Denise Little has been in the book business for more than thirty years. Her career has taken her from bookseller to national buyer for Barnes & Noble/B Dalton to editor at Kensington to book packager for Tekno Books.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m from Texas, and all my years up north haven’t changed that. I still consider Texas home, even though I haven’t lived there in roughly twenty years.

I got in the book biz by accident–I took a two week job as a Christmas temp employee at a B. Dalton in Houston right after I got out of college. I loved it, and it changed my life. I became a bookstore manager in a few months, managed book stores all over Texas, then became the national buyer for B&N/B. Dalton for romance, SF, and fantasy. Once I was in New York, publishers kept offering me editing jobs. Finally Walter Zacharius of Kensington made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

So after fourteen years as a bookseller, I switched sides and became an editor. I worked at Kensington for nearly five years, got downsized, then a month later started working as a book packager for Dr. Martin H. Greenberg at Tekno Books. I’ve been there for the last eleven years. I’ve also worked at B&N part time the last couple of holidays, because I still miss bookselling terribly even though I really enjoy editing and writing, and I’ve run a monthly writers’ group at the local B&N for the last 3 years.

I’ve been blessed to be able to make my living doing things I love. But it came as a shock to me to realize the other day that I’d been in the book business more than thirty years–where does the time go?

It’s not surprising I ended up buried in books. I’m a voracious reader, generally a book a day. I read fast. I consume a book in less than an hour, unless it’s something like THE EARTH IS FLAT or THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND. Those take more time to chew on. I’ll read anything, including cereal boxes and all the billboards while I’m driving (trust me–not good). I read fiction, history, biography, humor, you name it, but genre fiction is my favorite. I find genre fiction to be the last refuge of heroic values and classical story structure in literature. I used to polish off several books a day, but once I started editing, most of my free time for pleasure reading vanished. Back when I ran bookstores, I used to be able to say I’d read everything in the store. These days, not so much.

How does a book packager differ from a traditional publisher?

A book packager does every thing a traditional publisher does except print, bind, and distribute books. As far as the publisher is concerned, we function as an author, delivering polished manuscripts ready to put into production. As far as writers are concerned, we are publishers who acquire and edit books. It’s a strange hybrid. We don’t, however, have a slush pile like a regular publisher. We go out and get book deals, and bring writers in by invitation to work on book contracts we have already negotiated.

What kinds of manuscripts do you acquire?

I don’t generally acquire manuscripts in the way a publisher does. Typically, Tekno Books enters into some agreement with a publisher and/or a third party–our “creator,” who can be a movie or television company (for tie-ins), a celebrity (for ghost-written or co-written books), an author (for brand-extension kinds of books–we call it writing for bestselling authors who have more ideas than time), the estate of a deceased author, or a company (also for brand extension books). Sometimes a publisher comes to us and tells us they’d like a particular kind of book and asks us to produce it. Or we can sell an original idea we came up with. Once we have a book contract or an interested publisher on the hook, at that point we bring in a writer whose work and background match the project (we’ve worked with well over 2000 writers in the last ten years), negotiate an agreement with that writer, and arrange to have the book written to our specifications.

Who are some of the writers with whom you work?

A lot of the bestselling writers we’ve worked with have confidentiality agreements with us, so we can’t talk about many of them. But we’ve done official Companion volumes with Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Tony Hillerman, Dean Koontz, Mercedes Lackey, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Patricia Cornwell, and several others. I worked on the Acorna books by Anne McCaffrey (with Margaret Ball and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough). I’ve edited original fiction by over a thousand writers, but a quick list of people that might ring bells because they’re either active in Ninc or highly admired by the members include (in no particular order) Lois McMaster Bujold, Catherine Asaro, Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney, Deb Stover, Jennifer Roberson, Laura Hayden, Neesa Hart, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Evelyn Vaughn, Susan Sizemore, Pam McCutcheon, Jody Lynn Nye, Diane Stuckart, Andre Norton, Jack Williamson, Laura Resnick (Laura Leone), Michelle West, and many hundreds of others, all of them superb writers. I’m very lucky to work with such talented people.

