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Writing Tips Oasis

Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

Ask the Editor: Which book do you wish you’d published?

By Novelicious

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

Asktheeditor

Caroline Hogg has worked in publishing for almost ten years, at Little, Brown Book Group and more recently at Avon, HarperCollins. She's currently at Pan Macmillan as Senior Commissioning Editor for Commercial Women's Fiction. She knows her stuff!

Today's question comes from a Novelicious reader who asks:

Which book do you wish you'd published?

Caroline HoggCaroline says: That’s a really tricky one. Occasionally you do look at other publishers’ books doing well and think, ‘I wish I had that on my list!’ but in reality, the book is doing well because of how that particular publisher put it out onto the shelves and you may not have made the exact same magic combination of decisions to get it there (cover design, title, price, marketing and publicity strategies, retail promotions…). So mostly, you just feel generally happy that something is taking off so well for the industry overall – with a tiny side order of jealousy. If I was forced to pick one from the last handful of years, it would probably be Unsticky by Sarra Manning. I remember reading it alongside a former boss of mine when it was on submission and we were gutted (there’s no other word for it) that our imprint didn’t win the auction. It had such a great voice and a completely engaging storyline. When you get excited about a new book you have to brace yourself for the possibility that you won’t be the successful editor in the end, but so far – touch wood – I’ve been rather lucky in signing all the authors I’ve set out to, and only having one pinched from me by another publisher!

Have a writing or publishing related question for Caroline? Just email a question to kirsty@writingtipsoasis.com, ask on our Facebook or Twitter or just leave a comment below!

Filed Under: Ask the Editor, Getting Published, Writers' Tuesday, Writing & Editing

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