Question for DCloyceSmith

Hey, David (I generally use DCloyceSmith, 'cause it sounds more official, and covers all your names -- insert wink), but I wanted to start more informally, so you -- and anyone else -- won't get the wrong impression (that I'm on a crusade, or anything).

Just curious: Can you tell me (us) more about the folks who make the decision about which authors/titles make the cut when it comes to printing LOA volumes? I know there is a board, etc. Just wondering who (or even what, as in former editor, former corporate lawyer, former or current book critic) comprises the group of people making those decisions.
Having played in the pool of publishing/criticism for a time whilst living in the USA -- even joined the BookCritics circle -- I have an idea of how popular criticism (which used to have a fairly wide affect on the reading public, not sure about that anymore) influenced what was "pushed" and what wasn't (I once had an editor -- a silver spoon guy whose daddy helped buy him a magazine, basically -- try to convince me that my positive view of a popular writer was wrong, and that he and his daddy had the correct point of view. Things didn't end well between us).

In any case, just curious.
Gotta admit, I sometimes find myself puzzled at how books on folks like Pauline Kael or, most especially, Harold Bloom, make the cut. And then I remember that "the canon" (i.e., what a group of men in power believe to be correct, and worthy) is often foisted upon people for so long that to sit up and challenge those entrenched notions often results in the challenger looking like a radical (or, "troublemaker", ala "AOC" in the political arena these days). :)

P.S. If Harold Bloom is part of the group making decisions on what should be included, I'm gonna plotz.

>1 Truett::

Answering in full would require a NYRB-length essay, but I’ll try to keep my answer shorter than that. The question seems to conflate two topics, however: (1) LOA’s procedures for deciding who/what is published in the series and (2) how we go about selecting books for non-series publication (paperbacks, “special” hardcover publications, etc.) I’ll address the basics of each separately.

Candidates for the LOA series can be suggested in a number of ways: scholars, critics, biographers, and estates can submit a proposal; our staff members, advisors, and consultants may determine that an author or topic should be considered; our readers may suggest candidates and we will then canvas the field for opinions and/or a proposal. Once we have a proposal, it is circulated among our editors, the appropriate members of our Advisory Council (you can see the current advisors here, listed under our trustees: https://loa.org/about/loa-people), our consultants (including all our previous volume editors), and specialists on the author/field/genre. They assess the totality of the critical, academic, and historical reputation of an author or the historical or literary importance of a topic/genre, as well as the literary/aesthetic merit of the works. They then determine not only whether the topic or author is deserving of inclusion in the series but also whether the selection of writings is appropriate (i.e., are particular works missing? is there rare of unpublished material that should be added? should any of the suggested selections be removed or replaced? which version of the text should be used? etc.). The proposal can be accepted, rejected, or sent back to the drawing board. Once we have a final proposal, it’s on to the next hurdles: textual research and rights/permissions.

The non-series publications (e.g., the sportswriting collections, the Pauline Kael anthology, David Foster Wallace’s tennis essays, the forthcoming Harold Bloom volume, paperback reissues, etc.) are treated a bit more informally. Non-series publications will not necessarily be kept permanently in print, questions about permanence play a lesser role, and whether a book will sell in bookstores takes on a much larger role. Sometimes we get a proposal for an anthology from an agent; sometimes we are approached by an estate; occasionally we think a volume would fill a gap in the textbook market. A member of the editorial staff might come up with an idea or take a reader suggestion and flesh it out into a proposal. In one case, a volume had been accepted by another publisher, which then decided that the contents needed to be halved or they couldn’t make money on it, so the editors came to us with the proposal and we agreed we would and should publish the whole thing. (And, yes, the volume ended up doing extremely well.) Similarly, a couple of the non-series books are worthwhile projects other publishers wouldn’t touch—often because of the expense of permissions or the amount of editorial work required. In any case, proposals are still reviewed by several consultants and editors for suggestion and comment, but the considerations and format are not as “rigid” (for lack of a better term) as they are for the series.

Let me use the Nancy Hale volume as an example. She first came to our attention when a recent volume of essays in appreciation of her writing was published by a small academic press. (As it happens, two of the essays in that collection were by one of our trustees and one of our advisors.) We then found out that all of her writings were out of print. Except for that single volume of essays, there is a dearth of reappraisals or critical writing on her; relatively few people alive, even among critics, scholars, and other writers, have ever read anything by Hale. Since she hadn’t been part of the academic or critical conversation for over fifty years, we felt that a trade edition collecting some of her stories was the best way of reintroducing her to the reading public—and a possible model for how we might in the future reintroduce other completely forgotten or ignored authors from the past.

