Alexandra Dram Tătaru is Copyright Manager at Litera Publishing House. She studied comparative literature at the University of Bucharest and she holds a Master’s degree in Communication. She has been working in the publishing field since 2008, and during this time she has perfected her skills of spotting a good and well-selling book. Her working day is divided between books, people and excel tables, and she keeps all of them together with a great passion for what she does.
You have been working in copyright for many years, and you have been part of Litera’s team for 11 years. What were your first experiences like and how did you come to work at Litera?
Cristina Vidrașcu, Litera’s editorial director, was looking for an assistant in 2010, and I was lucky enough to be recommended to her. Before that, I had worked at two smaller publishing houses, one year at each of them. Both were valuable experiences, which I cherish; thanks to them, I laid the foundations upon which I later improved myself at Litera. I met a lot of people in the field, I got familiar with the procedures, I had the chance to do a little bit of everything (copy editing, secretariat, editorial tasks, copyright – the way it happens, I believe, in all small publishing houses) and this offered me a larger background, more reference points, but, most importantly, the certainty that this was what I wanted to do. Copyright is definitely what fits me best, because of the dynamism and the complexity of this type of work, and I can only thank Cristina and Dan Vidrașcu for believing in me (even after I spilled coffee on a binder with contracts, on my first day of work at Litera, or after we lost a book we wanted because I had missed a deadline) and for offering me the opportunity to learn so much from them. After two years, I was promoted as a director, and we have been working together ever since.
For a few years now, Litera has ranked at the top of the Romanian publishing houses when it comes to turnover and profit. I think that behind all of this there is a great amount of work and a fast-paced rhythm. What does your working day look like, seeing as you are in charge of the source material of the publishing house – the new titles to be translated and published?
Indeed, for the last nine years, without interruption, Litera has been the leading publishing house in the Romanian book market, and this is an extraordinary achievement. The workload is a heavy one, because, besides our current plan, new ideas and projects always come up. But the great advantage is that the internal workload is well organized, we work with an embedded task manager program, in order to be able to easily track the daily tasks and the deadlines. My working day is usually divided between e-mails, phone calls, discussions with my team and meetings. The copyright department is probably the most dynamic in any publishing house – every day brings new books and challenges, decisions to make and negotiations to conduct. An important part of my job is represented by analysing sales and observing international or local trends, in order to find the best solutions for the necessities of our editorial plan. I regularly participate in the sales meetings, where we analyse what works and what doesn’t, I present the books and the new editorial projects to my colleagues, I offer support in the editorial process, helped by my colleagues from the Copyright department (providing manuscripts for editing and files for the layout, obtaining approvals requested through contracts), I manage the communication flow for our international licenses division and the external payments. Last but not least, I conduct the negotiations for the books we wish to buy and I maintain communication with the agents and the scouts we collaborate with. When it comes to communication, I would also like to mention the discussions with many of Litera’s authors – I am always honoured and surprised by how modest these people we always see in the international sales charts are. Over the years I have corresponded with Rumaan Alam (author of Leave the World Behind), Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient and The Maidens) or Ashley Audrain (The Push) and I have even exchanged WhatsApp messages with Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt) – I did not have her phone number and I must say that I dropped my phone when I recognized her in the photo. We publish over 1000 titles yearly, in more than 50 imprints and collections, so the switch from one literary style to another, or from one offer to another leaves no room for routine or boredom. Which is great for me.
You probably receive more than a dozen new titles every day. Do you manage to go through all of them? How do you make sure you don’t miss any of the titles which could become a bestseller?
