Hi everyone, and today on the blog, I’m delighted to welcome Katherine Armstrong. Katherine is the Deputy Publishing Director for Simon Schuster, with a focus on crime and thriller novels. I was delighted when she agreed to answer a few questions.
Over to you, Katherine…
1) Have you always wanted to work in publishing crime fiction and what first attracted you to it?
I’ve always loved crime fiction from when I was a kid. I loved Nancy Drew, the Famous Five and my gran introduced me to Agatha Christie when I was about 9 or 10. I love trying to work out the clues and unravelling the mystery of whodunnit and why! When I considered publishing as a career – which wasn’t until I was in my third year at university – I studied English Literature at Queen’s University, Belfast – I thought it would be great to be a crime fiction editor, but I didn’t think it would be possible for me. I didn’t know anyone in publishing; I lived in Northern Ireland so there wasn’t much of a publishing scene in order to get work experience and I wasn’t sure how to break into the industry. Most of the people I grew up with became teachers and my friends’ parents were all roofers, dentists, secretaries etc. I decided to apply for an MPhil in publishing studies at the University of Stirling, so that I could gain oversight of the different departments within publishing – editorial. Sale, marketing, publicity, production etc. – but it was editorial that I specifically wanted to get into. I wanted to be able to find and work with authors on the books and the genre that I loved. Mydissertation was on female crime writers and their influence on the publishing industry in the UK and the US. A lot of the crime novels I was reading were written by female writers, and I was interested in how crime fiction had developed from Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle to the modern day (this was the early noughties). I was able to concentrate on how female crime writers changed the perception of crime fiction. In the US, I focused on Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs and Linda Fairstein and in the UK on PD James, Minette Walters and Ruth Rendall.
After I graduated, I moved to Edinburgh and worked at Waterstones for a year. I tried to get into publishing there, but it was very competitive and hard to break into as it was quite small (there were barely a handful of trade publishers then) and I didn’t know anyone in the industry. I eventually left with the focus of finding an editorial job in publishing, so I moved to London. I managed to get a three-month cover in an admin role at Faber and Faber. I made a point of introducing myself to the Editorial Director there about reading and looked for ways to move into editorial. I was lucky enough to eventually get a six-month editorial assistant role on the poetry list. From there I got a permanent job, and I worked across poetry, fiction, non-fiction and crime fiction genres, before specializing solely on crime fiction. I got a great grounding working in admin and I enjoyed every minute of my time there – I eventually left after ten and half years!
2) Over the years that you have worked in publishing, how have you found the change in trends of crime fiction?
Due to the nature of publishing schedules, it often feels like it can be a struggle to jump on the trends! Publishing has always felt cyclical though – what readers crave now is likely to be similar to what they’re looking for again in a few years. Ultimately though, a great book is a great book, and the hope is that even if it’s not ‘trendy’ that it will find its audience – the publishing team just have to keep the faith. Val McDermid said that crime fiction holds a mirror up to society and that’s what the best books do.
Forensic thrillers, for example, really came about in the 1990s (Patricia Cornwell’s debut Postmortem published in 1990), but the advent of DNA analysis in court cases dated back to the 1980s (I think around 1986 but don’t hold me to it!), so writers were exploring what was happening in real life at the time as they continually do, so it feels natural that these big life themes crop up again and again even when certain trends feel like they’ve gone away. Domestic suspense is still around and going strong, and more recently we’ve seen the rise (again!) of the locked room mystery and ‘cosy’ crime. I’m buying books now that won’t publish until 2027 and beyond.
My main concern on reading any submission is: Do I like the book enough to publish it? If you buy a book, you are publishing it anywhere from twelve to eighteen months to two years after you’ve acquired it! One of my first acquisitions at S&S when I joined in 2021 was Jo Collahan’s In the Blink of an Eye, which is about a human police officer and her AI detective partner, but essentially it is about what makes us human. I published the book in 2023, and it landed at the right time.
It went on to win the CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger and the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year; it was also a Between the Covers pick and a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. I’d love to say that I was savvy enough to see the AI boom way back in 2021 (!), but the truth is that it’s a fantastic book, brilliantly written, and it was the right book at the right time; publishing is both luck and taste; and keeping the faith for those books that don’t always hit the way you hope or expect.
3) You edit and publish your own authors, how does your own editing process work?
It’s usually pretty similar per author but I can adapt it depending on an author’s preference. We start with a conversation first. I then edit the manuscript; this starts with a structural edit and then a line edit. I’m looking at what it is that the author is wanting to get across to the reader – what are they saying and how are they saying it? Line edit is then more about dialogue and making sure the language used feels right and authentic to the characters.
I usually do an editorial letter which pulls out the main queries I have; often, too, I send a tracked changes word document highlighting any specific places I have thoughts and/or including line edits. I always give the author time to go through what I’ve done and then we either have a call or, if they’re local, we can meet in person. Sometimes they’re happy to crack on with the edits without a conversation. We usually go back and forth on edits until we’re both happy with the manuscript and then it goes to the freelance copy editor, then back to the author before typesetting.
