Joan Schweighardt

From the Publisher's Desk

An Interview with Joan Schweighardt - Greycore Press

MH: I'm sure you receive more manuscripts than you could ever have time to read. When deciding on which ones you'll invest time in and which ones can wait, what are the deciding factors?

JS: Whenever I get a query letter describing what sounds like a manuscript I would like, I ask to see the first three chapters. And I read each set of sample chapters until I know for sure the work is not for me. If I really love the first three chapters, I'll often ask the writer to email the rest so I don't have to wait for it to come in the mail.

MH: What would you say is the most common mistake that writers make when trying to have their books published?

JS: Every now and then I'll get a sample chapter from a manuscript all by itself, with no cover letter. Or I'll get a cover letter with virtually no information on it. I like long cover letters that provide the word count, the genre, the author's marketing ideas, etc. Sometimes a couple of chapters that I've asked for will come folded up in a regular letter-size envelope. You have to hold the corners down with rocks to read it. It just wants to keep folding up on itself. Or sometimes I will get something that sounds intriguing but is full of typos, which are distracting. So, as in the case of food, presentation is important for me.

MH: For some writers, the process that goes on beyond the sending of their manuscript is a mystery.
Could you tell us a bit about the publishing process and what part the writer plays beyond the writing process?

JS: Here at GreyCore, I like my authors to be involved in just about every aspect of the publishing process. If the manuscript needs changes, I will ask the writer to implement them and then I'll reread to make sure it is as good as it can possibly be. If the manuscript has great potential but needs a lot of changes and the writer and I are not sharing the same vision for what the finished project should look like, I will sometimes ask the writer to trust me and do the edits myself and then take it back to them to see if they are okay with what I've done. Usually they are. Once we feel it is in good shape, I will ask the writer to read it again to proof it, and I will read it again too. By the time we're done, we have both been over it many times. Then I send it to a freelance proofreader just to have another (fresh) set of eyes.

Some writers have artwork they want to see on the cover and my graphic designer, Kathi Massaro, is very good about incorporating their artwork with her vision for the cover. One of my writers took a look at the galley copy we created for his book and said he felt the font was too small, and so we went back to the drawing board and redid the text in a larger, more readable font.. We try to be flexible.

Once the book is printed, the real fun begins--the PR. When I work with a writer I want to know everything about them so that together we can do a great job getting the word out. Mostly I publish fiction, and it is hard to get PR for fiction titles. So we have to do what I call Peripheral PR. For instance, my author Kate Niles (THE BASKET MAKER) happened to mention that she lived in a straw bale house with solar energy and a greenhouse. And so, in addition to pitching her to all the traditional places where you would pitch a novelist, I pitched her to house magazines. And we got calls from three top national magazines!!! But as it happened, Kate had her house for sale at the time, and before these editors could commit to a feature, she had an offer and was getting ready to move! So that was that. Luckily, that was not the only Peripheral PR we had in mind for Kate. She is one of those incredibly interesting people (teacher who takes her writing students to the bottom of the Grand Canyon at the beginning of each semester, archeologist, anthropologist, p/t park ranger), so we have been able to go in a lot of different directions.

MH: You've just finished a book. What do you feel you've learned from your publishing work that you've been able to apply to your own success as an author?

JS: I just had my fourth novel published by Beagle Bay Books. It is called GUDRUN'S TAPESTRY and it superimposes some very old Germanic legends on the historical period that saw the rise and fall of Attila the Hun (and the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire).

One thing I can tell you about my writing before I became a publisher and my writing since is this: Back when I had my first novel published I fought my editor on every suggested change. I just couldn't see why she would want me to delete a really well-crafted sentence or paragraph simply because it didn't move the story forward.

God knows how she (Judy Shepherd at the Permanent Press) put up with me. Now, having been on the other end of it, when my publisher for this last book, Jacqueline Simonds, suggested something, I said, Yes, Jackie, and I went and did it. I trusted her vision for the book, and sure enough, when we were done I knew we had a better book. And so I guess you could say that being a publisher has made me a better writer. Certainly it has made me easier to work with. The only problem is, now that I'm a better writer. I don' t have much time to write.

At this time I have two projects going, but they are both small compared to writing novels. I am writing a long non-fiction piece about my daughter-in-law, who came here from Korea and has now returned. And I am co-writing a screenplay with one of my authors, Alan McTeer, because he's had some film interest in his book (RED ZONE) but can't invest the time right now to get a script out in a timely fashion by himself. The collaboration is fun! Neither of us has ever written a script for a feature film before, so it's very challenging.

MH: In your opinion, what makes a book a promising publication?

JS: That's hard to say. For instance, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would publish a children's book. I really knew nothing about the kids' book market. But when I received the mock-up for Dave Cutler's WHEN I WISHED I WAS ALONE, I fell in love. That seems a funny way to describe it, but it's true. I fall in love with certain books, and like falling in love with certain people, the logic involved may not coincide with the original plan. I don't even like sports and I know nothing about them, and I only agreed to look at a copy of athlete Paul Martin's memoir because a friend of mine, who had done some editing for Paul, asked me to. But I fell in love with that manuscript (which ultimately became ONE MAN'S LEG) too, big time! And there is nothing more rewarding than presenting an author's work to the reading pubic and finding out that they love it as much as I do.

MH: Thanks for sharing with us.