Reason 1: You can't trust me. My loyalties are inherently divided. Look. I care about your book. I do! I mean, I wouldn't have acquired it if I didn't. (Uh, probably) But there will come a time in the near future when I will have to put the publishing company's interests before yours. After all, you don't pay me — they do. You will inevitably feel betrayed by my sudden businessy 'tude. And I will feel bad, and secretly resent you for putting me in that position.

Reason 2: I can't trust you. Some authors are only chummy for as long as it takes to get the book published and selling. This is annoying and transparent. It will also get you a bad reputation. There is nothing more telling than an author who has four books published by four different publishing houses. I don't want to be the first of those four, and I'll be on the lookout for anything that indicates that you might be headed in that direction.

Reason 3: You don't respect my boundaries, and since it's my job to be nice to you, I can't ever really tell you off. I once had an author come by the office to pick up a manuscript. This in and of itself is highly unusual. We employ messengers and have a UPS account in order to avoid this sort of personal contact. But whatever, right? WRONG. So the author stops by, soaked in sweat having just biked down from his apartment about 100 blocks away. He proceeds to cheek-kiss me, leaving trails of sweat on my face, and then won't stop talking. He is completely oblivious to the fact that I do, in fact, have other things to do, and I finally told him this—in as nice a way as possible—he acknowledged it briefly, but continued yapping as if my schedule was inconsequential.

Lesson learned: this kind of familiarity MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS, and if I give you an inch, I know you'll probably take that kind of mile.

Earlier: Unsolicited: So Hard To Find Good Editorial Assisting Help These Days

Scouts are the spies of the publishing world. They're like James Bond, except without the sex, drugs, guns and generally any of the stuff that makes James Bond cool. Instead of a license to kill, they have a license to KNOW EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. The good ones are charming and sly. They are paid by foreign publishers or movie production companies to get the scoop on projects that are out on submission and determine if there's any movie or foreign sales potential. They do this by making nice-nice with editors (and some agents) around town, cozying up to them so that the editors feel safe
enough to share submissions (that agents have not already leaked to the scouts.) They then feed these submissions to their clients. (And, sometimes, they even feed editors. Lunch. And alcohol. Which is appreciated, since we editors usually pick up the bills for publishing-related outings.)

Why do editors love scouts? Because they're the rumor-mongering whores of the publishing world. In a totally good way! You want to know whether any other editors are really interested in a mediocre proposal you suspect an agent is bluffing about? A good scout will know. Curious exactly how ridiculously that rival house overpaid for the novel you really wanted (or didn't want at all)? Ditto. Scouts can also let you know which projects are worth looking at, which is especially useful if an agent has neglected to send said project to you (that asshole). Bottom line: They have the best goss, period. No one gets intel like a scout.

Why do some agents HATE scouts? Scout chatter can kill a project dead. See, agenting often involves bluffing. This can mean anything from exaggerating about rival publishers' interest, or making up offers (only the lowest of the low do this — it's not only highly unethical but also just totally stupid and icky and deranged), or, most common, blowing sunshine about a proposal that's undeniably craptacular. By virtue of their job description, scouts can pull up the agent's proverbial curtain faster than you can say twatwaffle.

So be nice. Or face being kept in the dark about the gossipy-goodness that is the cornerstone of our industry.

Unsolicited is an anonymous editor who still works in publishing, aka NOT EMILY. But don't worry; Emily dutifully forwards your hatemail.

Don't send out a manuscript if:

