Elizabeth Law is that rare editor who is not only rigorous sentence- by-sentence, but she's also deeply concerned with the mind of her author. I'll always be grateful for her wise, careful shepherding of my first novel and the shape it ultimately took.
— Adam Rapp, Pulitzer Prize Nominee
About me, and about you
Elizabeth Law in New York. Reading, of course.
When I started working in publishing, I learned three things very quickly. Really great books last forever, really great books take a lot of effort to get that way, and it never, ever works to publish something just because you think it will be popular. If you, personally, don't like a book, it is not going to succeed. Please don’t try to write something that you don’t really care about because “it’s the kind of thing that’s hot right now.” As Rocky said to Bullwinkle, “That trick never works.”
As for me, I was trained by an editor named Deborah Brodie at Viking Children's Books, who taught me to give each book and every author all I’ve got. Deborah taught me to ask questions and give suggestions, but that the final decision is always the author's.
I worked at Viking Penguin, and at Penguin’s divisions Puffin Books and Frederick Warne & Co, for 18 years, leaving to become Associate Publisher of Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers. And in 2007 I left there and became the first publisher of Egmont USA. At Egmont I got to help create a company from the ground up, which taught me, among other things, to think creatively about ways to get attention for books when you’re competing against other books' huge marketing budgets. From 2013-2017 I worked as a consultant, with writers and artists and people who just love children’s books as much as I do. I’ve kept that work up as I took a role at Holiday House Books for Young Readers as their backlist and special projects editor. I continue to acquire and work on terrific books, including the recent debut title Itch by Polly Farquhar, which has received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist.
My philosophy
These days the rate of change in our industry is dizzying, from audio book sales really starting to climb to the uncertainty brought by our global pandemic. We hear things like “YA is getting cold, but middle grade is heating up.” Staying on top of everything when the world is in such flux is a challenge, but some things in our industry are constant and will never change: the demand for the very best writing and artwork that show something personal from a child’s world. Trends or no trends, this is, in fact, what every publisher is looking for.