Debra Dorfman: After Acquisition: Then What?

Debra Dorfman

Debra Dorfman is Vice President and Publisher at Scholastic. She does series, licensing, non-fiction and commercial YA, and in this Pro Track workshop she's talking about what happens after your book is acquired.

She's explaining how it works differently at different houses, and is giving out a thick handout on how it works at Scholastic.

So how does acquisitions work?

First, an editor falls in love and champions your book.

At the acquisitions meeting, the editor is joined by

Marketing

publicity

finance

and a rep from book clubs and book fairs

all of whom weigh in with their views on the author and the manuscript.

As editors and champions of your book, they want to know about you because it gives them ammunition - if you have a website or blog, they want to know about it.

At the meeting, the editor presents their idea of how much to offer for the book and their vision for royalty, format and publication date... And they hopefully hash it out! She's sharing that editors even get nervous in the acquisitions meeting because if they're at that meeting - they really want to acquire your book!

And she's now walking us through a case study - and the acquisitions memo - for acquiring the "I Survived" historical series.

She's taking questions now, and sharing more about the inner workings of publishing in general and Scholastic in specific after the book is acquired - covering apps, ebooks, marketing, author videos...

Here's a great quote from Debra:

Part of my mission is to stay on top of our books - you have to champion each one.

Really interesting!