Acquisitions Meetings

What really happens when editors want to buy a book...

Hello and welcome to my Substack! The Honest Editor is a new Substack all about the inner workings of the publishing industry, and each post will cover a different topic, with the guarantee that it will be 100% honest. Publishing is a brilliant but at times elusive-seeming industry, and I really want to change that. If you’re an author, or someone who wants to work in publishing, and you want the truth about how it all works, then this Substack is for you. If you’re wondering who I actually am to talk about this - I’m a Publishing Director in a big 5 publishing house, specialising in commercial fiction, and I’m an author, too, so I’ve seen how things work from both sides of the fence. Of course, I’m still learning all the time, but I will aim to make this Substack as accurate as I possibly can, and am always open to feedback. I’d also love to know what you’d like to see covered in this newsletter - what question have you always wanted to ask about the industry but never been able to? What topic interests/baffles/intrigues you? Let me know. Also, let me know what you think of the logo! (I am going through a neon phase at the moment).

The first thing I wanted to cover was the Acquisitions Meeting. I know authors hear about this meeting (from their friends and from their agents) and I thought it would be interesting to provide a run-down of what really goes on.

So, let’s say you have a literary agent (I will do another post about that soon!) That agent has sent your manuscript (your precious, terrifying manuscript!) out to a set of editors in publishing houses, and you’re waiting to hear back. You can’t really think about anything else. You obsessively check your email over and over again, and feel an acute sense of deflation on a Friday afternoon because you know you won’t hear over a weekend. Sound familiar?

If you’ve ever wondered what is actually happening while you’re at home biting your nails, then read on. As an editor in a big publishing house, I am sent dozens of manuscripts per week. Some publishers do take manuscripts directly from authors, but most of the ‘big 5’ imprints require you to have a literary agent, including the place I work (Hodder & Stoughton, part of Hachette UK). So all my submissions come via agents (most of whom I know). In an ideal world, the minute an exciting new submission came in, I’d be able to drop everything, sit down and read. But it doesn’t work like that. Most of the time I’m in meetings (the other week I counted and I had 15 in one day!) and when I’m not in meetings, I’m usually working on edits or emailing my current list of authors (I have about 20 at the moment). So reading is done out of hours. When I get an email from an agent, I immediately forward it to my Kindle, and to my lovely assistant so that he can log it in our submissions grid (a fancy term for an excel sheet that he kindly maintains).

It’s usually later when I get the chance to actually read the script, and if I do and I love it, then I have to take it to what is known as an acquisitions meeting. At my current company, this is held on a Tuesday morning, and in attendance are the Managing Director, her PA (who takes minutes), at least one person (but often three) from our Home Sales team, our Heads of Marketing and PR, other editors, our Audio director, our Export sales director, and our Rights manager. It’s now a hybrid meeting, so some of us are on-screen, and some are in a big boardroom. Each editor has a set amount of time and slot on the agenda (which is circulated the week before, along with the material - more on that later), and we take it in turns to pitch our books to everybody else, with the aim of convincing the whole team that we as a publishing house need to buy the book.

Before this meeting, editors need to circulate ‘the material’. For fiction, this usually consists of a) the manuscript and b) a vision document. You occasionally might add more information - e.g. the email from the agent, any supporting material they have sent (e.g. a synopsis of a second book idea, a page of quotes or sales figures) - but the key thing for us as editors is nailing our vision. The vision document is broken down into sections, ranging from the ‘one line pitch’ to the blurb, the comparison covers (by this I mean other books in the market that could be similar to the one we want to buy), to a range of sales figures that are ‘realistic’ and ‘aspirational.’ To get these, we use the Total Consumer Market (TCM) database to check what other authors have sold - authors we think are writing in a similar style or genre to the new book we want to bid for. If the author has written before, we’ll look up those figures and add those on, too.

The document also includes sections where we need to outline our planned routes to market - in other words, where we think the book might sell. This can range from Waterstones to supermarkets to online only, to international territories, to special sales retailers (e.g. The Works, 66 Books, discount stores), and where we state the reasons for wanting to buy the book. It includes a section on who the author is, where they are based (often useful for PR and for engaging local bookshops) and their social media presence (if they have one). Editors spend quite a while on these documents, and they are used as the basis of the conversation in the meeting.

In the meeting itself, the editor usually does a short spiel about the book: what it is, why we want it, what their vision is. Our MD runs the meeting, and she asks sales, marketing, PR and other departments if relevant (e.g. foreign rights if they are on offer, audio if we have the rights), for their views. The meetings are pretty honest - people will say if a book didn’t resonate with them, and will rave about it if it did! Sometimes people disagree. Often, heads of department will have asked others on their team to read and will relay their notes - there are so many books circulating all the time that the reading has to be divided up - otherwise it becomes fairly impossible!