•Publicist Barbie
She's cute, she's bubbly and she, like, totally thinks the book is the best ever! Of course, she read it! Well, like, she read most of it. Most of the first chapter anyway. But she definitely read all of the flap copy.
•My Publicist Likes to Party All the Time
She's fun to drink with and she ain't bad-looking, but she's better at scoring party invites (and just plain scoring) than scoring a feature or review. And definitely don't expect her to wake up early to accompany your author to his GMA taping.
•PUM - Publicist Until Married
She's organized - at least when it comes to updating her Match.com profile. But she's not in it for the long haul. When you see a ring on her finger and/or notice she's learned a new term she likes to trot out at least 5 times a phone call ("my fiance..."), you'll know it's only a matter of time (seriously, like a year max) before she trades in her stilettos for a spit-up stained Juicy sweatsuit - permanently.
•The Three Ls: Lazy, Lying and... Lazy
These are the squirreliest of the lot. They can talk the talk (who's better at spin than a publicist?) but when it comes down to it, they are sitting in their offices playing solitaire while chatting on their cell phones dealing with their nanny/husband/mom. But while they might be slow to answer authors' voice mails and emails, they're always quick to claim credit where credit isn't due. (And, no, getting mentioned on awesomereadergirl16.blogspot.com doesn't count as a press hit.)
•Overburdened (and Soon to Be Otherwise Employed)
With too many projects on her plate, she barely has time to eat lunch at her desk and she certainly doesn't have the energy to answer your authors' questions. This publicist could be good, hell she could be great, but no one will ever know since soon, she'll be gone. Why slave away for publishing wages when PR is PR no matter what industry pays your bills?
•Still Waters Run Deep
You wouldn't think this woman is the one you want hawking your authors' wares - she's subdued, a little cranky sometimes, and doesn't speak unless spoken to - but set her loose on magazine editors and damn can she sweet talk a couple of column inches out of them.
•One in a Million
Responsive, creative, passionate about books, good with people. This publicist has her shit together, and if she acts like it don't stink, it's only because she's too busy being awesome to care about what people think. If you see her, let us know.

Unsolicited is a brand-new anonymous editor with a chip on his/her shoulder. Yes, somehow we managed to find another one.

Dear fool, Did you ever consider the possibility that editors like to edit books, and that some have vocations as opposed to careers? And that their position in the corporate firmament does not mean dick-shit to them because they love doing what they do? Of course you didn't.

I do think it's bad that some young editors are more concerned with moving up through the ranks than with having integrity, acquiring books that have some shred of goodness associated with them, and actually nurturing their authors' careers. It's not really their fault, of course. The quest to find the next megaselling thing, the speed with which the hot stuff sells, and the hugely skewed crap-to-good ratio forces editors to make snap decisions based on wisp-thin proposals (see: blogger book deals). Also, young editors are often charged with adding to their employers' lists as fast as they can, and they're often punished if they hold out for quality rather than buying in bulk. But that doesn't fully excuse the fact that most of us seem happy to settle for short-term rewards rather than hold out for something lastingly better. Of course, there are some other unignorable problems facing young editors: the rising cost of living in NYC vs. steadily not-rising publishing salaries, the increasing me-me-I-get-credit-ness of our culture vs. the inherent behind-the-scenesness of being an editor. It kind of seems like the best and the brightest tend to get weeded out by these factors, and the careerist grinds are the ones left behind to run the show.

But you know what? Books are important. Making good books happen is hugely important. Editors, I am being sincere here (on Gawker no less!): get out there and make it happen.

Unsolicited is . . . well, you know.

So we've established that editors don't edit (except at night and on the weekends. Sigh). Editors also don't:

• know everything there is to know about spelling and grammar and punctuation. The people who get paid to know that shit are copyeditors. I know plenty of editors who can't spell. Spelling turns out not to be related to literary savvy at all. Take that, snobby commenters!

• sit on submissions because they're afraid of offending the author/agent with a rejection. More likely, we just haven't read the damn thing. And if you pressure us for an answer rightnow (without any offers in your hand), the answer is going to be 'no.' Happy?

• have some magical power that enables us to know whether or not something is crap or good (or, you know, good, marketable crap. Da Vinci crap.) We just use our common sense and our opinions. Oh, and also Bookscan.

• find things in the slush pile. If you can't ally yourself with one of the ten bazillion agents who currently exist, there is something really wrong with you. Also, most publishing houses have ironclad no-unsolicited-submissions policies. So get an agent. It's not that hard! (to get a crappy one). It is hard to get a good one, but that's another Unsolicited.

• lead glamorous lives. Maybe there is, like, one rockstareditor left in this city, swilling hard liquor long into the night with his rockstarauthors while discussing, you know, Sartre v. Camus. He is statistically insignificant compared to the thousands of us who steal milk and toilet paper from the office because we can't afford our own, and go to readings for the free canap s.

• want to hear about your genius idea for a book. I'm talking to you, Uncle Morty. If it's Thanksgiving and I have a drink in one hand, I do not want to be holding your proposal for a children's book about The Tree Who Had No Friends in the other hand. I can't help you. Even if I wanted to, I still wouldn't be able to help you. Talk to God. Last time I checked, s/he was the one in charge of handing out talent.

"DO remember to pay us. Many third-rate authors are not independently wealthy and, (shock!), depend on the money that you owe us in order to perform everyday life things such as eat and buy a Metrocard."

