By Riley Kane
The annual Savannah Book Festival hosted Emily Bestler at the Jepson-Neises Auditorium, Feb. 15. Prior to being the Executive Editorial Director at Altria/Pocket Books, Bestler was a Senior Editor at Random House. Jack Romanos, former CEO of Simon and Schuster and Savannah Book Festival Chair, joined her discussion.
Bestler fancies herself a “talent spotter” who is driven to finding superstars. She works closely with all her clients and attributes them more as friends than anything else. “I want to come in and make sure that everything that can possibly happen with my authors and my books does happen,” Bestler said. “They’re my babies and I want them to go out there in the world and succeed.”
Success is a two-way street in this case. She can’t simply read a pitch and know exactly that she’s struck gold. “If it’s an author that I’ve been publishing, I don’t have to [read]. I know he can write. It’s one thing to write a book, but if you can’t revise it, that’s a big problem,” Bestler said.
Her track record included picking up Diane Sutterfield’s “The Thirteenth Tale,” Vince Flynn’s “Mitch Rapp” series, Brad Thor “Backlash” and Terry Hayes’ “I Am Pilgrim.” It all came from a good feeling she had, an intuition. Bestler hypothesizes that if she likes a book, other people will like it too, and so far that’s worked.
Playfully jabbing, she admitted that some of her colleagues took years to revise a manuscript to its best form. “The Thirteenth Tale” specifically went on to become a best seller in its first week, but it took Setterfield thirteen years to write her second book, “Once Upon a River.”
Bestler took six months to read Brad Thor’s manuscript because she shelved it. Now, as of this year, he’s sold over 12 million copies cumulatively. If she had never given Thor the time of day, he might have been lost to the world forever.
“Each success that I do have is my most current and biggest success,” Bestler said. “It’s a tough business because when something good happens, I run with that happiness. It might be a desert for the next few months, but I’m very proud of all my authors.”
At the end of the conference, she stopped the whole room dead silent with a warm invitation. “Oh yes. Anybody who is a want-to-be, hopeful writer, please feel free to ask me for my email. I really am always happy,” Bestler said.
Emily Bestler Books is a small subsection of Simon and Schuster and Altria Books. They’ve published all the authors previously mentioned and continue seeking talent through new and upcoming authors.
