to have authors hand in completed manuscripts to the editors on time or as soon as they can so that we can get cracking at it," says Luhrssen. "This way our department can meet our deadlines, which in turn helps everyone meet their own deadlines all the way down the line to the printing stage."

Timing is everything. As is quality content that the marketing department can use. "It's really helpful to us to get all the materials at once," adds Berkley editorial assistant Susan McCarty. "The manuscript, biography, author photo, dedication and acknowledgments, all in hard copy and on a disk ... [and] later in the process it's always good when authors are able to provide lists of bookstores in their area, or contacts for cover quotes."

Sales Assistants
With all her duties, there is no typical work day for Penguin sales assistant Gabi Gantz. But there is a weekly rhythm, and it involves plenty of number crunching. "On Monday afternoons, if sales numbers have been uploaded into our system, I put together a tracking report for the sales meeting Tuesday morning. If numbers aren't in I come in early to put the report together. There is also a sales report that I do on Wednesdays for two meetings on Thursday."

She's also an important link to Penguin's largest accounts. "My bosses sell to Barnes and Noble and Borders. Here at Penguin we have three seasons of when books are published and go on sale. To prepare my bosses for these meetings with the buyers ... I need to enter titles into Access, code them to my bosses' names, decide who the buyer is and enter some other important information needed to sell the book. I am also responsible for mailing books to buyers so they can review the content and decide how many to buy for the stores."

What can you do to make her job easier? "I don't really deal with the authors face to face but in order to make my job easier [authors] can write amazing books that skyrocket their way up the best seller charts." Her not-so-dream author, on the other hand, is one who writes an unsellable book.

Art & Design Assistants
Many art and design assistants hope to illustrate books, or are doing so already. "Our illustrators generate illustrations for our book covers continuously," says Lissa Waitley, assistant to the art director at Ellora's Cave Publishing. "Then I do the touch ups, adjust the sizes of the text and convert image colors for print, etc. Occasionally, I illustrate a cover myself. I also make minor changes to our website data, design and update the catalog and other various promotional items."

What can you do to make her job easier? "In their descriptions of what they want the covers to look like, sometimes [authors] request things that are not in our means to do," Waitley says. "It would expedite the creative process if they knew what we have to work with or what images we are capable of either obtaining or creating. There are also limits to what we are permitted to have on a cover."

Waitley's favorite kind of author is someone "who respects our creative abilities, and works easily with us to find a dynamic solution for their book cover." Her not-so-dream author would be one who "doesn't respect our limits, or gets angry when we can't fulfill an overly risqué cover request which would be unacceptable by our distributors to have on their shelves."

Production Assistants
"The one thing that authors can do to make production assistants' jobs easier is to respect deadlines!" says children's author Robin La Fevers, who has worked on both sides of the desk, first in book production, and now as a romance and YA author. "Every missed deadline makes their job just that much harder as things back up, If you're past due on a deadline or turning in a copy editing nightmare or have made far too many changes on your galleys, send the assistant a small thank you gift. Yes, it's their job, but by sending them a little something you're also acknowledging that you're handing them a bear of a job."

Kerry Donovan adds, "Any advance notice we have of a delay can help us work with the authors to solve the problem, plan our time accordingly and alert other departments to the potential problem. It's also nice to hear from your authors that their writing is on track and how soon they expect to deliver the manuscript."

So, what's the bottom line for authors? Keep communication channels open and the chocolate flowing. Think of the publishing industry as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you're a "good" little boy or girl, you'll win the golden ticket. If you're a "bad" little boy or girl... . well, let's not go there.

"The way I look at it, we're all part of a team," says Alesia Holliday, author of Super 16, "and I appreciate every effort from all of these hardworking professionals." The feeling is mutual. "My job is more about making the authors know how much they are appreciated rather than anything else," says editorial assistant Jenny Hotton, who works at Harlequin Mills & Boon. "However, we do get lots of lovely cards and thank-yous from writers and they always brighten up the day."

In other words, a little Godiva goes a long way.

Deanna Carlyle writes chick lit set in Europe. Check out her other articles on publishing and writing here, and sign up to network with over 700 other chick lit writers in her chat group, ChickLit: Women's Fiction Markets and Tips.

Nadia Cornier loves to write cover letters for her clients, both as an agent at the Creative Media Agency and through her own business, Cornier & Associates, where she helps authors with their marketing and publicity.

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