When I was sixteen I wanted to become an editor, but circumstances and life detours happened and I found a home on the retail side of publishing. I was a bookseller for about seven years to help pay for my undergraduate years, and for a few years after, eventually I rose up to manage a few stores in the Barnes & Noble, Inc. family. Then I joined the buying office as an assistant to one of the V.P.’s of Merchandising, for thirteen months and six days, before I became a buyer. This was 1997, I was twenty-six, and I was buying Children’s Literature at the end of the Goosebumps heyday. Within six weeks I knew I had the best job in the world; then at the tail end of ’98 the world became a bigger place. I was tremendously fortunate to be at the right place at the right time as middle grade fiction started to explode in sales and popularity thanks to, first, Holes, and then of course Harry Potter. Then young adult fiction started to bubble up and I devoted myself to use my position to help the writers and editors in the field, from vibrant masters to all the great new writers who were pushing out the small borders of what was YA (a lot of Sweet Valley High) into this dynamic category we have now. I simultaneously had a bird’s eye view of the revolution in Children’s literature while also working hard on the front lines where I was able to affect considerable change that’s still evident. Good days. Or as the Chinese proverb goes, interesting times. Again, without quoting Spider-man on responsibility here, I was lucky and tried to make the most of it.
After nearly eleven years as a buyer, I was itching to stretch my creative horizons and left to join the publishing side. First as a sales executive at Houghton Mifflin, where I learned how the sausage is made on the back end of publishing. When the merger with Harcourt was happening an opportunity to join Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as their editorial director of paperbacks was offered and I jumped. I felt that by hook or by crook, or, okay, a lot of hard work, I made my career dream come true.
Talk about learning how the sausage was made! I was a publishing wonk and I still had a lot to learn from production – Good grief! I learned how to crash in big bestselling books within weeks as my first projects! – to the many wonderful, and labyrinthine ways of the school and library markets. During my time there I acquired New York Times bestsellers, and had a novel nominated for The National Book Award, and awarded the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.
When I left LBBYR, my son was a bit over a year old, and I had the chance to scratch this agenting itch I’ve had since I was at B&N, and I recalled what my wife said when we found out we were having a boy, “Now you’ll get to be the father you always wished you had.” It was a challenge I was looking forward to meeting, and agenting with Barry, whom I knew for years, was the perfect balance I wanted in life. It allowed me to utilize the unique sales and marketing skills and knowledge I had honed, along with the creative aspects of working with clients, while providing the flexibility to be the dad I wanted. And I’m rewarded almost daily. Plus, I now also get to work in the other field I love, fantasy and science fiction writing for adults.
As an agent, my client’s books have become New York Times bestsellers, while garnering awards and accolades.