The Baby-Sitter's Club

In talking with prospective agents for my Code Crackers series, we inevitably end up talking a bit about me, a subject I find boring. But, especially to the young women who comprise the bulk of the agenting business these days, the story of how The Baby-Sitters Club came to be seems entrancing. I guess it has some romance to it, so here goes.

I had moved on from publishing John D. MacDonald to running the classroom book club business for Scholastic. Anyone over a certain age can remember the teacher handing out 4-page promotional brochures offering books for sale at a deep discount from Scholastic. There was magic when those brochures were handed out. And thrills when the book box came back to the classroom filled with books the students ordered.

It was a very successful business and was staffed, in New York, by a group of highly-motivated and often brilliant people, most of them women. One of whom was Ann Martin.

Ann was an Administrative Assistant with two main tasks. Keeping several of the editors for whom she worked happy, productive and organized (Task #1) and reading the “slush pile” of unsolicited manuscripts and book proposals (Task #2). As the Clubs grew more successful, and more work needed to be done, those two tasks conflicted with Ann’s dream to be a writer.

It was impossible for her to stay on top of her work, much less to find time to write. She came to me, who ran the operation, and asked for help. Together, we came up with a creative solution, one unique to her situation. 

I re-organized the administrative assistant tasks across the whole department. Technology was rapidly changing those jobs anyway, pushing more of the scheduling and simple writing tasks back on the bosses themselves. I, for example, had no assistant.

That left Ann freer to read the manuscripts. Better yet, she could read them from home, unmonitored. As long as she could meet productivity standards, I did not care where she read from. Of course, reading from home meant she could carve out time to write. Which was the whole idea in the first place.

When she told me what she wanted to write, I knew what I wanted to ask for in return. All we asked was the right to purchase her first book. Which became Kristy’s Great Idea. And you all know the rest.

Now, with over 175 Million copies sold, I still think that was one of the best publishing deals I ever made. And Ann, I am sure, is thrilled to never read another slush pile manuscript!