Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A Year as a Publisher’s Reader
About a year ago I signed up to be a publisher’s reader for a children’s book publisher here in Japan; each month I read ten YA and middle-grade books, mostly from U.S. and U.K. publishers. Then for each book I submit a written summary, a brief critique, and a rating on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the best. The publisher uses these summaries, critiques, and ratings, as well as comments from editor-reader meetings, to help determine which books are translated into Japanese.
I was hesitant to take on this side job on top of all my other commitments, but I knew this opportunity would force me to read over 100 books a year in two of the age groups for which I am currently writing. Editors often urge writers to read at least 100 recently published books in the genre in which they write, and I had done this deliberately with picture books and adult books, and I had even spent an entire year in which I read nothing but short stories. But I had not yet managed this with young adult books. Being a publisher’s reader would be a perfect yearlong assignment for me as a writer. Now, having passed the one-year mark, I have read over well 100 books—almost all novels, plus a few nonfiction works and graphic novels.
Beyond providing me the opportunity to read recently published or soon to be published books from some of the top publishing houses for young adult and middle-grade fiction, the task has benefitted me in other ways. Writing summaries forces me to discover and articulate the central plot and conflicts in a story. This paring down of a tale to its bare essence is an important skill for all fiction writers to develop, particularly essential for creating one’s own novel synopses. Writing critiques forces me to look closely at a book’s merits and weaknesses in order to attempt to fairly evaluate it. I learned to zero in on aspects of a book that might render it less likely to succeed in Japan, be they matters of language, relevance to readers, cultural bias or cultural specificity. The ratings challenged me to be selective and gave me a far better sense of an editor’s vantage point when faced with stacks of manuscripts.
Of the 100 books I read over the last year, the following are some of the selections that I rated highly: Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson, Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan, Defect by Will Weaver, Skin Hunger (part one of a trilogy) by Kathleen Duey, The Name of this Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch, The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, Wilderness by Roddy Doyle, and What I Was by Meg Rosoff.
I wasn’t sure if I would be able to continue with this work beyond a year, but now I find I don’t want to stop. I’m thinking, if I benefited this much in one year, surely I’ll benefit more in two.