A tiny rebuttal for this one: since most publishing houses are owned by gigantic parent companies, there's usually an elaborate and slow-moving Accounts Payable department that's far more to blame for any check-delaying screw-up than your editor is. But she should still be requesting your check in a timely manner, and if it's clear that she hasn't, she should hear about it. But not from you, from your agent, okay?

"Yes, I realize that publishing is a business and that you can't afford pay me the equivalent of hourly minimum wage for my book. However, since that is the case, I hope that you know that the amount of time it is going to take me to write my book is going to increase proportionally relative how little you pay me. It's hard to write a book in a month when I am busy whoring myself at Townhouse every night for rent money. So be prepared to lower your crazy expectations."

Hmm. Not much to add here. Except to say that publishers' ability to make galleys, which enable them to secure review coverage for your book, is mostly contingent on your ability to make your deadlines, no matter how crazy they may seem. Also, I hear the tips are better at the Monster.

"DON'T act like you are doing me a huge favor by publishing my book. Yes, I am eternally grateful (even if I have to remind myself of it sometimes), but being a published author is really not as great a reward as everyone seems to think. It doesn't even get me laid."

Sorry to hear it!

"DON'T lie to me. DON'T lie to me. DON'T lie to me."

This author is right — editors shouldn't lie to authors, but sometimes we're forced to. Sometimes we're just trying not to hurt their feelings. And sometimes we're being loyal to our higher-ups, whose decisions we are paid to carry out. We aren't independently wealthy either, okay?

"DON'T think that if you ignore a problem it will go away."

"DO know that an apology for a massive, my-career-ruining mistake on your part will go a long way. There are ways of offering an apology in which you don't necessarily admit your own culpability. (Boilerplate: "I'm really sorry this happened.") Even that would help a tiny bit. DON'T think that "I'm sorry you are upset" counts."

I have to heartily second this one - in fact, it applies to everyone, no matter what you do for a living.

Let's say it all together: I'm really sorry this happened. There, was that so hard?

Unsolicited is written by an editor who prefers to stay anonymous in the (probably misguided) hopes of remaining one.

I know - it must be the authors. The chance to work with great minds - to be an important part of the creative process for some of the most revered thinkers of our time - is such an enormous privilege that it makes any number of other indignities tolerable. Right?

Uh, maybe, for the gradgrinds who still believe everything they learned at the Columbia Publishing Course. For everyone else, authors are a cross to bear somewhere between 'creepy messenger guy' and 'can't even afford a new coat from H&M" on the job-dissatisfaction scale. Because, with a few glowing exceptions, authors are the craziest, meanest, strangest, cluelessest people you've ever met.

Just in case you ever become one, please remember this tip: Just as you treat the diner waitress respectfully in order to avoid loogies in your coleslaw, it behooves you to make nice with the people on whose enthusiasm the success of your book depends. So don't :

• suck up to your editor while simultaneously being a dick to her assistant, who's doing all the real work anyway. They'll compare notes, and you won't like the results.
• second-guess or nag, even if you totally know what you're talking about. Run your issues by your agent. If it's necessary to bring them up, she will. If it's not, she'll protect you from yourself.
• make excuses about missing a deadline.
• make excuses about missing a deadline via a 1000 word blog post about the horrors of writer's block.
• offer rebuttals to every one of your editor's suggestions. Either make them, or don't. Your editor doesn't really care which, as long as she doesn't have to hear about it.
• expect your editor or publicist to have an hour to spend on the phone with you every day. Want her to work harder on behalf of your book? Leave her alone, so she can get back to doing so.
• send ten emails with ten different questions in them. Wait until you have ten questions, and then send the email. Or better yet, delete it.
• imagine that your book is the only thing on your editor's plate.
• call constantly fretting about sales in the weeks just after your book has been published.
• call constantly fretting about your Amazon ranking, which you should KNOW is almost completely meaningless.
• call constantly.
• call.

Sigh. God, why DO editors bother? Must be all those awesome free books.

Unsolicited is written by an editor who prefers to stay anonymous in the (probably misguided) hopes of remaining one.

The answer is a little purple pill called Nexium. No, j/k. The answer is understanding that accepting a six figure deal is one of the biggest career mistakes a first time author can make.

Don't get me wrong, writer types: publishers want your book to do well, badly. They just really could not give a fuck whether you do well ever again. And that's why they're willing to gamble on your novel/memoir being an enormous breakout success to the tune of several hundred thousand bucks. If they're right, it's a win/win. But on the (overwhelmingly likely) chance that they're wrong, you're mega-fucked, and they're on to the next next big thing.

