Dan Ehrenhaft, Acquisitions Editor for Sourcebooks Fire

I sat down with Dan Ehrenhaft, Acquisitions Editor for Sourcebooks Fire and Paul from the Sourcebooks PR team. I wanted to follow-up on Dan’s awesome appearance at the January 6th #YAlitchat. He was gracious enough to respond to the questions that were not addressed that night and ones that were generated as a result of the chat. From Sourcebooks Fire in NYC, this is what they had to say.

GM: Thanks again for chatting with us last month. You were a real pro during your first twitter chat! There’s a ton of excitement about the Sourcebooks Fire YALitChat contest! One of the major reasons has to be the announcement of a new YA imprint right around the time proliferation of this notion of the “death of the slush pile” is reaching the masses. Do you foresee Sourcebooks Fire only accepting solicited submissions in the future?

DE: It really depends on the manuscript. But yes, generally, I do tend to focus on manuscripts where I either know the author, or the agent, or both–and, of course, if I tell them exactly what I want and they give it to me!

GM: During our chat, you mentioned some of the innovate marketing plans and use of technology that Sourcebooks Fire employs to support releases in lieu of higher author advances. Can you address that a little more specifically? I think it kind of got lost in the twitter 140-character limitations.

DE: In addition to our Ning Site, we offer an “Author toolkit,” that allows authors to build a very robust webpage as part of the Sourcebooks on-line presence. We send authors on extensive blog tours that put their names in front of thousands of readers.

PS: Although each book is promoted differently based on the author, genre, etc., I can give you some of the broad strokes. With already established authors, or authors whose books have a hook, we go the traditional route and try to get reviews in magazines and newspapers, TV coverage, radio interviews, etc. which are still proven to sell books. Additionally, we try to give most of our authors a thorough blog tour. As you are aware, we have great relationships with many literary websites and blogs and we try to tailor specific online events to pair the authors with the most appropriate websites. Although many publishers do this type of outreach in a limited manner, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find one that does it to the extent that we do—not to mention the fact that almost all of our books receive this treatment. Finally, we also try to move forward into the digital space by creating partnerships with companies creating software and hardware for e-reading. For example, we are currently putting together a promotion with a company called Zinio for Kenn Nesbitt, author of the forthcoming collection of children’s poetry Tighty Whitey Spider. In effect, we’re giving away digital versions of Kenn’s first book My Hippo Has the Hiccups for free through Zinio, while marketing the new book alongside the free giveaway through inserts in throughout the book (similar to magazine inserts) as well as on the cover and in the emails. Because this has never been done before, they’ll be promoting the book as a sample of what they can do in the children’s book sphere (right now they’re mostly magazine focused). So yes, we’re moving forward at an extremely rapid pace and bringing our authors along for the ride!

GM: Wow. Try saying all of THAT on twitter! Well done. Looks like you’re doing some really innovative things.

GM: What about higher royalties? Is that part of the standard practice at Sourcebooks Fire?

DE: All depends on the author.

GM: Hmmm. Grrrr. Grumble.

GM: Certainly no one doubts that any YA author would be in great hands with you given your history at Alloy. Can you share some of your thoughts regarding what specifically you’re seeking in not only books but authors?

DE: I love authors who read LOTS of YA, and who are eager to promote themselves, and who are willing to work collaboratively with an editor. So far I’ve been VERY lucky! I adore all my authors, some of whom I’ve chased for years, trying to work with them.

GM: Are there any particular themes you’re looking for at the moment?

DE: I’d love a great mystery and a great fantasy series.

GM: Thanks for following up with us! Hopefully you’ll do so again when you’ve had a chance to consider the semi-finalists from the Sourcebooks Fire YALitChat Writing Contest. I’ve been reviewing them and you’ll be happy to know there’s some really good stuff!

DE: Thanks, Georgia!

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The contest ends February 28! There’s still time to enter. Best of luck to everyone who enters. xoxo- G