I have a question regarding protocol and approaching a publisher directly. I currently have an agent who represents specific projects -- as opposed to representing ME -- and we were recently within a fraction of an inch of a book deal (my first). The publishing team decided to go in a different direction with the book, and assured us it was not an "author issue." Whatever.
I truly enjoy working with this agent, and feel she has my best interest in mind...most of the time. While I do understand this is a business first and that I'm lucky to have an agent at all, my only complaint is that she is not as proactive as I'd like. She runs a small agency, has mountains of work to do for her published clients, and I, therefore, tend to get less time and, in my mind, opportunities.
Can I help? Can I contact publishers on my own after making sure my proposal matches what they publish? If so, can I tell them to contact my agent if there is any interest? Does having an agent make me a stronger candidate or will I simply look foolish?
I don't wish to burn any bridges -- with my agent or a potential publisher -- and I hope to continue working together, but I do get tired of the waiting game and feel I can at least gain exposure and possibly establish a relationship with an editor.
As any agent will tell you, some of them have a more "hand-holding" approach - meaning they spend more time communicating with the author - and others do not, and spend the vast majority of their time working with the editor and publicist to make sure the book is successful after it sells to a publishing house. It's almost entirely dependent on the agent's personality, which is very hard to get a grasp of at first.
A good rule of thumb is to never go over the head of your agent (who is there to protect YOUR interests) without his/her permission. This is a good question to ask: "Should I call the editor about a concern I have?" Another good rule is that if you do have a strong working relationship with your editor and the agent isn't involved in that part of the manuscript, never mention money. As soon as money, deals, contracts come up, direct the editor to your agent.
I do talk to my editor and I do talk to my agent, and the first question I ask is, "Am I interrupting something? I know you're very busy." To my editor my questions are entirely editorial with a few notable exceptions. It just so happens that my editor is not a fan of agents (as many editors are not, viewing them as people who just drive up the price of the novel) and I only got an agent because I got an offer from her first (she accepts unsolicited submissions). So, I'm fairly sure she likes me better than she likes my agent. On occasion I've said to my agent, "Do you think I should go bug ___ about this?" (it being a contractual question) and she usually says to go ahead. This is a matter of the personalities of the three of us - writer, agent, and editor - and the balance between them. We all want the book to be successful, but we all have slightly different views of how that should come to be.
If you're wondering whether it's appropriate to "bug" your agent or editor about some issue that you have, it's perfectly fair to outright ask them if they mind the interruption. Be as brief as possible, and thank them for their time. Eventually you will get a feel for their personalities and when you can call them and when you should put it off until the next time you speak.
To answer your question, which is "Can I help?" the answer is generally that they will tell you if you can. I asked that question once and didn't really get a response, which meant "no." When the time DOES come for your input, show your dedication and respect, and you might be asked for more.
To answer your second, implied question, I can't tell you if your agent is doing a good job or not, but there are long waits in publishing. A "what's going on?" call is acceptable as a client after a few months, and you can ask where she submitted, but this is something that will take its own course. Worse comes to worse, she can't sell the manuscript anywhere, which either means she's not a good agent or she was wrong and the manuscript isn't strong enough to be sold. It's in her interest to sell every manuscript she accepts, and for as much money as possible, so she's not working against you. When she exhausts every possible option (if it comes to that), she'll tell you.
Last point: If you have an agent, do not approach publishers on your own. She will be insulted and it's the wrong thing to do.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
My hazy return
I'm back from England, which was fun and informative (I'm a big British history fan), but probably would have been a lot better if I wasn't sick with a bad cold and fever the whole time. Well, some things you can't control. Comments are back on.
A couple observations about the English book market:
(1) I saw my first-ever book vending machine in the airport. Awesome.
(2) With everything outrageously expensive in London against the dollar, I was surprised at how reasonably books seemed to be priced. While other products just seemed to have the same price as in America (1.00 for water) only it was in pounds so it was doubled (really $2.00 for water), books generally had lower retail prices than they do here, to reflect that the pound is worth more than the dollar and always has, even though the rates were much better when I was in Oxford in 1998. One novel that cost about $13.95 here cost 7.95 quid there, which was astoundingly fair.
(3) From the bookstores I was in (and believe me, I made the time for it, especially the used ones), it seems that the British are more into trade paperbacks than we are, an important cost-saving measure that I'm surprised we haven't done here. I saw new books that are only available in hardcover here in the States on sale as gigantic trade paperbacks on the front shelves. The downside, of course, is that you'll kill the spine with a huge book like that, but the book is lighter and costs a bit less.
(4) I saw a lot of books that had a glossy plastic cover over them. When I saw people reading them in the underground I thought it was just a library thing, but in a used bookstore, there was a giant pile of donations and most of them had the same plastic cover. Maybe British readers can tell me if this is something that's done regularly. It seems a nice way to protect the book.
A couple observations about the English book market:
(1) I saw my first-ever book vending machine in the airport. Awesome.
(2) With everything outrageously expensive in London against the dollar, I was surprised at how reasonably books seemed to be priced. While other products just seemed to have the same price as in America (1.00 for water) only it was in pounds so it was doubled (really $2.00 for water), books generally had lower retail prices than they do here, to reflect that the pound is worth more than the dollar and always has, even though the rates were much better when I was in Oxford in 1998. One novel that cost about $13.95 here cost 7.95 quid there, which was astoundingly fair.
(3) From the bookstores I was in (and believe me, I made the time for it, especially the used ones), it seems that the British are more into trade paperbacks than we are, an important cost-saving measure that I'm surprised we haven't done here. I saw new books that are only available in hardcover here in the States on sale as gigantic trade paperbacks on the front shelves. The downside, of course, is that you'll kill the spine with a huge book like that, but the book is lighter and costs a bit less.