What comes first—concept? Author? publisher with a slot to fill?

There’s no real pattern. Generally we work with whatever we can sell, and that changes on a day-by-day basis. As time has gone by, we’re working more with “publisher comes to us” sorts of books, but that’s a natural result of being in the business for a while..

Do you work generally work through agents or directly with authors?

Either or both. Typically, if a writer wants to work with us through an agent, that’s what we do. If they want to work with us directly, that’s what we do.

Like Martin H. Greenberg, you’ve been assembling some great original fiction anthologies. How do you generally find the authors or stories for these books?

I read voraciously, and remember what I read. Then I learned to put anthologies together from Marty, who is a master at his craft. When I sell an anthology, I talk to writers who I think might have a feel for the concept, and ask them to play in my world.

Tell us about the workshop you run with Dean Wesley Smith geared toward professional writers who’d like to be a part of your anthologies. What could writers expect from this workshop? How can they participate?

Those workshops on short stories are essentially serendipity–we never planned for them to work out the way they have. Dean and Kris have run writing classes for pros for years–their novel writing master classes are legendary for the immense workload, the fine company, the effectiveness of the teaching, and the number of books sold after they were work-shopped.

Here’s how the whole thing came about. A few years back, Dean and Kris asked me to come out to their place to teach a short story workshop. They’d had a lot of requests for one, and they figured I could teach it. It was supposed to be a one-off. I was happy to oblige–though I warned Dean I’d never taught short story writing.

The workshops Dean and Kris give are very hands-on. Every writer is expected to put in at least six hours a day writing. Slackers don’t get asked back. I knew I might run into some good writers. I did. In these short story workshops, there’s an initial opening session where we talk about what makes a good short story, then there’s a Q&A, then we do four rounds of critique sessions covering the two stories each participant has written for the workshop. Dean and I fully critique every story written, and hand back marked up manuscripts. In addition, all workshop participants read all stories and have the chance to add their own comments. Nobody gets much sleep.

In the course of the workshop I ask the participants to make me a sample table of contents for each suggested topic with their own suggestions for anthology acceptance and placement. (These anthologies as they are sold are generally around 75,000 words. I frequently get over 200,000 words per book at each workshop, and I can only buy around 50,000 words. Culling is the hardest part of the job.) That way the participants get a real feel for writing to topic, what constitutes a good short story and why, how to select from a large group of stories, and how to put a book together. Several of them have gone on to edit anthologies for Tekno, as well as submitting stories.

For the short story class, participants write two full short stories in the course of these workshops, one in advance of the workshop, one during it, both for topics I provide. At the first workshop we did, Dean asked me to give him some sample topics for these stories. So I gave him an idea I’d been working on, and we came up with a second idea together. Neither were sold at the time. I sold one of them before the workshop. (It was called Hags, Harpies, Sirens, and Sorceresses–the idea being to rewrite Greek mythical bad girls. The title later changed to something more inclusive, and several reviewers got upset that so much of it was Greek. Typical publishing scenario….) I sold the other anthology a few months after the workshop. (Barflies–the idea was stories set around space watering holes. It was published as Cosmic Cocktails.) The resulting stories were so good that I filled more than half each book with the workshop entries. Both books were published by DAW.

Since then I’ve given two more such workshops, and I had live anthologies both times. That may not always be the case–depends on what I have in hand and sold at the time Dean asks me to teach. The idea of these workshops for the participants is to learn how to write for a themed anthology, not to necessarily sell to an anthology at the workshop. (Though they like selling, I’ve noticed.) Among the various published anthologies I’ve done this way are: Cosmic Cocktails; Front Lines; Time after Time; Hags, Harpies, and other Bad Girls of Fantasy. Forthcoming are The Trouble with Heroes and Swordplay, all from DAW. They are all great books. All include some workshop participants, as well as other writers I invited who I thought would do a good job on the stories. I highly recommend the books if you like short stories.

