When I was ready to start submitting manuscripts to editors (in the mid 1990s), my goal was a national publication. This was partly because I was a literary snob, but also partly because I tended to read books published nationally more than I did Mormon-press published fiction. I admit, when I did read those Mormon books, I was annoyed by their lack of literary merit. I kept remembering the quote about our Shakespeares and Miltons and wondering where was the Mormon Shakespeare or Mormon Milton?
After five years or writing, rewriting, and then abandoning projects (twenty full-length novels, to be exact), I got my first contract with a national press in 1999 and published The Monster In Me in 2002 with Holiday House, a well-respected children’s press. I worked hard on that book, which is a kind of secret Mormon novel, that is, the foster family that Natalie Wills stays with is Mormon, but I never specifically call that out because I was afraid that a national press wouldn’t want to deal with complaints from Mormons or Mormon haters. I had never worked as hard in my life (including my dissertation at Princeton in Germanic Languages and Literatures) as I did with the editor who edited that book. We went through three big revisions before the final copy edit, which I still bring with me to school visits, just so kids have a visceral picture of what a hard-core edit is. There were entire pages that were taken out with a giant “X” across all of words. I cobbled in words on the sides of pages and there was a lot of red and green ink. No teacher had ever critiqued my work so hard, and this was after I got paid money for this book and after I’d already done multiple edits.
For a few years, I complained about it. Then I published a few more novels with a national press, and every single one of them was brutal. I had to work hard to understand what editors were talking about. I learned about character development and dialogue, about backstory, worldbuilding, and on and on. It wasn’t like I hadn’t worked hard on these before I sold my books. After all, I’d sold them. I also had a national agent who put my books through the paces before he sent them out. This was SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for writers with editors who care about your book and want it to be better, but are also interested in making a name for themselves and moving up the ladder at their own job. They want books that sell, and they want books that win awards. Even if there’s no personal relationship (though there often is), they are very interested in teaching authors the craft and leveling them up.
Fourteen nationally published novels into my career, I look back on the Mormon novels I see being published rather differently than I did back when I was just a casual reader. I think I have a unique perspective as a working writer to offer about what’s often going wrong behind the scenes of Mormon presses. I’m not trying to say there aren’t any good Mormon authors out there, but I’m trying to talk about how Mormon authors get to be better and why I feel like that often doesn’t happen with Mormon presses.
A lot of casual readers imagine that an author just has an idea, writes it down, and it’s either good or bad. This is an extremely reductive way of seeing art. Art is often a collaboration, or a way of talking back and forth between different artists. And editors are artists, when they’re allowed to be. I used to see big name authors who stopped being edited and I bemoaned that change. People bought their books anyway, ang I guess I did, too, but it’s sad. I determined I was never going to be like that. I wanted and still want to keep growing as a writer. It’s one of the reasons I keep reinventing myself and trying my hand at new genres, after becoming successful at one. But this is also really hard to do within a Mormon niche publishing world.
One of the problems is that editors at Mormon presses just aren’t given enough time to put their authors through the paces and really make substantive big picture changes. They’re largely trying to fix typos and smaller picture things. This is a business and the bottom line is important. Awards matter less in Mormon literature than they do nationally, I think.
Second, there is the problem of Mormon authors leaving Mormon presses for national presses. I’ve been in some conversations with higher-ups at Mormon presses and I’ve heard them complaining that this author or that author who now has a national career has no gratitude for the press that “made” them a success. It’s frustrating. They are reluctant to put money and time and effort into Mormon authors to make them better because they feel like they don’t get the gain that they want. It’s a kind of chicken and egg problem. You treat authors badly and then they leave as soon as they can. Or they don’t do the great work that possibly they could have done, because they’re also less invested in the outcome. I get the sense that the leadership of Mormon presses end up feeling like “there’s always more where that came from” when they look at their authors’ talents. They aim for just-good-enough manuscripts and they’re always on the lookout for fresh new talent to exploit. They don’t want their authors to become better, perhaps? It works against the business model.
I wish that I could wave a wand and change all the Mormon presses out there to become like BCC Press, where I publish, but I admit that’s also a problem because BCC relies heavily on volunteer staff to get books edited and published. It’s not a money-making model, and I guess everyone knew that going in. But still, it’s enlightening to make some comparisons of quality where there’s more editing going on and more investment in the authors as something more than a temporary way to exploit raw talent. Good Mormon literature needs authors who have been invested in, financially and in other ways, so that they can grow and become better. But the system is broken right now and that makes me sad. It’s part of the reason why it feels like those who leave Mormonism are better writers, because national presses just do a better job of nurturing the talent. And I’m well aware of the ways national presses exploit, as well. But it’s not at the same level.
