The New York Pitch Conference ended today and Director Michael Neff was right: I did learn a lot.
This morning we did our final pitch to Michaela Hamilton,
Executive and Acquiring Editor at Kensington Publication and Editor-in-Chief of
one of its imprints, Citadel Press.
She has been with Kensington for fifteen years (but has been
an editor longer than that). She described the company as an independent
family-owned enterprise and pointed out that, after the Big Five publishing
houses, Kensington, established in 1974, is Number Six. The company is “devoted
to entertainment,” is “category-driven,” and specializes in what its audiences in
each category want.
She shared some interesting statistics: 40% of all book
sales are romance novels and that has remained steady, no matter what happens
