Virginia Lupulescu is editorial coordinator at Trei Publishing Group. She founded BookMag Cultural Association, where she writes about books and the people who make them. She worked at Mediafax, she was editor-in-chief at The One and at The New York Times Book Review, the Romanian edition. She translates from English and French, she designs editorial plans, she copy edits, organizes and hosts literary events and much more. In other words, she binds all the strings of a book in a knot. And she also has a magic wand which helps her doing all these in just 24 hours.
You’re always up to date with the latest editorial releases from almost all around the world. What’s the most beautiful book in the world? In the last few months, so as not to make the answer impossible.
An extremely hard question right from the beginning:). The answer really is impossible, because every time I find a book that I like very much it won’t take more than a few days until a new favorite appears. Besides the fact that it’s very hard to choose a “the most beautiful book in the world”, I don’t even know if I could ever do that. In love with books the way I am, I think I would wrong many by choosing only one.
You’ve been an editorial coordinator for seven years within the Trei Editorial Group. What does a normal workday look like?
I was an editorial coordinator at the beginning, but every year new and diverse other tasks taskwould pile up, so today I’m kind of a jack-of-all-trades in publishing,whose job description is long, but that can’t be reflected in a title or position in our organigram. Let me explain: tasks (aka human that reads endless manuscripts and picks the ones that will be translated, drafts, translates and coordinates collections, selects Romanian authors) I have piled up coordinating online communication, online marketing, point of contact for the IT company, site optimization, and, most recently, developing eBook and audiobook verticals. My day should be 80 hours long
You copy edit books in translation, but you are in charge of Romanian volumes as well. Is it more difficult to persuade Romanian writers to accept changes to their texts?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think I have a personalized way of working with every author I brought in Trei’s portfolio. For example, with Raluca Feher I have a draft reading, I give her feedback, then she returns with the final version. With Camelia Cavadia I see the manuscript in its intermediate phases too. With Liviu Iancu – whom I miss deeply and still don’t understand why he left – I negotiated to the core the removal of a few tens of pages. In the end I won and he liked the final version too.
Has it ever happened to you not to manage in any way to agree with an author on a version or another of a book?
No, never. And I promised myself that if I get in such a stalemate, there is no point for me to insist. The author and the editor are in the service of the book, therefore they must always be on the same page. :)
Many Romanian authors published by Trei are people with solid careers in various domains, but the readers recognize them now as writers. Do they come to you or do you offer them the opportunity to publish?
All of them came to us, they discovered and approached us, we didn’t recruit anybody. On one hand, our list of Romanian authors is expanding, I think they thought they’d have more chances with us – and some of them weren’t wrong. On the other hand, the solid history of the publishing house inspires them safety. It has happened that we rejected manuscripts that didn’t suit our editorial spirit.
Do you have any memorable story with such a writer that debuted with your publishing house and you had to teach them how to be a writer?
I have stories with each of them. Practically, every one of them learnt how to behave, as a writer, in front of their audience. Many of them got over their stage fright – speaking in public is extremely overwhelming, especially at the launch. Camelia Cavadia was shaking out of her shoes at her first launch, she was extremely, extremely nervous. Liviu Iancu was so stressed at the thought of being in front of tens of people that he was bouncing his leg like a rabbit. Most of them are overtaken by fear before appearing in public, so they need encouragement and to be reassured that they wrote a good book which the readers will love. After this launching moment, some authors discovered that they’re very fond of the interaction with the readers, so they continue to cultivate it online and offline.
You met many foreign writers who came to Romania to promote their books. Did you notice any difference in their way of being writers, as compared to the behaviour of the Romanian ones?
Oh, yes! And I include here all the foreign authors and all the Romanian ones I’ve ever met. The foreign ones have a detachment, an inner peace; they’re more communicative and cooperative. The Romanian ones, on the other hand, especially the ones having their debut, I think are drained by the creative effort and the publishing attempts, so in the beginning they’re not that malleable, especially in the communication zone. When a title comes out we’re engaging alongside the author to advertise, launch and promote the book. Some Romanian authors are thawing slower, others are convinced their bid is the fairest of them all… we try to make everyone happy, but we don’t succeed all the time.