Yes, that is true, we receive a lot of proposals for new titles, either from scouts, or from literary agents. Now, more than ever, I feel that the market has become very complex and very competitive, and this can only make me happy, I consider it a sign of growth. Compared to previous years, the Romanian publishing houses are a lot more willing to bring their best assets when it comes to negotiating (from marketing presentations to writing ”love letters” to authors and even to advances which, four or five years ago, would have seemed absolutely impossible to me). Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, finding a bestseller is not an exact science. If it were, we would surely see more books in the charts, and our work would be infinitely easier. To my mind, the key to a successful selection lies in the experience of the publishing house, in a good knowledge of the market and of the sales in that specific category, and, of course, in the mastery of those who decide to buy the translation rights. Subjectivity, however, is a much less important selection factor than people might think. Another very important aspect in recent years is the fact that the acquisition is made in much earlier stages than before. If in the previous years the translation rights for Romanian were bought only after the value of the books was internationally validated (through figures of the sold copies, awards, ratings, rankings in professional charts), now, most of the successful titles are bought based on proposals, not manuscripts, up to even two to three years before the release of the original edition. That was how, for instance, when Litera released The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, one of our current bestsellers, the Romanian release date coincided with the release date in 42 other countries. It was an absolute record at that moment, but it created a pattern I have seen repeated many times since then, and which I believe will become even more present from now on. Obviously, the risk is much greater in this sort of situation (I have had the experience, and not just once, to see ”the Book of the Frankfurt Book Fair” completely disappear off the radar until the actual release date), but the satisfaction is infinitely more pleasant. Realistically, one can never know in advance which book will become a bestseller (I have had multiple surprises, from both ways – books in which I put my whole faith did not sell as well as expected, or, on the contrary, books about which we believed had limited perspectives became hits). You can only hope that you did your job well and that your results will repay your efforts and your expectations. As for the processed amount of information (e-mails, presentations for new titles, pitches), it is huge, especially for such a big publishing house like Litera, which covers all fields. I try to go through all the presentations, but I don’t always manage to do it. In those cases, I can count on the very good communication with the agents, the co-agents and the scouts, who, knowing our profile really well, point out for us the titles we should analyse as a priority. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them all publicly!
Who chooses the titles which will be published and how does this selection take place?
The selection process in extremely important, actually, one of the most important in the whole publishing process. In most cases, the decisions are a result of the meetings with our managing director, Dan Vidrașcu, and with our editorial director, Cristina Vidrașcu. During those meetings, I gather their and my suggestions, the titles we need to analyse, the decisions we need to make; I prepare the sale reports or any other type of information I consider necessary. For books like those in our history or psychology collections we reach out to consultants or reviewers, who send us their feedback on the materials. Last but not least, we frequently receive suggestions from colleagues, from coordinating editors or even from translators. For children’s books, especially those which require a license (Disney, Masha and the Bear, My Little Pony, Paw Patrol), our children’s books department director plays an important role.
Did it ever happen to you to strongly believe in a title and not give up until you had convinced the team to publish it?
Absolutely, I strongly believe in all the books I suggest. I admit that my colleagues often find my kind of enthusiasm amusing. I am happy to discover new books, I love following their journey, from manuscript to international release, I like to see beautiful covers and appreciative reviews. But I can’t really remember books in which I really believed and for which I did not send offers. This probably happens because we have been working together for a long time, we are acquainted with each other’s taste and we trust each other’s opinions. We discuss and we bring arguments, we place all the information in the right context, in order to finally come to an agreement.
Litera Publishing House publishes books from various domains. What are the criteria based on which the titles you will analyse are chosen and what are the ingredients of the winning titles, those which will become part of the portfolio?
The criteria differ from one collection to another. We cannot apply one universal standard to all the titles we analyse, because each collection or imprint has its own approach. For the contemporary classics fiction collection, for instance, the literary awards are an important criterion. Our portfolio includes laureates of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Man Booker, Goncourt, Pulitzer, and we see the impact of those titles in real time, in sales. For the commercial fiction collections (Buzz Books and Bluemoon), what is essential is the number of territories in which the book is sold, whether the motion picture rights are sold or not, the Amazon or Goodreads ratings. In our history and psychology collections we try to include the most scientifically relevant books For children’s books, we wish to cover a wide range of categories and collections, so diversity is a key-factor. Leaving aside the limitations of each collection, the quality standard is our main concern. We are always happy to interact with our readers, we enjoy that there is an active community who appreciate our collections (which became even more visible once our online sales increased), that many of them collect our books, that they trust our taste, but this also creates an acute feeling of responsibility. The more people we reach with our books, the more important it is for us to become even better when choosing them, exactly because we do not wish to disappoint our readers.
Are there any differences in your approach to adult books, compared to children’s books?
Of course there are. From the technical details, such as separately dealing with the illustration rights, to the advance we pay, or to the fact that for children’s books I usually send offers for a bundle of titles, and not for one single title. As for the licenses for children’s books, negotiation even has its own special status (listing in the licenser’s system, publishing and printing approval, general plan confirmation and financialforecast). Even so, the balance between children’s books and adult books is approximately equal in our catalogue and, beyond the technicalcomponent, things are essentially the same and they have the same purpose: signing the contract which brings that specific book in our editorial plan.
