Guest Post: Lisa Joy "Traditional Publishing is a Partnership"

Hi folks. Lisa Joy, author of Yes, Chef! has been kind enough to write a guest post for us today. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her thoughts on how traditional publishing is a partnership and I think that you will too, Kathryn.

Traditional publishing is a partnership  - Lisa Joy

Two years ago, if a psychic told me my debut novel would be chicklit, I would have dismissed them as a charlatan. I wrote fantasy and read literary fiction, but when I began writing Yes, Chef! there was no doubt in my mind that the voice was chicklit.

When you begin writing a book in a genre you’re not overly familiar with it’s difficult to know what readers will expect; what notes in the story they’ll want you to hit. As a new writer, I tried not to get bogged down by this. When I wrote Yes, Chef! I didn’t have publication in mind. Of course, I thought it would make a nice added bonus but I honestly just wanted to prove to myself that I could finish a book and I had so much fun achieving this goal.

I was surprised and ecstatic when Penguin picked it up so quickly for their Destiny Romance imprint. I didn’t think of myself as a romance writer but I was well aware that publishing was a business and, like it or not, we all must fit in to a package readers will recognise (at least in the beginning). The number one question a publisher asks when reading your manuscript is - will it sell? The sales team wants to hear things like – It’s a little bit Devil Wears Prada and a little bit Bridget Jones’s Diary, and even though I knew this before I submitted, I had no idea just how much these comparisons would impact on the finished product.

One of the first hurdles my editor and I tackled was making my heroine, Becca, more likable. I struggled with this in the beginning because I’d never considered whether or nor she was likeable. To me, she was just herself. I was writing about a good-hearted but selfish young woman who was unsatisfied with life. She worked in a stressful, thankless environment that brought out the worst in her. Yes, you want to slap her every now and then but, in my mind, that’s what made her growth throughout the story more rewarding. My editor, with all her experience and wisdom, knew that a heroine that was too negative was more likely to make readers put the book down and not pick it up again.

The next major point we worked on was the ending. My editor wanted a ‘happily-ever-after’ moment and again I struggled with this because I still didn’t believe I’d written a romance. I didn’t see this so much as a compromise but more as a learning curve. I knew my book was more about friendship and work-life balance and dealing with dissatisfaction, but if I thought about it, I too cheered when Mark Darcy kissed Bridget Jones in the snow, lifting her off the ground so her underpants were on show to the whole street. During the whole editorial process I was assured that these were just suggestions; some I compromised on and others I stuck to my guns on in order to preserve the authenticity of the world I had created.

When it came to the cover, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I had ideas of a London skyline. I wanted readers to know they were in for a bit of armchair travelling when they read the book as there are also scenes in Istanbul and Florence. The original eBook cover is illustrated and stylised; you immediately know it’s chicklit. I’ll admit the paperback cover is slightly more girlie than I would have liked but I trust in Penguin’s knowledge of the market and what’s selling and it does depict the sense of fun in Becca’s story.

I think being originally published under a romance imprint impacted on the way my book was marketed, which is understandable. And yet, I still struggle to know how to label it. It’s not romance as Becca’s romantic trysts are really more of a sideline than a main event. I’m also not sure if it’s strictly chicklit as I’ve had a number of men say how much they enjoyed the book. Foodie fiction is the term that sits best and I’ve enjoyed exploring this genre in my second book, which, fingers crossed, will be release by Penguin this time next year. I’m still discovering who I want to be as a writer and I have no doubt that with the support of my editor this will become clearer over time the more books I write.


As with any good partnership, traditional publishing is partly about compromise in order to reach your common goal. And yet, I wouldn’t be without it. I have no doubt that Yes, Chef! is a better book for their experience and skill, their knowledge of the market and enthusiasm and support for my writing. In the end, letting go of a little control in order to produce a better finished product seems a small price to pay.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean...
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu...
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A...
Read more