An Interview with Etta Wilson

I’m always a bit sad when someone I know professionally moves on to other things. But in this case, it’s hard to be sad to see Etta Wilson retire. She will now have time to read more, spend time with the grandkids, and perhaps travel. So today I want to take a few minutes and get a last interview with Etta.

Etta has had a wonderful career in books. I met her when she was the editor for the late Jane Peart, a friend of mine. More recently Etta has been one of the excellent agents at Books & Such, specializing in representing children’s book authors. But let’s let Etta speak for herself.

Nick: Etta, you’re a veteran of the publishing industry and are now looking forward to retirement. Tell us first how you came to love books. Were your parents readers?

Etta: My grandmother read nursery rhyme books to me in the preschool years (I have still have those!), and my mother, a teacher, always encouraged reading While in college, I met my husband through a query about the library’s location, and books and reading became an important part of our lives while he was in seminary. Now our collection is like a group of old friends and it keeps growing!

Nick: What were some of your favorites as a child?

Etta: To quote Katherine Paterson, “I feel like an archaeologist as I try to reconstruct the books that shaped me.” But I have to mention the Beatrix Potter books, A Girl of the Limberlost, The Secret Garden, The Yearling, and Aesop’s Fables. I remember reading a lot of the Bible but not from a story book.

Nick: What led you into publishing?

Etta: Purely grace! I was doing free lance work on a Strong’s Concordance rush project one summer at Thomas Nelson and they asked me to take an editor’s position in the trade books department. My very first assignment was editing Ten Fingers for God, a biography of the great leprosy healer Dr. Paul Brand, by Dorothy Clarke Wilson (no relation). I was hooked.

Nick: I’m not going to ask you the expected “how has publishing changed since you began?” question, but since you’ve most recently been interested in representing children’s book authors, how has publishing to children changed? This question comes as I recently re-read the Little House books and wondered if they could be published in their present form today. I also was browsing on Amazon and looked up another favorite series of mine, the All-of-a-Kind-Family books by Sydney Taylor. It seems to me books like those are harder to find a publishing home today. Have you found that to be true?

Etta: Absolutely. I think children’s books are caught in the midst of a cultural storm. We’ve had so many changes in parenting roles, in rising costs of color printing, in technological development for dissemination of content, ie., computer, smart phones, etc. The one area of books for children that’s doing well is teen books and many of their sales are to young adults, not children or young teens. I think that speaks to two things–the lower educational and reading levels in the US, the general lack of sensitivity to what’s beneficial for children and teens to read, and the elevation of entertainment as a goal as opposed to the development of moral values. It’s very hard now to sell a manuscript of the Little House type, but the ongoing recession may open some doors and help publishers be more willing to take risks.

Nick: It seems like only a couple of decades ago there were far more children’s books being published in CBA. My daughters grew up with the Elizabeth Gail books by Hilda Stahl and The Peppermint Gang books by Laurie Clifford. Have CBA publishers stepped back from publishing widely to the up and coming generation of Christians?

Etta: Yes and no. If you’re talking about publishers with denominational ties or strong church affiliation, they have generally stopped publishing children’s books for the trade, such as the titles you mention above, but increased their publishing of children’s curriculum. If it’s done right, curriculum may be exactly what’s most needed now. Other CBA publishers have either stopped publishing for children altogether or they publish books for children written by authors who already have a large following in the adult market. The decline of the Christian bookstore and hand-to-hand selling is also a factor. Consumers buying for children off an Internet site may have a hard time knowing the reality of the product. Some sites can be trusted such as Karyn Henley’s.

Nick: What advice do you have for Christian authors who have a passion to write books for children?

Etta: Write them! And look for possibilities to work with another person or entity that combines personal selling with online selling. We never know what God has in store.

Nick: Who are some of the authors you’ve had a close working relationship with? Any special memorable stories you’re at liberty to share about a particular book or author you worked with?

Etta: Here’s just one–While an editor at Abingdon, I went to the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, Italy, and bought the US rights for Mem Fox’s classic Possum Magic It was her first book to be distributed here, and is still distributed. She later came to Nashville and wrote another book for me, With Love, at Christmas. It has been wonderful to see her many books published in the US since then and to hear her strong advocacy for children’s literacy. Before moving to Australia, Mem’s parents were missionaries in Africa, and some of that early influence is evident in her books.

Nick: It’s surely disappointing to see high quality manuscripts for which you know there will be no home. How have you handled disappointments when an author you dearly love is hard to place?

Etta: First of all, I never know there will be no home for a high quality ms. I’ve certainly been discouraged by repeated declines, but what won’t sell today may sell next year when a new publisher opens up. I’ve often said that publishing is providential, ( I’ve also said it’s a crap shoot) so we never know what’s coming down the pike. When an author’s work is declined, I encourage him/her to write in other genres and attend conferences to look for other possibilities. Recently I’ve tried to convince them that it’s absolutely necessary to have a web site and become Internet savvy.

Nick: If you had one wish for the future of CBA publishing what would it be?

Etta: That we could more creatively combine the unchanging truth of the Gospel and its efficacy for the needs of our rapidly changing culture. Here at Christmas I’m struck by children’s lack of understanding about shepherds, the first to see the star and follow it to God’s Son.

Nick: What are your retirement plans?

Etta: Relearning the piano, fuller attention to my church responsibilities and my grandsons, travel in the US, some writing, and reading, reading, reading!

Nick: What will you miss most?

Etta: I’ll miss all my wonderful clients, the connections with so many publishers, and my dear friends at Books & Such. They have all been much like family.

Nick: Thanks, Etta, and enjoy your retirement!

Folks, I’m still working on a surprise I hope to announce in the next week or so. Stay tuned!