If a writer is interested in attending Dean and Kris’s workshops, they’re given at totally random times as Dean and Kris have energy, and as they and their guest speakers have time. Dean keeps a schedule at deanwesleysmith.com. The next master class is already full, but there are a nice selection of upcoming workshops to pick from. My next short story workshop with Dean is scheduled for February 2009. Just click the workshop tab at the top of the front page, and it’ll take you to the right page.

What about a manuscript grabs your attention and makes you consider making an offer?

As an editor, I’m just like a reader in a bookstore. I want a story that grabs me from the first page, with well-written prose, and a strong enough plot to make me read through the end without pause. At the end, I want to put the story down and go “Ahhhh!” The only difference between me and a bookstore browser is that I’m spending a lot more than $7.99 on my book choice, and I have a shot at improving it before it takes final form.

Since I’m working for a packager, these days I’m basing my buys on a writer’s potential, not a manuscript that’s in front of me. What I buy now is something that will be written to my specifications after I go to contract with a writer.

But we do have an arm that works with finished manuscripts, just like a regular publisher. John Helfers, Roz Greenberg, and Brittiany Koren oversee it–it’s called Five Star, and it’s a line that is primarily for libraries that produces beautiful, well-reviewed hardcovers. The advances are low (generally $1000) because a library line doesn’t have big print runs, so it’s not for everyone. The company buys very limited rights and pays standard royalties, but there’s no denying that the initial payout is tiny. We heartily recommend trying to sell manuscripts to a commercial publisher first. But we’ve worked with all kinds of authors, including major bestsellers, who have good books that regular publishers just won’t consider for various reasons. If some of your members are in that group and want info on Five Star, they can write Tekno@new.rr.com.

How does your experience as a bookstore buyer influence your editorial approach?

I tend to prefer commercial rather than literary prose. I’m way more story driven, as opposed to style driven, than most editors. For example, Thomas Pynchon’s work makes me run screaming for the hills, even though I’m perfectly willing to concede the guy’s a genius. I took a Great Contemporary American Writers course in college, and had to read three of his books (Also a lot of Norman Mailer and several other authors who are totally not on my ‘must buy’ list when I go to bookstores). I still shudder at the memory. I hated those books. There were fabulous bits in them–there’s a description in GRAVITY’S RAINBOW of an American eating British candy for the first time that’s priceless. But overall they made my skin crawl. Once I became a bookseller, it became clear to me that Pynchon might sell in college bookstores, but the only people who bought the books in my stores were being forced to read them, just like I had been. People in book stores read for pleasure, or to learn. So those are the kinds of books I gravitate toward as an editor–books that give pleasure, or provide useful knowledge. I doubt anything I edit will ever end up getting National Book Awards, Booker Prizes, or Pulitzers. Books that exist to give joy to readers don’t generally make those lists.

Is there anything else you’d like to address?

Best story about my work life–at an RWA convention, somebody came up to me and asked how I’d managed to plan my future back at the outset, because she’d like to do what I did. I stood with my mouth hanging open for what felt like hours, then finally gasped out “Plan? You think I had a plan?”

My career path is as random as butterfly flight. Basically, if somebody dangles something interesting in my face, I grab it and figure out later if I can do it. I meant to go to med school. My college majors were chemistry, English, and Classics (Greek and Latin)–I went to Rice University, and it doesn’t allow minors, so I ended up a triple major. Then I got distracted by a bookstore temp job. And took off in a totally different direction and never looked back. I’ve certainly never had any training in my chosen fields of work (the English degree doesn’t count–I had to unlearn stuff from that to work in commercial fiction). Every time I learned on the job ASAP before people figured out I was faking it. I’m not sure I was always successful in that, but I tried.

I’d be happy to answer any questions your blog readers come up with in a public forum, or privately, as they prefer. I’m at Deniselitt@aol.com.

Thanks to Denise Little for her in depth information on book packaging and the workshop she helps run for authors who want to participate in anthologies.

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