When she was fifteen, Stephanie Owens Lurie reviewed a young adult novel for a local bookstore. She didn't think the author had a good "bead" on what teenagers were like, so she thought, "If only the author had . . ." That led her to think about jobs that would help writers improve their books, and in her senior year at Oberlin College, she interned in the children's book department at Dodd, Mead and Company in New York City. Lurie discovered that she had the ability to guide writers through revisions of their manuscripts, and she subsequently worked as a children's book editor for Little Brown and Simon & Schuster. When Simon & Schuster merged with Macmillan, she became VP Editorial Director of S&S Books for Young Readers. In 1999 she moved to Dutton Children's Books, a division of Penguin Putnam, where she is now President and Publisher.

Anna Olswanger: How are the books that you edit at Dutton different from the books you edited when you started out at Little Brown twenty years ago?

Stephanie Owens Lurie: When I first started out, the library market was the largest book-buying market and it was a market that highly valued good storytelling. It was also a quieter time when buyers could take time to evaluate books, both in libraries and in independent bookstores. The smart buyers could give special attention to a subtle or midlist book. But when the chains came onto the scene, they centralized their buying in one place for the whole country. Now, store managers don't know the books until they arrive, and they don't know how to handsell. That means that books have to be louder to stand out—they have to say everything on the jacket, and they have to make an impact from across the room, with an arresting design or a punchy title. And the book has to be high-concept. By that, I mean easily summarized in a few seconds.

Olswanger: Does this new direction of the children's book industry worry you?

Lurie: Yes. Because it's so difficult to launch people today, I worry about publishers' commitment to new talent. If we all keep going after the same authors and illustrators, children's books will become stale.

Olswanger: How are you shaping the Dutton list to distinguish it from the other Penguin-Putnam imprints?

Lurie: I'm building on the diverse Dutton backlist. For example, I'm publishing more realistic books about nature in the tradition of Rascal, Gentle Ben and My Side of the Mountain. I plan to continue publishing satisfying and realistic literature that leaves an impression, but I also want to be in touch with today's trends and offer kids books of immediate appeal.

Olswanger: What do you look for in a manuscript?

Lurie: I look for a story that speaks to me right away, a character I want to become for the duration of the book, or I look for humor, imagination, something that touches my basic emotions. I enjoy good word play—words that are fun to read aloud. The major problem with the submissions we get at Dutton is that they don't stand out in any way. They lack sparkle.

Olswanger: Do you go out looking for new writers?

Lurie: I go to a lot of writers' conferences. I call up agents to tell them what I'm looking for, and I participate in a writers' chatroom online at AOL.

Olswanger: Do you think it's helpful when editors at writers' conferences read one manuscript page aloud to the audience and decide on the spot whether they would read further?

Lurie: I think it can be helpful to the audience to know how quickly writers have to make an impression on an editor, and how quickly they have to establish a voice, pace, setting, and mood. The reality is that editors often don't get beyond the cover letter itself. So I think it would be even more helpful if editors at conferences would talk about how to write effective cover letters and query letters.

Olswanger: What impresses you in a query letter?

Lurie: Some query letters are too bald. The writers don't take it as an opportunity to introduce themselves, or they don't have a sense of what we're publishing at Dutton. We don't get a sense of why they've chosen us. I think an effective query letter captures a writer's unique personality. It shows us that she's thought about where she's sending her manuscript and that she knows where her book would fit in the current marketplace. The effective query letter goes on to provide the hook or selling handle that we would use to present the book at our in-house launch meeting and to our sales reps. The reps use the selling handle when they pitch the book to their bookstore and library accounts. Usually reps have about thirty seconds per title to get a buyer interested.

Olswanger: Do you think good writing inevitably gets published?

Lurie: Not necessarily. A writer could send us a beautifully written manuscript that we think is too quiet to stand out, or we might see a manuscript that we love but we just did the same subject and the book won a major award the previous year—so we don't feel that we can touch it. If I were a writer in this situation, I would turn to something else, or put the manuscript aside to submit later.

Olswanger: What are the advantages and disadvantages of being published by a large company like Penguin Putnam?

Lurie: Let's start with the advantages of being published by a small publisher. Your books will probably get more attention from everyone within the house—not just from the editor, but from marketing and sales because they have a smaller list to promote. Another benefit is targeted marketing. If you have a book for one specific segment of the population, you would probably have better success reaching your market with a small publisher that can direct its efforts there. It's unlikely that a large publisher would be able to focus its efforts that specifically.

However, the small publisher might not have the resources and the reach that a large publisher has. It would have more limited distribution. So in a setup where you have a small imprint within a large company, like we have at Dutton, you have the best of both worlds. You get individual attention from editorial and production, but you have at your disposal big sales and marketing departments organized by channels of distribution. All the outlets get covered—national chains, independent bookstores, libraries, jobbers, warehouse chains, and specialty retail.

Olswanger: What's the most important thing an author can do in the way of promotion?

Lurie: An author has to use a grass roots effort to get the word out. She has to announce her book to friends, go to local bookstores and libraries to introduce herself, and make as many school appearances as possible. That's how the big names established themselves—by getting on the road and being tireless about promotion. In today's world, a web site is a good idea too.

Olswanger: What should an author look for in an editor?

Lurie: You need an editor who responds to your work by making suggestions that don't change your original vision, but help you to communicate that vision; an editor with helpful, specific suggestions, rather than general comments; an editor who inspires you to think harder and reach for higher levels; an editor who is willing to be the in-house advocate for your book all the way along. You should be able to reach your editor by telephone, e-mail, or letter whenever you need to. Remember, authors pay editors' salaries. Your editor needs you very much.

Text copyright © 2000-2003 Anna Olswanger and Stephanie Owens Lurie. Visit Harold Underdown's The Purple Crayon for other interviews by Anna Olswanger.