Tayari's Blog: Q&A With Shalema K. McGee

Tayari Jones: Shalema can you tell us how you first got interested in trade publishing?

Shalema McGhee: It all started with a love of books. The love of books wasn’t passed on to me by family. No one that had a hand in raising me is a compulsive reader, as I am.
I decided on trade publishing because I have always loved books. As a little girl I would walk over to the neighborhood library on Saturday and spend nearly the entire day reading through books and then standing in line to check-out books to take home with me. So my greatest desire was to be involved with the process of discovering great books and great authors. Even though I like to write, my passion currently is in making other people’s books available to readers.

TJ: How did you make the leap from just loving books to actually getting involved with the production of books?

SM: Early January 2005 (nearly eight months after graduating from Norfolk State University) I declared to all that would listen that I was moving to NYC to start a career in trade book publishing. I arrived in New York on a Saturday in the middle of January 2005. That day driving from Virginia to New York marked my day of independence. I said good-bye to a way of life that I had known for almost fourteen years yet anticipated a new beginning.

When I arrived on that Saturday I had to prepare to get unpacked and ready for Monday. I didn’t go directly into trade publishing. I needed work right away, so I applied for a textbook manager position, working for the same textbook provider that I had worked for back in Virginia. I interviewed over the phone and was hired. On my first day I was hit in the face with a store that was completely unorganized and operating to fail. It was a totally different set-up from my store in Virginia. Needless to say after four weeks of working at this NY store, I came to a decision that I needed to leave for my own sanity. I was miserable, and on top of that, the commute was like a winter Olympics. In January 2005, New York City was extremely cold and I had such a trek going to work and leaving work. Plus everyone involved in my hiring knew the reason I was moving to New York was to pursue a career in book publishing. The position I had accepted was just to keep an income coming in.

So after investing four years with this company and getting a letter in the mail that I now qualified to enter the 401(k) plan (which they matched up to 4%), I handed in my resignation.

TJ: What happened next?

SM: I was out of work for two months. I started my new job two months to the day I left the last job. Now that two months was filled with relief, anticipation and fear that I wouldn’t find a job in publishing. So on the day that I decided to register with a temp agency I received a call from a small book publisher to come in for an interview. I accepted and prepared for the interview scheduled for the following day. Because I keep all job postings that I apply to, I saw that I had applied for that position a month ago. I also noticed that the posting said paid internship, so my smile went down a little. When I arrived for the interview I was greeted by three people at a conference table and while I was waiting to be greeted by my interviewer, a middle-aged man turned around and smiled at me. Of course I smiled back.

When the interview starts the interviewer informs me that they have decided to make the internship a full-time, salary position (my smile went back up). After she offers me the job she says that she wants me to meet the man that would be my boss and guess who he was? The man that smiled at me. I started and worked there for a total of 10 months as Assistant to the President.

TJ: Assistant to the President. That’s a fancy sounding title. I bet you loved handing out your business cards! What did you do exactly in this position?

SM: I maintained the appointment book of the president, scheduled meetings, and booked travel and hotel accommodations. I drafted and edited contracts, handled correspondence between my boss and authors, agents, and media. I sent materials to foreign rights agents (the hopes being that they would want to publish our books in their country); I mailed Advanced Readers Copies to booksellers and media outlets. Ordered office supplies and did many other administrative things. After my boss passed I begin to do more editorial and publicity work. There were two parts to our company. One part was a book packager. We partnered with other publishers (i.e. Simon & Schuster) on celebrity children’s picture books (Billy Crystal, Jay Leno) and educational book series like presidents and their wives or the civil rights movement. The other half of the company served as a publisher, publishing science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical fiction, and graphic novels by such authors as George RR Martin, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, and Joe Kubert.

TJ: Did you have a lot of interaction with an editor? I think for a lot of writers, we are so curious as to what the editing side is like when there are no authors around.

SM: I begin to work with two editors on various projects as well as the VP. One editor was from the publisher side and one was from the packager side. I read manuscripts and gave reports on whether that book would fit into the kind of books we were known for and I was really pleased when one of the books I suggested as thumbs-up was purchased. Better yet, this book, Double Abduction would be the author’s first published novel. It really was a great suspense book. I also booked two non-celebrity children’s book authors bookstore and library appearances for book readings and signings. One of the editors who I helped work on a book of the years best graphic comic novels, actually put her thanks to me in the acknowledgment page. This was big to me because I always read author’s thank you notes and acknowledgement pages. That was how I began to learn the names of people in the industry. I learned the names of editors and agents and begin to research about them and their companies. Beginning at a small publisher was a good foundation for me because instead of being concentrated in one area I functioned in many departments. I learned to write marketing points and sales and publicity notes for booksellers. I helped the production manager check for proof-reading and copyeditor errors as well as checking pagination.

TJ: What was the biggest surprise for you once you felt that you were really “in” the business?

SM: There were many ups and downs but my foot was now in the door and I was learning the business. I learned that publishing is a relationship business. Passion or no passion, selling books is the bottom line. So now that the door is cracked open, I want to move in further by working for an imprint that specializes in African-American authors or at least publishes a great many books by African American authors. I want to work on Contemporary fiction, Christian fiction (the real kind, like what Tia McCollors writes), literary and commercial fiction.

TJ: Are you still with this company?

SM: I started April 2005, my boss was killed in a car accident July 2005 and the company shut their doors and filed bankruptcy February 2006. Towards the end I realized that I needed to start looking for a job. I interviewed with a large trade book publisher for an Editorial Assistant position. I really wanted this position but I didn’t get it. When the company I worked for closed I was slow to register the impact this would have on me and the others who had worked there much longer than I. I was out of work for two and a-half months before I accepted my current position at a cable television network. I know that it seems I have deviated from the original goal but not so. I have learned to make do with the opportunities presented. I have to this day interviewed at two other large trade publishers (which is an accomplishment because the larger publishers are hard to get noticed by due to heavy competition.). My vision is not lost but expanded. There are things I want to do with books and TV together and maybe this is the avenue that will teach me how. Television is not foreign to me because my degree is in Mass Communications with a focus on broadcasting. I am still looking for doors leading back to book publishing but in the meantime I’m living where I am on the way to where I’m going.