In transferring from being an agent to being a publisher, the hardest question for me to answer is always, “How do I decide what to accept and what to reject?”
Because I know what it involves to create a submission.
It takes courage and hard work.
I don’t want to negate the work that has gone into submitting a piece to publish, but at the same time I simply can’t publish everything. Just as in the writing process, I have to be choosey. I have to tweak and push and challenge so that the work as a whole is the best product and creation that I too can put my name on.
As I spend hours pouring over manuscripts, drafting and redrafting emails to contributors, I’d like to think I’m experiencing a little bit of the courage and hard work that the authors themselves experienced.
Maybe publisher and author aren’t against each other, but rather working in tandem.