Commissioning Editor at Severn House Carl Smith
Carl Smith is Commissioning Editor at Severn House (an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd), where he acquires genre fiction—mysteries, thrillers, cozies and science-fiction & fantasy. Prior to starting at Severn House in 2018, he spent four years working across non-fiction, covering content as diverse as political essays and children’s craft books. Carl lives and works in London, England, but his list comprises primarily U.S.-based authors. Carl has acquired Agatha and Anthony Award-winning authors during his time with Severn House. His list includes G.M. Malliet, Catriona McPherson, Qiu Xiaolong, Elaine Viets, and more. Carl can be found at on Twitter at @thatpubblogger where he offers career advice to publishing hopefuls, or emailed at carl@severnhouse.com regarding submissions.
What is your editing process like? Any special rituals or practices that help you while editing?
I think my editing process was influenced by my non-fiction background. Whether it was economic content or a children’s craft book, I was always evaluating what the end goal was: was it trying to teach the reader something or make them feel a certain way about a topic? Every paragraph had to be pointing in that direction to be truly effective. When I moved across to editing fiction that remained the same.
As I’m editing, I’m constantly asking myself, ‘Is this chapter leading me to think X is the killer and not Y?’…‘Is the tension rising here or is the pacing too slow?…‘Is this protagonist being active enough?’ and so forth. My questions will revolve around what that intended goal is, depending on the genre of the book. I will make my editorial suggestions based on my answers to those questions. I’m essentially trying to anticipate what the reader will think and feel, then pre-emptively counter any undesirable responses in favor of good ones.
On top of this approach, I do also think about the more technical aspects of the writing and structure as I go. A resource that helped me in understanding these elements, and one I recommend to anyone interested in learning to edit—especially when it comes to how to approach their own work—is On Editing by Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price. It teaches you about voice, story arcs and much more. I learned so much from this book.
Severn House is known as a good publisher in the mystery/crime fiction space. Is there anything else SH is known for, or new and growing areas at the publisher?
The Severn House list is still primarily made up of mysteries and thrillers, which has been our bread and butter since the 1970s. As you say, that’s what we’re known for. However, we also publish romance and historical saga titles, and more recently have branched out into science-fiction, fantasy and horror. Since being acquired by Canongate in 2017, we’ve been able to build on our successes and try some new things. One of our most successful authors, Simon R. Green, has a unique series with a private investigator who just happens to be an alien. The success we enjoyed with this series encouraged us to explore genres outside of those we’d focused on in the past. Our first pure-SFF titles have now been released, covering post-apocalyptic worlds and planet-hopping space adventures. I’ve been at the forefront of bringing these titles tot he list, which is incredibly exciting…though I do still love getting my hands dirty (bloody?) with a good crime caper or thriller.
How did you get your start in book publishing and what has it been like to see publishing go through so many transitions in recent years?
My original career of choice was teaching. I spent over three years working with children aged between eleven and eighteen, but my heart was never in it. Despite knowing teaching wasn’t for me, I was still lost for what to do next and planned on studying for a PhD to pass the time and figure things out. While I was applying for PhDs, I happened to chat to someone who’d applied for work experience at Penguin—it still hadn’t been Random-House’d back then. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I did the same and was fortunate to be selected. By the end of my placement, I realized publishing was a better option for me at that time than four more years of studying. Eventually, I found a role with an economics and political publisher—despite knowing zilch about economics and being abysmal at mathematics—and the rest is history.
“…I still feel print will remain king.”
What I’ve always found fascinating about the shape of the industry is the resilience of physical sales. We saw it in a microcosm during 2020. Sales naturally dropped once stores closed, but they quickly returned with a bang. When trying to get my foot in the publishing door around 2013, the eBook boom was in full swing. I vividly remember being laughed out of an interview during this time, when I was asked about what the future of publishing would be. I told the interviewers that I believed digital sales would plateau and we’d end up with around a 60-40% split in print versus digital. They felt I was stuck in the past and that eBooks would soon surpass print. However, they were wrong. Despite the pandemic, in 2020 the split of sales in the U.S. was still ~80-20% in favor of print, and in the UK it was similar (~75-25%). The continual rise in audio may make a further dent in that figure, but I still feel print will remain king.
