Questions for Emily Meehan?

[liisa22]

Emily-

You mentioned you went to school in NC- where? curious minds that live in NC want to know :-)    I am not a Carolina, Duke or State fan, so no worries about where you went being the 'wrong' school.   

Lisa

[librarydaisy]

Ooops, posted this in your interview by mistake, I will give it a try here.

Emily,

As an Editor, do you think authors are pressured to create trilogies, rather than letting the book stand alone? I am so often frustrated by having to wait to find out resolutions to stories, when it could have been wrapped up in the first book!

[librarydaisy]

Ooops, posted this in your interview by mistake, I will give it a try here.

Emily,

As an Editor, do you think authors are pressured to create trilogies, rather than letting the book stand alone? I am so often frustrated by having to wait to find out resolutions to stories, when it could have been wrapped up in the first book!

[J.R._BookWorm]

Hey Emily!

My question is: How do you get the job of being an editor? I want to be one when I get older!

[Emily-Meehan]

Emily have you or do you ever want to write a book of your own?

---

I realized my replies don't include the question to which my answer corresponds. I have no idea how to do this, so I'm just copying and pasting the questions in my answer. If anyone has any tips, let me know. I'm new at this!

I would love to write a book of my own. The problem is, I hate everything I write. I did my concentration in creative writing in college, but wrote mostly poetry. I'm thinking of asking for a writing course for my birthday. I'm much more comfortable in the editing chair, I have to say. It's safer. Writers are a brave breed.

[Emily-Meehan]

Emily-

You mentioned you went to school in NC- where? curious minds that live in NC want to know :-)    I am not a Carolina, Duke or State fan, so no worries about where you went being the 'wrong' school.   

Lisa

---

Hi, Lisa,

I went to Appalachian State University, where we stay out of the fray in terms of rivalries!

[Emily-Meehan]

Emily,

As an Editor, do you think authors are pressured to create trilogies, rather than letting the book stand alone? I am so often frustrated by having to wait to find out resolutions to stories, when it could have been wrapped up in the first book!

---

I think it depends on the author and the book. There's a tendency in what we call "genre fiction" to draw out the action for as many books at possible, because fans of certain genres tend to be very loyal, and very eager to read as many books as possible. But many books we publish exist as stand alones. As with everything, there are trends and cycles. Right now we seem to be in a trilogy/series trend in teen publishing. It's certainly an exciting time. In my experience, it's always been the author's choice to end his or her book on a cliffhanger. It comes down to personal taste and also the author's vision. But, that's not to say that an author hasn't envisioned a trilogy and then we've gone back and said but we need one more after the third!

[GreenFairyLV]

Emily are you involved any in getting a book made into a movie? 

 Do you become life long friends with most of your authors?

Hush, Hush has not even hit the stores yet and the second book is already being written. How do you determine that the book will be successful enough for a follow up especially from a first time author; does it have anything to do with ARC reviews?

[Emily-Meehan]

Hey Emily!

My question is: How do you get the job of being an editor? I want to be one when I get older!

---

Hi! I answered a similar question to this yesterday, so I'm posting it again. I hope this answers your question: I was drawn to publishing because I love books, and in college I was an English major who didn't want to teach. So, my advisor suggested I do an internship with a publishing house. I got accepted into the Scholastic summer internship program and that's how I got started in children's publishing. During Spring Break of my senior year of college, I lined up interviews at publishing houses and flew up to NYC (I went to school in North Carolina) to do the interviews. I was hired at Simon & Schuster and asked to start immediately (the head of the department needed an assistant). I told them I had to graduate first! So, after graduation, I packed up all my things and drove to New York. I started at S&S one week after graduating college and have been here ever since...almost 10 years!

So the answer is, read a lot, do well in school, and don't go to Cancun on Spring Break 

[Emily-Meehan]

Emily are you involved any in getting a book made into a movie? 

 Do you become life long friends with most of your authors?

Hush, Hush has not even hit the stores yet and the second book is already being written. How do you determine that the book will be successful enough for a follow up especially from a first time author; does it have anything to do with ARC reviews?

---

It depends on who owns film/TV rights for the book. If the publishing house retains those rights, we're involved in the deal-making process. And it depends on how involved the author is in the making of the movie. Our main role is as advocate for our authors and their, so anywhere that takes us, we'll be. But movies are generally way our of our hands.

Well, I don't know about lifelong friendship, as I'm not sure I've been doing this quite long enough to qualify for that! But I do work very hard to maintain strong relationships with my authors, based on mutual trust and respect and always advocacy for the book and its intended audience.

We signed up HUSH, HUSH as a two-book deal. It was our belief in Becca as a writer and our need for more Patch that motivated that decision!

[Emily-Meehan]

Emily are you involved any in getting a book made into a movie? 

 Do you become life long friends with most of your authors?

Hush, Hush has not even hit the stores yet and the second book is already being written. How do you determine that the book will be successful enough for a follow up especially from a first time author; does it have anything to do with ARC reviews?

---

It depends on who owns film/TV rights for the book. If the publishing house retains those rights, we're involved in the deal-making process. And it depends on how involved the author is in the making of the movie. Our main role is as advocate for our authors and their, so anywhere that takes us, we'll be. But movies are generally way our of our hands.

Well, I don't know about lifelong friendship, as I'm not sure I've been doing this quite long enough to qualify for that! But I do work very hard to maintain strong relationships with my authors, based on mutual trust and respect and always advocacy for the book and its intended audience.

We signed up HUSH, HUSH as a two-book deal. It was our belief in Becca as a writer and our need for more Patch that motivated that decision!

[GreenFairyLV]

Emily thanks for answering my 3 part question.  You are doing a great job.

[liisa22]

---

Emily-Meehan wrote:

Emily-

You mentioned you went to school in NC- where? curious minds that live in NC want to know :-)    I am not a Carolina, Duke or State fan, so no worries about where you went being the 'wrong' school.   

Lisa

---

Hi, Lisa,

I went to Appalachian State University, where we stay out of the fray in terms of rivalries!

---

GO Mountaineers!!  I LOVE Boone!   I get to go on Monday for work.  I only live about 1 1/2 hrs away, a nice drive up 321. :-)  I went  to UNCC, so no rivalries there, either ( We had no football, if you can imagine!)

Oh and to quote, at the upper right of the box where you write your reply, there is a box to click, right next to spell check. Easy, once you find it!

[ReadingPatti]

Emily, HI, I love the book.

I wanted to know how the cover was designed? Was the choice of the Capital Letters and the chapter numbers. I thought that they were very different. Are they significant to the story?

ReadingPatti

[7thgradeteacher]

Thanks for answering our questions.  It's very interesting to see a glimps into how this process works.  I'll be sharing this thread with my 7th graders to help them understand the process a books goes through as it begins the publishing journey.

[laneyowenmom]

Now that I know the ending has been changed, I hope that means that it was changed so that they can be together. 

Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions, I loved the book and I am so lucky that I got to participate.