I happened to be looking at my Twitter feed when Kat Brzozowski, an Associate Editor at Thomas Dunne Books, tweeted:
Does anyone care enough me or about my job to have questions about being an editor or working in publishing…? Let me know! I’ll answer!
— Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
Well of course we care! Kat is working with R.L. Stine to revive his FEAR STREET series, which has sold over 80 million copies around the world. I told Kat I’d love to interview her for Sub It Club and she said to throw some questions at her right then and there. So, I came up with some quick questions on the fly that I thought Sub It Clubbers would be interested in. Here’s a mini interview with an editor at a closed publishing house:
@heatherayris@SubItClub I have a wide range of interests but love especially YA, women’s fic, memoir, cooking/fashion, and mystery. — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
@SubItClub nope – I always go through agents (unless I meet an author at a conference) — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
@SubItClub we get so many submissions as it is; we trust agents to do the filtering for us so we can do all the parts of our jobs — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
@SubItClub something about it doesn’t click with me. Often it’s voice – other times, I don’t feel like invested in the characters. — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
@SubItClub ha – no! It takes getting reads from colleagues, input from other depts, running numbers, and talking to my boss — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
@SubItClub it can take days, weeks, or months! we don’t acquire most of what we get in – or I don’t. — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
Yes! Months and months, often. Sometimes shorter. Sometimes longer! RT@SubItClub Do you do a lot of revision with authors before publication?
— Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
@SubItClub definitely! Particularly for non fic but for fic too. Ok I’m off for the weekend! — Kat Brzozowski (@KatBrzozowski) April 3, 2015
So, as you can see — the acquisition process is complicated; revisions aren’t finished just because you’ve sold a manuscript; and a platform is not a bad thing to have!
A big THANK YOU to Kat for taking the time to answer these questions for us!
Sub It Club 
And Kat teaches super cool workshops and webinars, like Love At First Blush: Romance in YA about romantic scenes in YA novels. She’s amazing!
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A nifty peek inside the world of publishing, -thanks!
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Great interview, Thanks Kat and Heather. I like the one about not connecting with voice or feeling invested in the characters.
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Loved this twitter exchange, Heather. And thank so much to Kat for taking the time to answer the questions that we all wonder about. It’s good to have a peek inside so we can see that life is frustrating from the other side of the editor’s desk…they don’t always get to keep what they want…and there are lots of fingers in the publishing pie who have to give a thumbs up before a project is underway. 🙂
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