What do you see as the benefit in going with a smaller independent publisher, such as Severn House, over a big five publisher? Can SH punch above their weight?
We definitely punch above our weight as a publisher. Granted, we may not top the Billboard charts or get an author’s book splashed on posters across railway and subway stations, but for our size, we do very well. We know our audience and our market. For example, being brought into the Canongate fold has only helped us on that front as we can reach further into countries, like Australia and South Africa.
Severn House Publisher Kate Lyall Grant with author Michael Wiley at Bouchercon.
As for benefits? Many of our authors are long-standing ones. The nature of our model is that we don’t publish debut authors; instead we focus on those who’ve already been published elsewhere. These authors often come to us from the conglomerate publishing houses, where they’ve been part of the big razzmatazz and been promised the world. Unfortunately, that isn’t always delivered. Sales might not have matched up to what was promised, the author may not have felt like they matter, or they didn’t receive that personal touch. One thing Kate Lyall Grant, Severn’s Publisher, often stresses is that if an author calls our office, the chances are the person answering the phone will know exactly who that author is. Not only that, but that person will likely have read their books and know something about their current project, or what is happening in their life. You don’t always get that in the bigger houses. That care is why we have so many long-standing authors who’ve been with us across multiple books. The vast majority of authors I’ve brought on while I’ve been at Severn have signed further book deals, for example.
Severn House is based out of the United Kingdom but distributes to the United States and elsewhere. What do you see as the major differences and similarities between U.S. and UK publishing?
There’s a more vibrant and healthy hardcover readership in the U.S.—obviously key for a publisher like Severn that focuses on such editions. In the U.S., the hardback is the main edition; in the UK, the paperback is almost always the main edition (in the case of fiction, at any rate), with a small hardcover print run used mainly to garner reviews and prize nominations.
Another key difference that we notice at Severn, and based on our model, is that there’s a much larger, more proactive and robust, library system in the U.S. Unlike the U.S., the UK libraries are funded by central government, therefore the services have suffered constant budget cuts and general low morale. The UK system is centralized, local librarians having very little control over the books they stock in their own libraries. Library spaces and resources are also largely given over to computers, rather than books. (My local library, for instance, has almost doubled its number of computers over the past few years. Those computers are front and centre in the premises, with the books placed at the back.)
“A page-turning read, wherever it’s set, will transcend borders…”
A fun difference is the approach to jacket images in the U.S. and UK markets that reflect different cultural tastes. There was a great article a few years ago in the UK’s Guardian newspaper discussing some of these differences that used Hilary Clinton’s memoir and Lincoln in the Bardo by George Sanders as two examples. How do you judge a book by two wildly different covers? Ultimately, what is behind the covers is the same on both sides of the pond. A page-turning read, wherever it’s set, will transcend borders and be equally popular in the UK and U.S.
What was it like for smaller independent publishers, such as Severn House, in having to cope with the aftermath of the recent COVID-19 pandemic?
Firstly, like many bigger companies, a lot of our staff were put on furlough. Sadly, I know a number of people working at other indies, who’ve been made redundant over the past year—something I experienced, myself, in a previous publishing role. The Severn publishing schedule was drastically altered, in an attempt to ensure those authors being published, when stores and libraries weren’t open, were afforded the same opportunities for discoverability as other authors on our list down the line. (I only know of one publisher that didn’t take that approach.)
During an Independent Publishers Guild International Forum event Dominique Raccah, the founder and CEO of Chicago-based Sourcebooks, highlighted how the failure rate in publishing is extraordinary. Raccah said that 60% to 70% of books published are not commensurate with the effort and expense put in. Is that business model sustainable in a financially shaky climate?
Therefore, for indies, I think the biggest fallout from the pandemic will see lists consolidated and budgets even more closely controlled, to bring such percentages down. The industry has always been ruled by comparisons and previous sales to gauge what advances can be paid, and greater scrutiny on this is inevitable. Knowing the cut-off point and being willing to walk away, if a bidding war escalates beyond what your budgets allow, will become more common for indies. Essentially, bigger publishers will still be able to make loss-making deals—some of which are about demonstrating their position or status in the industry—while smaller indies won’t.
It is clear that you acquire mostly in the areas of mystery/crime/thriller. What types of books are working well in this publishing space?