Having a large variety of domains that you’re publishing, you’re addressing a vast audience. What category of readers is the most loyal?
Psychology books readers, for sure. Because that category partially consists of professionals that are continuously informing themselves, but also of a segment of general public that is constantly working on themselves. The next one would be the fiction audience and the children’s book audience.
And what are the tools used to secure customer loyalty, be it for fiction, nonfiction, children’s books and so on?
The continuous interaction with the readers, online and offline. Because the pandemic kind of moved us online, we were more present in the communities of readers, social media and in book clubs. Discussions on books, special offers and online events.
The most visible form of loyalty on behalf of the readers is the book acquisition. Of as many books as possible. What is for Trei Editorial Group, bestseller?
It depends. It can mean tens of thousands of copies sold, if we’re talking about an international bestseller translated into Romanian, like E.L. James. Or maybe over ten thousands of copies sold, if we’re talking about a Romanian author having their debut.
The ideal of every editor is, probably, to have a catalogue of bestsellers table. How do you “smell” success when you have in front of you only a manuscript? What are your criteria for selecting a text and suggesting it for publication?
First things first, I follow the story – if it holds from the first to the last page. It cannot have fillers, empty chapters, the rhythm has to be constant, the tension – if it’s a thriller, to be relatively steady. It cannot be too cheesyor too gory either,neither mellow, nor rushed. Then I try to find similar titles that we’ve published to have an idea how large the target Romanian audience would be. International prizes do count, in how many territories it got before buzz-ul din online.
Has it ever happened to lose such a gamble? Or the other way around, for a book to surpass your expectations?
Yes, and not only once. Because our audience is not necessarily loyal, it’s pretty hard to guess its literary taste. There are foreign authors who are a sensation abroad, but not here – J.K. Rowling, for example, with Casual Vacancy. Or Pierre Lemaitre, with the trilogy Au revoir la-haut. Talking about surpassed expectations – the After series by Anna Todd, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins... and the list could go on.
Besides the traditional launching or promoting events, you had the courage to organize more unusual campaigns. One I can think of the launch of the volume Xanax by Liviu Iancu, which took place on a plane to Tunisia. How do you manage to align the planets so that this kind of things can happen? How do you get authors to agree, the publishing house team to get involved and, most of all, the necessary budget?
That was about a fortunate encounter between an author willing to put all his energy at the disposal of the book and an editor who made the same promise. With Xanax we had a national launching tour too, in partnership with Humanitas Bookshops, as well as other atypical events, such as a launching at 5 am on the Mamaia beach within a charitable marathon. Practically, Liviu came with his relations, friendships, acquaintances; he made use of his entire arsenal. The Tunisian launch is Raluca Hatmanu’s idea; Liviu’s girlfriend – back then she worked at Christian Tour and organized a press trip to Tunisia. She was looking for something to spice up the trip and then it came the idea of a book launch at 11.000 meters altitude. It was such a great success that we regretted not bringing books to sell on the plane.
Each title of a Romanian author has a certain promoting budged. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to find sponsors or partners willing to help us and that’s how we get to do extraordinary things.
Since we mentioned other types of promotion, I remember your pictures on Facebook where you were in schools, talking to the pupils about the Who? What? Where?. What are the short and long term effects of these meetings from the publishing house’s point of view?
I think on short term I enjoyed – and I hope I will again – some great encounters with the children. During the Săptămâna Altfel [a week of alternative educational projects at school] I could have even 3 or 4 such meetings in a day, it was exhausting, but so cool! And on long term I hope to have gained some readers.
But from the children’s point of view, considering you have yourself a son around that age?