When people read the phrase 'six figure advance,' they usually pretty much stop reading after the first two words. But the word 'advance' means that your book has to sell enough copies to make your publisher that much money, plus production costs, plus more, or else it's a flop. Let's say you take a big advance for two books. Your publisher will try to justify its cash outlay by printing a bunch of copies, and unless you win the logicless lottery of book success, most of them will be returned by the bookstores. So you'll come nowhere close to earning out your advance with the first book, and your publisher, discouraged, will barely publicize/ print any copies of the second book, crippling your chances to recover from the failure of the first one. Now your 'sales track,' which is the only thing other publishers will thoroughly consider when your next book is out on submission, is ruined. The only thing left to do then is try to convince another publisher that all your failures up until this point have been the fault of your previous publisher. This will be the truth. Unfortunately, it will probably garner the same unenthusiastic response that the truth usually receives.

If you're wondering why your agent would fail to protect you from this unfortunate outcome, it's because she heard "six figure advance" and then dollar signs replaced her pupils, her tongue stuck out like the drawer of a cash register and there was a ca-ching! sound effect. No one wants 15% of nothing much, after all. However, nothing much might just be what's best for your future.

Unsolicited is written by an editor who prefers to stay anonymous in the (probably misguided) hopes of remaining one.

Frat boy for life:
Why is this corn-fed jock not a banker? He professes to love books, but it's hard to tell whether or not he's ever read one — and it seems even more doubtful that he reads his own typo-riddled submissions. Lucky for him, though, there will always be a market for total crap. This unfortunate specimen also tends to misinterpret "I am nodding and acting interested because it's polite/ in my career's best interest" as "I want your bod."

Eminence Grease:
There's nothing so terrible about this patronizing older gent, except that he'll order everything on the menu and regale you with tales of the good old days for hours while you fixate on the green thing that's been stuck on his front tooth since the first course.

Joey's agent on Friends, but with books
Remember that cigarette dispenser on her desk, the one shaped like a fountain of cigs? This agent must totally have one too.

"Dance, jester."
This agent is smart and powerful and knows it — and is only too happy to let you know it, too, by sitting back like a pasha while you desperately try to keep a long, awkward silence from descending by saying everything that pops into your head. Expect to suffer indigestion all afternoon because you basically swallowed every bite whole and also maybe sold out everyone you know.

Fake Ari Gold
The real Ari Gold is not a literary agent. Maybe someone should tell this guy.

Slumber party
This lady agent wants to be bffs immediately. You have nothing in common, but you pretend to sympathize with her manicure travails and J-date disasters because you know she sometimes has good submissions. Later, she will send you a submission about shoes.

But c'mon — what are book editors really like? Don't get me wrong: some editors are smart, talented, funny, good people. But some, uh, aren't.

"One day, when I am a famous bestselling author, then they'll see."
This editor needs to stop thinking of his job as something between a stopgap and a stepping-stone, grow a pair, and pack his bags and catch the next bus to Iowa if he's such a genius. Or he should stop inflicting his pretensions, slacking, and whining on the rest of us. Either way.

Cat lady who thought it would be like The Best of Everything
Is that a little enamel pin shaped like a kitty asleep on an open book on her tweedy lapel? Steer clear, especially if you're meeting her in a job interview. She'll have you cross-indexing her contacts file by favorite color in no time, because Her Job Is Her Life.

"I secretly wish that I worked at a magazine, but I'm too much of a snob"
Clacks around in stilettos, even though no one cares. She tends to be desperate to stir up drama where none exists and should be avoided (and surreptitiously forwarded mediabistro listings for jobs at InStyle.)

Cute heterosexual dude who coasts through his career because everyone in charge is a horny older lady or a gay man
This guy is generally nice and all, but if you're a chick, it'll be hard not to resent him when you have to work 100,000 times harder than he did for a promotion.

Power-lunching striver who can't manage to conceal his naked careerism long enough to actually advance his career
The WORST. Not only is he a lying, manipulative backstabber, he's bad at it. If he were good at it, he'd be a lawyer or a banker. So you have to watch your back, but you also have to watch as he hoists himself on his own retarded petard. Repeatedly.

Just a total crazy
There are variations on this theme, from the malignantly Regan-ish to the benignly batty. But there are a WHOLE lot of them. People who are traumatized as children often look to books in order to escape from their painful realities, and then they become big readers, who in turn become editors. But I'm no psychologist - I'm just an editor. At least, until someone figures out I wrote this and fires me.