Tor Tour: From Script to Shelf

[Lenny]

Recently, the Tor UK blog started a series they've named Tor Tour, in an effort to give us "greater insight into the script to shelf route".

Three posts have been published so far -- from the Editorial Director, Publicity Manager, and the Senior Commissioning Editor -- and many more are planned (from the immediate Tor team, and from people involved in contracts, domestic and international sales, rights, design, and production).

Although the posts aren't wildly detailed, they are interesting, and even educational.

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The series announcement introduced the people who make up Team Tor.

In order, the posts have been:

#1 - Julie Crisp, Editorial Director of Team Tor
"Not Just Editing..."

My job is two-fold, one to find, buy, publish and represent authors of quality speculative fiction – the other is to build and develop the imprint brand of Tor in the UK.

#2 - Sophie Portas, Publicity Manager
"A Publicity Department Exposé"

When a book is acquired, I’ll be thinking about the communications strategy, working closely with my marketing counterpart so that we have a fully joined-up communications plan from the off.

#3 - Bella Pagan, Senior Commissioning Editor
"An Editorial Journey Beyond the Red Pen"

You’d think the clue would be in the job title, but these days ‘commissioning editor’ implies a range of duties besides commissioning and editing. Some of those may even involve eating cake.

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All in one place.

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There doesn't seem to be a set schedule, but if people find this interesting I'll try and update as and when new posts are published.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Brilliant - I'll move this to the Writing Resources board if you don't mind - it'll be visible for longer there.

 

[Lenny]

The next post in the Tor Tour is up, and it's from the Senior Marketing Manager.

Please can I get the bit between the two sets of "---" added to the first post below #3? I figure having the entire series up top means folk don't have to scroll through lots of posts to see the new entries. Ta muchly!

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#4 - Rob Cox, Senior Marketing Manager
"Tor Tour: The Marketor"

As a Marketer and alongside my gorgeous and brave team, I’m in charge of the promotion of the books on our list to the reading public.

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It's pretty much what you'd expect a marketing manager to do, really. A couple of nice tidbits:

For our bigger brand-name authors, the promotional budgets are typically quite generous (INSIDER KNOWLEDGE) and the campaigns follow suit

I also manage the Facebook accounts for a variety of authors, which includes updating all news, reviews or images wherever possible and answering any fan queries in an engaging, informative and fun way. I hate it when there’s a stuffy voice on an official Facebook page; my perfect model at the moment is the Lego page, as they use a laidback, friendly tone and engage with almost every person who posts on the wall so that it feels like a proper community.

 

[Juliana]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing...

 

[Lenny]

I didn't expect another post so soon, but here's number five!

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#5 - Louise Buckley, Editorial Assistant
"The Editorial Assistant"

My role is really two-fold. First of all there’s the editorial side (the fun bit) ... I get to assist with every manuscript, from acquisition, right through to post-publication.

The other side of my job is the administrative side. I make sure that the correct information for each book feeds out to all of our retailers. I collate reviews from bloggers and our publicity team. I organise strategy meetings, write minutes, print contracts, create presentations, send out books, update our Pinterest, seek permissions, and undertake a whole lot of filing, photocopying, scanning and other minutiae that goes with the job.

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There's not much information past the listing of responsibilities in this post, sadly.

Nothing more to say...



EDIT: Please could a mod add the title and quotes for #4 and #5 (both between the two sets of "---" in their respective posts) to the original post?

 

[Glitch]

Haven't had chance to read it properly yet, but looks good. Thanks for sharing Lenny.