How did you befriend your son with books? I’ve seen on Facebook that he’s an avid reader.
Books were a part of his life from the first day. He was surrounded by books. First we were just looking at the illustrations and I would tell him a bit of this, a bit of that. Then, intuitively, he began to recognize the letters, he had a magnetic game with letters. After that he would put together words and that’s how, at 3 and a half years old, he could read small texts. At 5, before starting the prepping in kindergarden, he read cursively. Then he started to read in English and for a couple of years he’s been picking his own readings. I don’t know how big my contribution was and how big his native predisposition to reading.
Children are thrilled when getting closer to books, to stories. It would help them very much if schools and curricula offered them better exposure to contemporary Romanian authors and translated contemporary authors. Yes, I know we have our own literature, but diversity is important and equally important is that encounter between the reader and the story. I would recommend, for the primary cycle, a thematic instead of certain titles.
You were saying in an interview a couple of years ago that teachers and parents should encourage children’s interaction with technology, staking on the fact that reading is not at the opposite pole of the online and devices,but that they can become complementary experiences. What are the directions that the Trei Editorial Group follows in this regard?
We’re working tirelessly on consolidating the eBooks and audiobooks offers. The pandemic has led us in this direction, somehow, and I think it’s very good that is happening to us.
What about yours as a parent?
My son has a different way of learning than the traditional school, after the British syllabus, 1 on 1 with the teachers, online. So his environment is pretty technologized. But that doesn’t mean he’s not reading books in classic format anymore. He takes what he needs from where’s more at hand.
For over 10 years you’ve been coordinating and writing on BookMag, a site about books, writers and the space between them. How did you initiate the project and how do you find time and energy resources to still tend to it?
It was born out of the desire to bring quality cultural information, interviews with consecrated or debutant authors and reviews. I was coming after an idyllic time at [The New York Times] Book Review and I felt the need of some of the joy I had then. I had finished to bring around elefant.ro and I had had some extra free time JI haven’t had energy and time for a while now, I’ve been posting pretty seldom, but this spring came with the decision of reviving bookmag.eu and giving it a new face.
You coordinate fiction collections for adults and for children, you edit books, you get involved in promotion events, you write about books and authors. Which one of these activities offers you the biggest satisfaction?
Actually, this combination is what inspires and motivates me. I have volunteering activities too, I help as much as I can friends who need ideas and help with small communication projects, I try to be an okay mom for my teenage son.
And which one represents the biggest challenge?
There aren’t really any challenges. There are just too few hours in a day and situations whose solutions are a little bit harder to find. But they always come.
What advice would you give to high school and university students who’d want to work in the editorial field? How should they prepare?
Read, read, read, read. Have a solid general knowledge. Listen to music, watch films. Don’t judge in black and white, look for the rainbow between them. Try your hand at translations, and then keep a diary. You must be capable of expressing yourself in multiple registers when you’re working at a publishing house.
And if you were to look for a new colleague at the publishing house, what would your first three requests be?
I’d have a long list… but the first three would be educated, honest, involved.
You were talking in an interview about how the Romanian teacher in high school would ask you to read a book every week and debate the development of the characters. How did you perceive your professional future at that moment and how much of that came true?
At that time I think I was seeing myself doing something else every week. My Romanian teacher saw me as a teacher and to this day she reproaches me for not becoming one. But she’s still proud of me J. At the end of high school I wanted to be a lawyer, so I applied to Law School. I started working for the press from the first year, so I would make a living out of writing, the way my Romanian teacher had told me. Because I was working at the Court news department, I soon realized that I couldn’t be a lawyer. Or a judge, a prosecutor or a notary. After three years I got into the Culture section and from that moment on my future career began to become clear. Practically, it happened what it meant to happen, but on a slightly detoured way.
And if you were to recommend teenage Virginia a book from now, what would that be?
I’d tell her to read Seneca, the Sufis and to learn to be more patient with herself. (Translated into English by Silvia Codescu)
