Melville House Books

It’s hard to quote a short passage from Susan Orlean‘s tiny New Yorker web-essay “Alphabet Soup,” which describes the author’s experience of having a book publishing by a large American publisher. One letter, after all, leads to another… but it’s a telling commentary on corporate publishing, and it is, according to Orlean, “a true story.” Here’s the heart of the essay; the entire piece is available here.

My first book was acquired by two people I will call Editor A and Editor B, who ran a small imprint at a big publishing house. We had a great lunch to celebrate. A few months later, Editor A left book publishing to become a newspaper writer. Editor B became my primary editor. She and I had a nice lunch to talk about my book.

A few months after that, Editor B was promoted to publisher of the larger house—let us call it Publisher W—that owned the small imprint. Because Editor B—that is, Editor/Publisher B—now had too many duties to edit my book, I was assigned to Editor C.

Editor C and I had lunch. A few months later, he got a new job at another publishing house. I was assigned to Editor D.

Editor D and I had lunch. It was a pleasant-enough lunch, but Editor D had no actual interest in my book or me; he was just taking it on because Editor/Publisher B, now his boss, had asked him to.

A few months later, Editor/Publisher B was fired.

A few months after that, Editor D, now freed from his promise to Editor/Publisher B to oversee my project, asked me if my book was done because according to my contract, it was due.

My book was not done.

I paid back my advance to Publisher W and sold my book proposal to Publisher X. My editor at Publisher X—let’s see, that would be Editor E—had been a magazine editor, and was brand-new to the publishing world and full of crazy excitement about it. I was starting to get a little sensitive about all this change, and I asked Editor E if there was any chance that the publishing world would not always seem to her worthy of crazy excitement; that is, I asked Editor E if she thought she would ever leave. Editor E assured me that this was simply not possible.

Editor E and I had lunch. A few months later, she called me and said an incredible opportunity had presented itself in the newspaper world and she was leaving.

I was assigned to Editor F. I was very scared of Editor F, and I don’t think we had lunch. I finished my book. I had the longest acknowledgment section in the history of the written word.

Kelly Burdick is the executive editor of Melville House.