Editor's Panel on Hits and Evergreens: Claudia Gabel

Claudia Gabel is an executive editor at Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of Ha

Editor and author Claudia Gabel

rperCollins Chidlren's Books. She acquires middle grade and teen fiction across the genres. Recent titles include MILA 2.0 by Debra Driza, THE WARD by Jordana Frankel, and HEMLOCK by Kathleen Peacock.

She's also an author, and her books include the mash-up Romeo & Juliet & Vampires.

The Katherine Tegen imprint publishes "quality commercial fiction for young readers." Some of their titles include the DIVERGENT series, the GONE series, and the SEPTIMUS HEAP series.

Claudia acquires and develops middle grade and teen fiction--not just from agents, but working on they develop in-house at HarperCollins. She approaches agents and writers to write those.

"I'm looking forward to scouring the field here and seeing what comes up."  

What makes an evergreen and what makes a hit? 

Sometimes what can make an evergreen and a hit is a close examination of a particular time in our history's culture that is very resonant.

"The Book Thief for me is a book that will stay in the canon because there is a close examination of a time period and an event that changed the face of the world. Another thing going for it is a storytelling hook. Having Death as a narrator was really genius and made this book stand out."

Things are different in the adult world (Claudia worked there for five or six years). The focus on hits there was "soul-crushing." She once discovered a book she loved and her boss wouldn't buy it because it wouldn't sell at the rate they wanted it to.

Children's books are less focused on bestsellers. "There's so much more room to fall in love with things and share them with the readership."

Diversification on editors' lists helps keep them competitive. "If you're only publishing the same kind of thing over and over again and you're going to dig yourself a hole."