I’ve witnessed all sorts of discussions in meetings. Sometimes, someone might flag that an author was tricky to work with in a previous company, that they perhaps were averse to editorial work or had expectations that would be mismatched with ours. Someone might say they love the writing, but that they can’t see where it will sell in the current market (which is the worst!) Someone might suggest editorial changes (an editor has usually already thought about those, and can then outline the basics of them in the meeting, e.g. ‘I’d like to change the ending so that XYZ happens’ or ‘I’d like to work on the pacing and trim it down as it’s currently far too long’.) The best discussions are exciting, invigorating, and thought-provoking. The worst are deflating, frustrating, and sad. An editor always wants to be able to walk out of acquisitions feeling ready to make an offer, but that simply isn’t always the case, and frankly, nor should it be. All offers are financial risks for the company - we have to ensure they make sense for us; that we are the right team to get behind the books; that we have enough energy and enthusiasm and excitement to work with this author and on this book for years, and that we know we can do our utmost to get it into readers’ hands. In all honesty, if we don’t feel we can do this last part, we should turn the book down and leave the author free to find a publisher who can.

If the MD agrees that we ought to progress, the sales team ‘run numbers’ - meaning they go away from the meeting and put together a list of numbers that tell the editor what they think we should be able to sell, in different territories, in different formats. At Hodder, the editor then runs a costing (or a profit and loss report) and we look at whether the book makes a decent margin (based on what we might sell versus the advance we might need to pay, which is usually decided by the editor, then signed off by the financial team and the MD). If a book doesn’t look like it will make the company money, you’re in a tough situation. Sometimes, if the whole company really loves a book, we will accept that we might not make the money we’d ideally want to, and take the risk - this does happen. But in a business, it’s obviously not ideal, and it can only be done in certain specific situations. We have to weigh everything up and have multiple discussions before the editor is in a position to email the literary agent and make them an offer.

I couldn’t count the number of acquisitions meetings I’ve been to in my career so far. There have been some that have provoked debate (I’d say this happens more with non-fiction proposals), some that have felt easy, some that have felt a bit flat (never a good sign, and this was particularly challenging in lockdown, when we were all working on screens), some that have felt really exciting, and some that have led to wonderful conversations that have made authors’ dreams come true! As an editor, you do feel the pressure in those meetings, and it’s best to come prepared for anything the wider teams might ask. It’s also important to read the room and listen to the energy there - I probably have semi-forced books through before, but it doesn’t really end that well as ultimately, you want a whole team invested in a project in order to get the very best outcome. (By semi-forced I mean persuaded people to come on board with something when they perhaps haven’t initially been as keen as I’d have liked them to be).

After the meeting and once the costing has been signed off, the editor is in a position to make an offer to the agent, and we’ll then do so. Often this is accompanied by a passion pitch - either just a long email from the editor, or sometimes a ‘deck’ outlining our publicity and marketing plans, and the negotiation between editor and agent will then begin. Most agents wouldn’t involve an author at this stage - they might tell their author that they have an offer, but they will be the ones to do the back and forth emailing and will be out to get the best deal for their author. Editors will be signed off to a specific amount, and if the money gets higher than what has been signed off on the original costing, they have to go back to their MD (and sometimes to their CEO if the money is above a certain level - this varies publisher to publisher). An agent might be asking for more, but above that point the editor will need a new approval, and they won’t always be granted it - which is when they’ve reached their upper level or maxed out their costing. Sometimes, agents do accept offers from the ‘underbidder’ if there are multiple parties involved, and the underbidder has the better vision for the book, or perhaps an author particularly wants to work with a certain editor, so much so that they can overlook a discrepancy in the advance. It all depends on the author and where they are in their career/what they are looking for in a publishing home.

So there you have it - that’s an outline of what really takes place in an acquisitions meeting. I hope it’s useful, and if you have any questions, feel free to reply or post them below (probably preferable so that others can then see the responses). I really want to do my best to provide transparency to authors and publishing hopefuls about the ins and outs of our industry, in the hope that it is helpful. As an author, you really do NOT have control over this meeting, and so genuinely, it’s best not to agonise over it. Your agent will let you know asap if an offer does come through, and sometimes (often!) it can take a while (more on that in another post). And remember - brilliant novels get turned down by some editors and go on to be huge bestsellers. We’re not always right. And you only need one yes! Keep going.

Phoebe x

So you can put a face to a name, here’s me in my office last month, with the first copy of Story of My Life, the new book by my brilliant romance author Lucy Score. Sorry about the mess on my desk, but at least it’s honest!

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