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Recently inside the ABA, we gathered for an “Ask Me Anything” conversation with editor, writer, artist, and longtime book person Bridget Watson Payne. Bridget spent more than 20 years at Chronicle Books, where she worked as an editor of illustrated books. The event was hosted by our Ally, Ana Bianchi, who is a published artist herself!
In this fantastic conversation (replay available in our network), Bridget helped us see into the world of publishing with both more imagination and more realism. Here are some highlights!
Thinking like an author
You may identify primarily as an illustrator or artist, but stepping into the realm of publishing your own work means embracing the idea of authorship, too. Bridget helped us see that “author” does not always mean “writer” in the conventional sense of the word. It’s broader than that.
While you may indeed have a story to tell, “authorship” in the world of art publishing can involve purely visual storytelling, teaching, journaling prompts, illustrated quotations from other writers, and more. (A related reframe: sometimes the best container for your idea might be a form of publication you wouldn’t necessarily call a “book,” such as a guided journal, or a card deck.)
What’s your point of view?
While Bridget reassured us that publishing is not only for people who identify as writers, she did stress the importance of a clear point of view—what makes your way of seeing the world distinctive? Or in her wonderful words, “What makes you a weirdo? I think those are the things to really push into and gravitate towards, because that's your special sauce.”
Why is “point of view” so important, you might ask? Bridget explained that in a crowded publishing landscape, the thing that makes a book compelling is rarely “no one has ever done this topic before.” More often, it’s that the author (the artist) has a particular lens, voice, story, visual language, or obsession that gives familiar material fresh meaning.
With this playful and imagination-inspiring foundation, the discussion moved into the practical realities of publishing: advances, royalties, copyright, categories, audience, proposals, timelines, editing, agents, sales teams, and the long, elastic relationship an author may have with a book.
Where does your work fit?
Let’s look at one of those more practical issues that might surprise you: the role of “categories.” Bridget explained that publishers think in categories. Editors acquire in categories. Bookstores shelve in categories. Sales teams need to understand where a book belongs and who will buy it.
In other words, a book can have more than one audience, but it still needs a primary home. Is it an art book? A design book? A gift book? A how-to book? A memoir? A journal?
For artists, this can feel limiting because we don’t tend to think so rigidly. But Bridget and the published Allies in the room helped us see that category clarity doesn’t flatten your work. Instead, it helps your offering travel efficiently through the publishing universe, giving you the best possible chance of finding appreciative readers!
A creative undertaking like no other
In addition to expanding our imaginations around what a book can be, and helping us better understand the nuts-and-bolts of the publishing world, Bridget gave us a feel for the emotional realities of this work. Chiefly: a book is not a quick project.
Your book may begin as a private passion project long before it becomes a proposal. It may change shape dramatically before a publisher says yes. A proposal that gets you in the door may not be the exact book you ultimately make. Feedback may be blunt, clarifying, humbling, or all three. And the whole process can stretch across years.
Several Allies in the conversation shared from their own experiences of developing books: the long timelines, the many iterations, the moments when a piece of feedback suddenly revealed the real through-line, the way an idea had to become bigger than a personal archive or private fascination in order to serve a wider audience.
That, to me, was one of the most valuable parts of the discussion. It wasn’t only an expert explaining publishing from the inside—it was a conversation among artists and authors, with an editor who is an artist-author herself!
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