Your portfolio contains some of the best known brands and licenses, from Disney, to the obsession of our family, Paw Patrol, Masha and the Bear, and many others. How do you negotiate, and how do you maintain such a license, from the point of view of the Copyright department?
I admit that obtaining, but most of all maintaining the international licenses in Litera’s portfolio are daily challenges. Not only for me, but for all of my colleagues who work with big brands – from the Editorial department colleagues who struggle with the dozens of approvals necessary for each title; to the Reports department colleagues, who prepare the sale reports once every three months; from the Marketing colleagues, who challenge their creativity daily in order to keep up with the news; to those from Sales, who analyse the demand and constantly sell new projects to distributors and, of course, to the colleagues from Production, who must obtain approvals for each printing press, according to the most rigorous standards. In for me, the first license contract I negotiated was with Disney, in 2011 – there were long and complicated discussions led by Dan Vidrașcu, but we finally managed to sign a project of 24 Disney Classics volumes for the Republic of Moldova. It was a shy but confident start, especially if you take into consideration that, in the meantime, we have become Disney licensees for Romania, that we launched Disney projects in Georgia, that we added new licenses every year in the last five years and that we published almost 1000 books under international license. For me, apart from the constant communication with the regional directors, the representatives of each license, this part of my job includes weekly e-mails, monthly conferences, progress reports on a quarterly basis, business plans validation, biannual meetings, catalogue analysis. In short, together with the editorial director, I represent the interface between Litera and each licensor.
I think that many of Litera’s bestsellers were obtained after harsh auctions. Do you have a top three of some of the bloodiest auction battles?
Perfectly true. It is supposed to be like that, good books attract publishing houses’ attention like a magnet. I would like to mention Think like a Monk by Jay Shetty, for which six or seven Romanian publishing houses bid during the auction, for which we had to send not less than three cover letters and for which we offered a very high advance in the final round. I believe you can imagine how happy we are now, when we see that this title became one of the best sold Litera titles from the past two years. Oded Galor is in a similar situation, and you will find out about him soon, because I’m sure that The Journey of Humanity will become next year’s hit. The author is one of Israel’s most renowned economists, the book was sold solely based on 10 proposal pages in over 30 countries, and the editor of the original edition is Yuval Harari’s editor. It has every chance to become a real success and we are incredibly happy that we managed to bring it into our portfolio. I cannot complete the list without mentioning Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs , one of the major books of 2021, the subject of a fierce auction from last year and a fabulous book, which I have read in one sitting, over the course of one night. After all, it is certainly not endorsed by Haruki Murakami for nothing…
Which are the competitive advantages of Litera Publishing House when it comes to such auctions?
Experience, its portfolio, and the original marketing strategies. Already having such a long backlist, consolidated over more than 30 years, covering such a wide range of genres and authors, not to mention our relations and our history with the biggest foreign publishing houses, it is relatively easy, or let’s say at hand, for Litera to prove to any author that it can be the best house for them in the territory.
What is the title you managed to obtain for Litera and you are most proud of?
There are a lot of books I am proud of which were published at Litera. The Child in You by Stefanie Stahl is a phenomenal book,, Becoming by Michelle Obama was a surprise-book for us, with record sales, and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is my all-time favourite book.
What does a bestseller mean for Litera? How many figures should it sell?
Much like the selection criteria and the sales analysis, our main reference point is the collection that specific book belongs to. For literary fiction, the books which sell over 10.000 copies are considered bestsellers, while for commercial fiction, the standards are much higher: over 30.000 copies. Some of this year’s examples (mixed genres) include: Apeirogon by Colum McCann, Mischling by Affinity Konar, Konar, The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah or Pământul făgăduinței by Barack Obama.
I suppose you also have longsellers. What should the journey of such a book look like in order to call it a longseller and which are the best titles when it comes to longsellers?
Of course, Litera even has a special imprint created for longsellers – Carte pentru toți (Books for all). The best sold books of our portfolio are published in a pocket edition, fiction or nonfiction, moderns or classics, after one or two years from their initial release. It is a common practice in foreign publishing houses and, on the backdrop of the constant growth of the number of titles from this imprint, we see increasingly better results. Among the best sold authors, I would like to mention: Alice Munro, Svetlana Aleksievici, Donna Tartt, Yaa Gyasi, Zadie Smith, John Steinbeck, Karl Ove Knausgård, Atul Gawande, Ian Kershaw, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Erik Larson or Bob Woodward.