I don’t know that this take is fair even if I’ve heard that some of the predatory practices are true. I’ve never been employed by the small Mormon presses or even pretend to know what is going on behind the scenes. But I speculate the salaries LDS market editors get in comparison to their traditionally published peers is probably next to nothing. I bet they put in more effort than they’re compensated for, honestly. The bigger problem is that capitalism is not a friend to Mormon art, period. Making editors take the fall for systematic and market forces beyond their control isn’t really fair.
Also, I really fear that this type of writing hurts authors more than it helps because discrediting their publishing institution devalues their work. Many authors working with these publishing houses are talented and professional writers.
My biggest complaint is that this essay gives no advice to authors on how to take responsibility for their own improvement when they have an incompetent or bad editor. I realize you don’t get paid to write these essays so it really is not fair for me to critique or ask for more. But if your actual goal was to help Mormon writers instead of complain about a market you are clearly prejudiced against wouldn’t you give them advice on what to do when they confront this reality?
If I didn’t make it clear enough in the essay above, I apologize. I’m not saying that editors at Mormon presses aren’t doing the work. I’ve heard about how many hours they’re allotted for each book and it’s pretty sad. No editor can do proper editing with that kind of a workload. It’s a systemic problem and if I knew how to solve it, I’d have said so. My best suggestion is BCC, but I know that’s not realistic because BCC can only publish a certain number of books.
Ah, I’ve never heard there was an hourly allotment. Ouch. That is worse than I thought. I honestly don’t know what the answer is here either. If you’re going to have to pay an editor to get a quality edit before you submit to an LDS publishing house then you have to weigh whether it costs more to do that or set up distribution at the LDS books stores yourself. Honestly, I don’t think Covenant, Cedar Fort, Deseret Book, and BCC Press all together are even enough to find and nurture LDS talent. Authors are forced into the national market because the handful of presses we have now don’t have enough capacity to support the amount of talent that the community has in my opinion.
Emily’s comments are as interesting as Mette’s post. Blaming capitalism is certainly part of the problem — capitalism has a preference for economies of scale, which national presses have and Mormon presses can’t possibly have.
But I think both of these viewpoints as expressed don’t quite cover the extent of the issue. I think there is an additional economic problem: if you limit how you publish you limit the return on your efforts.
LDS publishers limit what they publish in many ways. For example, they look for an LDS connection, and try to make sure that what might be called the “moral expression” in the book is compatible with LDS doctrine AND culture. Limiting what you publish in that way means that many of those who might purchase these books aren’t going to purchase them.
LDS books are also limited geographically. Much as they claim otherwise, both Deseret Book and Cedar Fort are HEAVILY oriented toward the Wasatch Front. What they publish is only what is acceptable to that narrow market, regardless of how acceptable a book might be to other Church members. In the case of Deseret Book this is very unfortunate, since a large proportion of Church members see their books as defining what is acceptable.
And when we look at the retail part of the market—primarily Deseret Book and Seagull Books—the control over what gets published is even clearer. Since both are owned by the same entity and apply similar standards to what they will sell (again, its what is acceptable on the Wasatch Front), books published that don’t fit the mean can’t be found in stores and don’t appear on the Deseret Book website. For the bulk of members of the church who purchase books its as if these other books don’t exist.
No wonder so many church members think all Mormon literature is lightweight, and not worth reading.
I wrote about this 15 years ago (see https://motleyvision.org/2005/10/28/publishing-the-problem-of-deseret-book-part-1-a-question-of-size/), and I don’t see anything significant that has changed. The hope that either some other LDS bookseller would arise or that members would find books through Amazon.com or something has remained elusive.
What bothers me the most is the clear lack of vision by the principle players in the market. Deseret Book continues to act as if the Wasatch Front is the only market it need serve. No one there can see that the changing demographics of the church means that there is space for a more diverse literature. And no one outside of Deseret Book has managed to bridge the perception among most church members that only DB publishes books that are acceptable under LDS doctrine.
The problem that has existed for some 50 years continues. I hope we can find a solution eventually.
I agree it is exceptionally frustrating. I do enjoy a lot of the work writers with DB and covenant write but it is less focused on mormon centered experiences and the majority are written to a broad christian audience. so the lds publishing houses aren’t even marketing to mormons anymore. I genuinely dislike it and feel much more sympathy for you folks that have been frustrated for decades. Independent publishing fixes the production issue but there is no centralized place to discover what works are being published. Several literary sites keep track of what they are fans of but that means everyone just keeps on reading in the same tribal camps anyway. Also, DB and Covenant used to publish a way wider variety of genres and age groups. Now it is only Romance. No MG or YA because people complained it was poor quality. Well, now we have NOTHING. So, I don’t think complaining and criticism is the way to create change, which is why I push back so hard against negative takes on the market that dont offer anything constructive.