What Editors Want

This week's guest is Tony White, founder and publisher of Piece of Paper Press, a lo-tech, sustainable publisher of new writings and illustrative works. Each book is manufactured from a single A4 sheet that is printed on both sides, and then folded, stapled and trimmed by hand to create the book. Piece of Paper Press titles are always distributed free, either by post and/or at an event. Authors who have contributed include Joanna Walsh and Michael Moorcock

Tony is also the author of books including Foxy-T and Shackleton’s Man Goes South. His latest novel The Fountain in the Forest is published by Faber and Faber, which the Guardian described as 'An avant-garde take on the pulp crime genre becomes a paean to liberty and a secret history of the 1980s'.

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Hannah Westland is the publisher at Serpent's Tail, the literary arm of Profile Books. Serpent's Tail launching the careers of writers such as David Peace, Michel Houellebecq and Colm Tóibín and made books such as Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin and Karen Jay Fowler's We Are Completely Beside Ourselves into bestsellers.

Hannah joined me to talk about books like Alix Nathan's The Warlow Experiment and the literary phenomenon that is Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent. Hannah also tells us how representing Esi Edugyan, the author of the Booker shortlisted Washington Black, as an agent helped Hannah transition into publishing.

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My guest this week is the Senior Editor at Atlantic Books, James Roxburgh.

We're discussing book fairs, the different types of reading and the perceived death of literary fiction, as well as James' amazing list of literary fiction from around the globe including books like:

When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy (shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize),

House of Stone by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma (Winner of the Edward Stanford Prize for Fiction with a Sense of Place, Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Orwell Prize, and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize), and

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and Women's Prize for Fiction).

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Emma Herdman is the Editorial Director at both Hodder Fiction and their literary imprint, Sceptre. Hodder publish some of the biggest names in the business like Stephen King, Jasper Fforde, Graham Norton, David Mitchell and Siri Hustvedt.

Emma and I spoke about our shared background as booksellers, and in particular at Waterstones Piccadilly. Emma went on to become a fiction buyer at Waterstones head office and then joined the literary agency Curtis Brown.

We spoke about her list including books like THESE DIVIDING WALLS by Fran Cooper, HOMES & EXPERIENCES by Liam Williams and WHEN ALL IS SAID by Anne Griffin.

Authors should always be aware of the market, but not led by it.

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Lovers of literary fiction will know Granta Magazine and Granta itself, the publishers of authors likes Robert MacFarlane, Eleanor Catton, Ben Lerner, AM Holmes, Patrick deWitt and Han Kang.

Anne Meadows is the Senior Commissioning Editor at Granta. We spoke about her incredible list of authors including Sandra Newman (The Heavens), Gwendoline Riley (First Love), Margo Jefferson (On Michael Jackson) and Sayaka Murata (Convenience Store Woman).

Anne tells us about the disappointment on missing out on a book she'd have loved to work on, importing novels from countries like American and Japan into the UK, and how seeing your work in translation is like your son bringing home a new girlfriend.

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