Cozies are still doing well. U.S. audiences seem to love cozies set in the UK. The astounding success of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club in the UK and U.S. highlighted this. For Severn House, Simon Brett is a great example of such success. U.S. readers love his books and he’s been on our list for over ten years, now. I think G.M. Malliet’s Death in Cornwall (see below) is another example on our list that we have huge hopes for. It similarly plays on the English settings and quirks that U.S. readers enjoy.
G.M. Malliet’s Death in Cornwall (Severn House).
Another recurring conversation I’ve had, of late, around successes, is the interest in international mysteries. There was a surge in Nordic noir a while back that did subside a little, but we’ve seen success venturing away from that region to the Far East with Qiu Xiaolong. Xiaolong’s Inspector Chen mystery books are set in China and delve into the troubles the eponymous detective faces in doing his job from his superiors. We get starred reviews coming in left, right and centre for these. I guess U.S. readers are fascinated with what is happening in China right now, in general and this has been transferred across into stories such as this.
For Severn House, you recently acquired Agatha Award-winning author G.M. Malliet's Death in Cornwall, the fourth book in her St. Just series, following Death at the Alma Mater, wherein a detective chief inspector, on vacation from his job in Cambridge, simply wants a break from investigating murder—but in an idyllic Cornish village, a storm is brewing. What has it been like in working with Gin (G.M.) on this thrilling book?
I’ve loved working with Gin on the novel. What I enjoy about Gin’s writing—and this is something that will come to the fore, even more in another book down the line—is the meta nature of it. I mentioned above about how I was close to studying for a PhD, and Gin’s writing plays on the very topic I was going to study: narrative theory. I love books that explore how stories are told and find interesting ways of doing it. I think I’ve found a kindred spirit in Gin in the sense that we both love writing that plays with such conventions.
Just as you say, the detective chief inspector wants to get away from murder, but you know the proverbial is going to hit the fan no matter where our protagonist goes. So how do you achieve this without the reader rolling their eyes? Throughout Death in Cornwall, Gin gives the reader subtle winks that draw you in. You are in on the joke and the anticipation is built up as to what is going to happen and when and to whom. Fate is tempted to the nth degree. Sometimes, in these kind of series, it can feel contrived when the protagonist gets drawn into a crime they’re not officially responsible for. Ensuring that isn’t the case is where an author’s true skill shines through. Gin has that skill. We see it here and in the aforementioned other book we’re excited to be working on. The involvement of the protagonist, despite his being on vacation, feels natural here.
“Celebrate and champion those around you. Help each other. …It provides hope. …Also, be kind.”
Do you have any advice you could share for hopeful writers eager to become published authors?
This is the same advice I share to those who wish to enter the publishing industry in general: Don’t treat the process as a competition against your peers.
My favorite word in the dictionary is ‘confelicity’. It is the opposite of ‘Schadenfreude’ in that it means taking joy in the delight and successes of others. Writing is a hard and largely solitary pursuit. But it doesn’t have to be so. Celebrate and champion those around you. Help each other. Even if they are writing something in the same genre as you. Their success doesn’t mean they’ve ‘beaten’ you or that it stops you from achieving similar success. It provides hope. Form writing groups with such peers. Offer to swap chapters to provide fellow writers with feedback. When you offer someone else feedback it makes you re-evaluate your own writing at the same time. You can learn so much from those around you that will make you and your writing better.
Also, be kind. If you’re submitting to an agent, be cognizant of how many proposals they receive and that they can’t respond instantly. (Same with publishers.) Don’t be angered if it takes a little while to hear back or if it is a ‘no’ this time. That ‘no’ does not mean your book is rubbish or that the agent doesn’t know what they are doing; it just means it isn’t something they feel they can champion successfully to their contacts. Such a response also doesn’t mean you can’t go back to that agent down the road with a different proposal. You don’t want to burn that bridge.
Can you finish this sentence? I love reading because...
…it gave me a new lease of life.
At a time when I was at a crossroads in my life and unsure of where I wanted to go, it was reading and books that helped lead me find a purpose. I’m traveling down the road I am now because of it.
Engaging with stories taught me about who I am and what I wanted in my life. Reading didn’t just shape my career, it made me the person I am.