Once the first pass proofs are done, it gets sent to a freelance proofreader and the author for a final read through. The in-house editor then takes changes and then it goes to print. There are usually a few rounds of page proofs. Copy editors and proofreaders are both fresh pairs of eyes. Sometimes they will pick up something that you and the author haven’t spotted, so they’re very important!
4) What sub genre of a crime novel do you enjoy reading for pleasure, is it different to a manuscript that you are currently working on?
My reading is part work and part pleasure! I enjoy all sorts of crime and thriller fiction. I have a particular soft spot for puzzling, clever crime books, like those written by Anthony Horowitz, or my own author Gareth Rubin, which make me think as well as entertain; I love a blending of the genre – a horror thriller for example – I publish Stuart Neville whose recently published Blood Like Ours is superb – or even a crime-antasy! Earlier this year I published a debut called An Ethical Guide to Murder by an author called Jenny Morris. It’s about a young woman who discovers that she can tell when someone is going to die just by touching them – and that she can take life and give life. When she saves her best friend’s life on a night out, she realises that she can help good people to live, but to do so she has to kill other people, so she creates an ethical guide to murder. But if you had the power over life and death, what would you do and should you be allowed to use it? I think we’re at an exciting time in crime and thriller fiction where anything goes!
5) What do you like a novel to say to you? For example, provoke an emotion or reaction? Or make you think about character or an author’s voice?
I like a novel that draws me in, makes me think about the world in a different way, that perhaps introduces me to a place or a culture that I don’t know about – a novel should entertain and educate subtly. Stories help to bring people together, they help people to understand those who are not the same as themselves, to explore places that they may never go to. At their heart they help us find our empathy and our humanity. I think it was Kofi Annan who said ‘Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope’ – I’d amend that to also say that Literature is a bridge from misery to hope. As C. S. Lewis said: We read to know we are not alone. For crime fiction, what interest’s women in particular, I think, is that it’s a safe way of exploring what’s out there in the world. It shines a light on society; it allows us to look at ourselves and how we would act and react in certain situations.
Novels do educate subtly as well as entertain, you learn a lot about the human condition. You always come away from a book having learnt something new. I look at the book banning that is going on in the US at the moment and I worry about this country. I know so many authors who became writers because of their local libraries, and we are in danger of losing all our libraries due to chronic under funding by successive governments. Seeing the systematic eradication in the US of books by authors of colour, LGTBQIA+ authors and authors who may discuss sex/have sex scenes in their books makes me both angry and worried. If we don’t have the freedom to chose for ourselves what we want to read, we teeter closer to a totalitarian state as seen in Orwell’s 1984! Who do we become as a society if all we have to read are the same ‘safe’ books as proscribed by an homogenized group of government elites?
6) What are you currently looking for as a publishing director, in the crime and thriller market?
It’s very varied to be honest. I read widely within the genre and it depends what comes across my desk!
Something that entertains, that grips me, that keeps me up all night. I love a clever concept crime mystery. I have an author who has a police procedural series set in New Zealand with a female Māori police detective and I love different settings. Ultimately, I’m looking for a good read!
7) Do you have any advice for unpublished authors?
The main thing to remember is that your writing journey is unique to you; you are writing what you write, not what someone else writes. It can be hard when you see other people get the agent and the big deals – we can all feel jealousy – but there are so many different reasons why a book gets picked up and it is all about perseverance. This industry can feel really hard and that can be incredibly frustrating. The thing to remember is that publishing is filled with people who are passionate about stories and about getting stories into the hands of as many people as possible.
I know it’s easier said than done but try not to let rejection get to you. Do make use of every opportunity and take on board any feedback that you get from anyone in the industry. Your book needs to find the right agent and the right editor at the right time. Every rejection, every bit of feedback is a learning experience. As an editor, we get so many books from agents, but if someone has taken the time to give you feedback then listen to what they are saying. You might not agree with it, but they’re not saying it to be mean, they’re saying it because they care enough about your words to give you some advice – and agents and editors are more of an expert than most people. Even if it’s not feedback you want to hear, it’s useful and it is invaluable.
Every author knows what’s going on in their story, but it usually requires an editor to help bring what they have in their head properly on to the page in order to resonate with the reader. I’ve had it a couple of times in my career where I’ve had conversations with authors who know what their story is but who haven’t shown it on the page. If it isn’t clear to me what the book is about, how is the person buying it to going to understand it?!
At the end of the day, if I’ve turned a book down it’s because I don’t feel that I’m the right editor for it and as an author you want an editor – and an agent – who believes in you and your work 100%. I’m working with authors on books for two years or more and I want a long-term relationship with the author, so it has to be a book that really speaks to me.
Most agents and editors are not acquiring just one book, they’re looking to acquire an author to work with for that author’s career, so you have to feel excited about the book – as the editor you are the in-house and external champion for that author and that book up until publication and beyond, so you have to believe in both!
8) And lastly, on a typical weekend, what do you do to relax? What do you enjoy doing outside of your job?
I read non-work related books. I love a pub quiz, I socialise with friends, I love to cook! Most publishers have open plan offices, and it can be hard to concentrate, so a lot of editing and reading is done in your own time at evenings and weekends.
Thank you very much for your time today, Katherine. It has been a pleasure to interview you.
jsclerkauthor.co.uk 