LiteraryScout
New York, NY
Female, 0
Literary scouts work with foreign publishers to help determine which American books they should acquire. We spend our days (and nights!) reading manuscripts, writing reports, meeting with agents and publishers, and speaking with clients to keep them apprised of developments. Scouts don’t make much money, but the perks and fun help make up for that.
The one book that comes immediately to mind is The Shack. It's a super Christian book that sold tons and tons of copies. Few clients bought it because the subject matter didn't appeal to them.
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It’s really the agent or editor’s job to provide a strong synopsis to a scout and convince us that of the huge pile of manuscripts to get through, theirs is a priority. A manuscript definitely does not need to start off with a punch to the gut if the writing is good. If the writing is bad, then it just needs to have a commercial enough synopsis that we know it will probably do well. For example, after The Da Vinci Code there were a ton of similar thrillers being read, after Kite Runner everyone was reading heart-wrenching novels about that region, and after Twilight it was a scout’s job to look for the next great vampire/werewolf book. Whether the writing is good or not, there has to be some commercial element to it. If no one is going to read it, then our clients are not going to acquire it. Because we work with an international audience, we also need to know what different regions love or hate, plus the individual tastes of the editors we work for. For example, Germans do not want outsiders writing about the Holocaust, the French are sick to death of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and Italians do not think anyone can write about their country as well as they can.
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Nope. That's the responsibility of the American publishers working directly with the authors.
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Publishing houses tend to pay giant advances for the next "it" adult fiction novel these days. As a result they are very careful about what they purchase. Things tend to be safe and follow pretty specific formulas. There's more room for creativity in Young Adult writing and so that's one possible reason there's such an influx of attention to these series. The other possibility is that American adults aren't super smart and are overwhelmed by real literature. I don't mean there's anything wrong with reading YA stuff as part of a mix of books. The issue is when the books that make millions of dollars are primarily YA rather than adult novels.
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Like any job in publishing, step one is an unpaid internship. Publishing is a competitive field (despite the low pay) and the only real way in is to offer your services for free until you find someone willing to pay for them. Many people find themselves taking on a string of unpaid and then eventually paid internships before being able to land a full-time job. The best thing to do is start as early as possible during college. Although you may be able to intern at a university press, really to have a career you must live in New York or California, but New York is really preferable. This is a networking heavy industry, even though it’s populated by bookworms. If you love books, but aren’t up for schmoozing, it’s not the right industry for you.
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I’d say literature. I don’t know of any scout with degrees in marketing. It’s a field made up of book lovers who love to shmooze and are curious to learn about other cultures. Remember, the most important thing is internships. Even if you can’t intern with a scout, try to get some experience working with a literary agent or publishing house.
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We get all of our manuscripts from agents and publishers. Scouts do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Unless it’s definitely being printed in the US, it is not part of our scope.
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