Interview - A Publisher's Perspective

 To give you all a bit of a different perspective on the importance of historical accuracy, in this entry we have an interview with Tara Powers, who works for a publishing company. 

KR:	So, to start off, who are you and what do you do?
TP:	My name is Tara Powers, and I'm a Trade Project Editor in the managing editorial department of W. W. Norton & Company, a publishing house in Manhattan, New York.
KR:	Do you see a lot of historical fiction in your line of work?
TP:	As a house, Norton doesn't do a huge amount of fiction. But of the fiction we've been contracting lately, quite a lot of it has been historically based, yes.
KR:	Of the ones you see, are they often checked for historical accuracy?
TP:	Always. Part of the job of our copyeditors is to fact check any names, dates, and general details about events based in history that come up in a book that is being marketed as a historical fiction title. This can be fairly time-intensive, especially if the novels are long ones, but it's a necessity.
KR:	Have you ever heard of there being complaints among readers and reviewers if a story is historically inaccurate?
TP:	I can't recall a specific complaint, but I do know that Norton accepts phone calls or emails from readers who find errors and inconsistencies in our books. We have changed dates and names in our other nonfiction historical titles when readers have reported inaccuracies, so I can only assume that the same can happen for fiction.
KR:	Any advice you have for those wanting to work on historical fiction, or else just fiction in particular?
TP:	Picking an interesting time period is key--we're getting more books about time periods like the French Canadian migration, things that haven't been covered extensively in fiction before and so have fresh story possibilities. Lots of time periods have been "in vogue" and sort of feel overdone at this point. Fiction is also the hardest genre in which to get a book signed--it's intensively competitive, and you really need to have a unique story idea and engaging characters to even get an agent or editor to read through your entire proposal.

I'd like to thank Tara Powers for taking the time to answer my questions. And I hope you all found the interview informative.

Powers, T. (2012, May 02). Interview by K Robinson [Web Based Recording].