Which departments of the publishing house do you work with the most and what do these collaborations look like?
By the nature of its business, Copyright department interacts with absolutely all the publishing house’s departments. We make sure our Editorial colleagues receive the manuscripts and files in due time; we send those from Production the technical specifications of the books; we update our Marketing and Sales colleagues with the necessary information and materials and we discuss their suggestions for the promotion and distribution of the books; together with the Projects department we discuss the list of books scheduled for distribution, and with those from Accounting we keep track of the situation of our bills and payments. Moreover, I communicate with the general managing board on a daily basis, in order to establish our short-term strategies and our medium-term goals. Copyright is a dynamic department, situated at the junction off almost all the other offices. I admit that one of the biggest privileges of working at Litera is stability. With very few exceptions, most of the coordinating editors or department heads have been here ever since I joined the team – such a close-knit and welded collective can only be the result of a fair and open managing system, which I greatly appreciate and which we cherish every single day.
A copyright director’s job description also includes participation at the international book fairs. Do you still remember your first experience of this kind? How have things changed since then?
My first international book fair participation was at Frankfurt in 2008, together with the director of the first publishing house I worked at. I had just been hired and I must admit that I could not make much sense of the experience back then... However, the fascination with the immensity of the industry I had just stepped into has stayed with me ever since. At that book fair I only had a few meetings and I remember that I even had time for shopping (people who attend book fairs know that this is an impossible dream). Things have radically changed at Litera, where we are four or five people who attend the fairs, where we all have back-to-back meetings, from dusk till dawn. It is indeed much more intense work, but the satisfaction is proportionally bigger. From year to year I have come to meet most of our foreign partners – the meetings from the book fairs actually materialize a whole year of e-mail conversations, and the feeling you have is hard to describe. Even though during the pandemic the industry has found solutions in order to make up for the absence of book fairs, by moving the meetings online, I believe that the lack of direct interaction deprives the experience of a book fair of its very essence. The discussions, the negotiations and the preempt offers made on the spot during a meeting provide enough adrenaline for ten other offers sent via e-mail. I believe it is clear that I can’t wait for the next book fair, whenever it will come. Maybe in London, next year...
Do you have any pleasant or less pleasant memories which have stayed with you after one particular book fair?
Every year in the last ten years I participated at all three yearly international book fairs (Frakfurt, London and Bologna) and, of course, I gathered many beautiful memories. Offers sent and books bought during meetings, dinners with authors I admire, walks among hundreds of book stands and thousands of books, the Bologna ice cream; these are some of the beautiful things I cherish and which have stuck with me. I cannot forget Markus Dohle’s speech snippet from the Penguin Random House stand, which I heard at random, which struck me and which charmed me with its simplicity and with its message (in that black tie crowd from the PRH stand, there he was, the CEO of the biggest publishing house in the world, wearing jeans and a jacket, climbed on top of a table, holding a beer bottle, congratulating his colleagues for a successful book fair). Once again proof of the fact that the book market and its protagonists are sometimes wonderfully unpredictable.
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. But who are a copyright director’s best friends?
Unfortunately , my “friends” from Litera do not really belong to the material plane of existence. Even though I’d love it, there is no magic wand for me to use in order to bring all the books we wish to have in our portfolio, to win all the auctions we participate in or to bring to a good end all the projects I’m involved in. But if I were to make a top 3 of the tools which are useful to me, I’d mention, in order of importance: vision, diplomacy and perseverance. I believe it is extremely important for a Copyright director to be anchored in what it is that they are doing, to have a very good knowledge of the book market, to simultaneously cultivate and maintain quality relations with the partners, and to have negotiation skills. I have met incredible people during these years, people who have shaped my progress and to whom I am deeply grateful for giving me the opportunity to learn from them (colleagues, agents, editors).
And perseverance is, once again, an absolutely And perseverance is, once again, an absolutely
And what is troublesome for a copyright director?
I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as troublesome, but I definitely do not enjoy losing books and auctions. I suffer profoundly every single time, I worry, I question myself, I try to find answers. However, I believe that this is the best indicator for how much I actually love what I do.
If, by some miracle, the day had 4-5 more hours, which would be your perfect relaxation combo?
I would read more, because, apart from reading for the publishing house, I am an avid reader. Besides this, I would like to spend more time playing with Ilinca, my little girl. (Translated into English by Irina-Adelina Găinușă)