With each non-series book, we aim to remain true to the mission (i.e., to publish significant historical, cultural, or literary writing) while also raising funds to help publish the series. To put it another way, we can either spend more time and resources fundraising (which is a LOT of work), or we can use those same resources to publish appropriate books to help raise those funds. And it’s been really quite successful, in part I think because we publish fewer books each season so these special publications don’t get lost on our list. When I recently told another publishing exec that we’d sold more than 50,000 of the baseball anthology—all in hardcover—she was totally floored. Several other titles have reached similar levels of sales.

Anyway, this describes our editorial procedures using the broadest of strokes and I've probably oversimplified some of the more complex issues (and I'm sure I'll making edits to this for the next several weeks). There’s a lot more that goes into each volume, series or non-series, but I hope that answers some of the questions.

--David

Great overview! Certainly I'd hoped that amount of research and consideration went into titles, but of course I could only guess.

I speculate the list of proposals waiting to be vetted is quite long, and that it takes a considerable time (months?) to vet even authors with the most straightforward set of works, i.e. no lost manuscripts, or manuscripts in multiple versions. My follow-up questions would be:

1 - About how many authors are "suggested" in a year, and of these how many "graduate" to formal proposals?
2 - Is there a list of accepted proposals waiting to be vetted, or is a proposal actively reviewed by editors / Advisory Council / consultants / specialists once accepted?

These may be sensitive questions, I beg pardon if I'm rude in asking so baldly!

David, thanks for the peek into how LOA does its thing.

I'm curious about the survey LOA did a few years ago (don't recall much about it) related, I think, to potential changes/updates to its mission and how that may be influencing editorial decisions about what to publish. I've noted in particular an uptick in the number of non-series volumes published in the last couple of years. Of special interest was the recent March Sisters volume of original essays, not reprints, about how Louisa May Alcott's Little Women influenced or intersected with the authors' lives. The book seems more to aid an appreciation of Little Women than to be conventional literary criticism. The description of the forthcoming The Peanuts Papers makes it sound similar. I expect that the upcoming non-series volume of Harold Bloom's essays will plunge directly into the literary criticism genre. The closest thing to this that LOA has done in the past is the series volume (#199) The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works. (#192 The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy is similar, though the topic is more about Lincoln's political accomplishments than his literary accomplishments; e.g. The Gettysburg Address, et. al.) Is this something that LOA plans to do much more of in the future?

>3 elenchus:

The path from concept to book is not quite as streamlined as I describe above. Many “suggestions” begin their lives as full-fledged proposals; others are authors or topics that are being reconsidered because something changed (the rights are suddenly available; we found the perfect editor for the volume; etc.). And there are those suggestions that are DOA; usually because we know the rights situation is untenable, but also the few random suggestions/proposals that are either outside our mission or are premature—e.g., authors who are still relatively young and active. (We have not yet published a volume devoted to an author born after WW2; Raymond Carver is still the “youngest” in the pantheon. )

So I couldn’t say how many suggestions + new proposals + others are considered in a year. (I don’t see all of them, in any case.) Two or three dozen that are "new," perhaps? I can say we have about fifty or sixty volumes now scheduled for publication or in development, and dozens more that are dormant (rights, textual problems, needs funding, etc.). From initial approval to completion, series volumes are rarely finished in under three or four years and quite a few have taken well more than a decade.

As for the second question: advisors, consultants, and staff editors are usually involved with the approval process until the table of contents has been (more or less) finalized. Because this is all voluntary, the breadth of their contributions can vary.

>4 Podras.:

My involvement with the survey was only tangential but, as I recall, it was primarily a vehicle for determining how to broaden the public reach of the LOA and secondarily what specific types of activities might help reach that goal and still be of interest to LOA subscribers and customers. The recent books on Alcott, of Whitman’s deathbed interviews, and even of Grant’s letters to his wife are attempts to broaden the national “conversation” on American literature and history and to introduce new readers (and students) to great America authors. So they are in part an outgrowth of the survey. The volume on Peanuts is, I think, sui generis—a foray, really, into American cultural studies.

--David

>5 DCloyceSmith: Thanks David. That sort of confirms my guess. I'll be watching for more of these kind of things as they are announced.

DCLOYCESMITH: Echoing others who have already commented, many (MANY) thanks for your considered and insightful reply. As always, you're a mensch.