(4) I saw a lot of books that had a glossy plastic cover over them. When I saw people reading them in the underground I thought it was just a library thing, but in a used bookstore, there was a giant pile of donations and most of them had the same plastic cover. Maybe British readers can tell me if this is something that's done regularly. It seems a nice way to protect the book.
Monday, March 24, 2008
On Hold
I'll be in England for the next week, so I'm disabling the comment feature because I won't be here to approve them.
New readers can take the time to look up older posts, which will probably answer a lot of your questions.
New readers can take the time to look up older posts, which will probably answer a lot of your questions.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The Job Market and My Boss
Dear Rejecter:
Is your publishing house aware that you are selling your services outside of work?
While I'm sure what you're offering is high-quality, my gentle suggestion is that you check with your senior editor first, before you find a conflict of interest shadowing your career.
Sincerely,
U.S. Writer
Well, yeah, of course she does. She knows about the blog and she knows that I'm looking for other work, even work that would replace the job I have. We've talked about it from time to time.
What I have is a pretty bottom-level job within a two person company, and one of the people is me. It would only get lower if I was an unpaid intern. It's not expected that I'm going to stay working at the literary agency forever. In fact, most people only stay at my position for a year or two, and then the agent (or agents, as many people have multiple jobs and multiple agencies because they need the hours to pay the bills) helps them find a job at a publishing house. It's in the agent's best interest that a former assistant become, hopefully, an editor at a major house, because the agent is thinking that down the line, in 10 years or so, their former assistant may be the person they're pitching a novel to.
I've stayed with the job so long because (1) I was in school full-time until January, (2) I genuinely like my boss and I enjoy my work, (3) until recently I've been too ill for full-time work, (4) I'm a working writer with one book coming out in the fall that's the first in a series and another we're about to try to sell to another company, (5) the job market is completely dead right now.
It may seem a little weird to people who have more traditional jobs that involve getting a job at a company and hoping to get a raise or a promotion that I talk to my employer about job prospects, but people move around a lot in publishing, and it's in everyone's best interest to keep a network of people they know in other agencies/companies. I think when it gets to the corporate level (VP or above) they get extremely secretive about job offers elsewhere, because there actual living wage is involved, but that's at a very high level that most people don't achieve or don't want to achieve.
Is your publishing house aware that you are selling your services outside of work?
While I'm sure what you're offering is high-quality, my gentle suggestion is that you check with your senior editor first, before you find a conflict of interest shadowing your career.
Sincerely,
U.S. Writer
Well, yeah, of course she does. She knows about the blog and she knows that I'm looking for other work, even work that would replace the job I have. We've talked about it from time to time.
What I have is a pretty bottom-level job within a two person company, and one of the people is me. It would only get lower if I was an unpaid intern. It's not expected that I'm going to stay working at the literary agency forever. In fact, most people only stay at my position for a year or two, and then the agent (or agents, as many people have multiple jobs and multiple agencies because they need the hours to pay the bills) helps them find a job at a publishing house. It's in the agent's best interest that a former assistant become, hopefully, an editor at a major house, because the agent is thinking that down the line, in 10 years or so, their former assistant may be the person they're pitching a novel to.
I've stayed with the job so long because (1) I was in school full-time until January, (2) I genuinely like my boss and I enjoy my work, (3) until recently I've been too ill for full-time work, (4) I'm a working writer with one book coming out in the fall that's the first in a series and another we're about to try to sell to another company, (5) the job market is completely dead right now.
It may seem a little weird to people who have more traditional jobs that involve getting a job at a company and hoping to get a raise or a promotion that I talk to my employer about job prospects, but people move around a lot in publishing, and it's in everyone's best interest to keep a network of people they know in other agencies/companies. I think when it gets to the corporate level (VP or above) they get extremely secretive about job offers elsewhere, because there actual living wage is involved, but that's at a very high level that most people don't achieve or don't want to achieve.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Queries Go Into Repeats
Normally I wouldn't post about a specific query, but I honestly think this guy does not own a computer. If he did, maybe the query wouldn't be made on a typewriter.
About every 3 months or so - sometimes more, sometimes less - we get the same query from this crazy ex-army guy. After the "Dear ____" line, he launches into a 3 page, single-spaced, type-written discussion of his theory about how every single president since Roosevelt has been a Communist. All of their policies are "pro-Red," some of them gave information to the KGB, and basically we're totally screwed and we've been screwed for a while because our government is run by a shadow government in Moscow. He ends with a photocopy of his honorary discharge papers, for reasons that remain unexplained.
The second time we got it, we wrote a note saying it was the second time and we still weren't interested. Today, I wrote a little PS saying that it was the third time and we still weren't interested.
There are a class of people who buy a Writer's Digest, make a lot of photocopies, and just mail a query out blindly to every agency on the list. Then when they get rejected, they wait a little bit and send it out again. If the query hasn't changed at all we notice it. If the query is distinctive (like this guy's) we make it a point to, you know, tell him we aren't interested. The fact that he's a conspiracy nut makes it all the better, or at least more interesting.
If you work at a literary agency, have you gotten a letter from this guy?
About every 3 months or so - sometimes more, sometimes less - we get the same query from this crazy ex-army guy. After the "Dear ____" line, he launches into a 3 page, single-spaced, type-written discussion of his theory about how every single president since Roosevelt has been a Communist. All of their policies are "pro-Red," some of them gave information to the KGB, and basically we're totally screwed and we've been screwed for a while because our government is run by a shadow government in Moscow. He ends with a photocopy of his honorary discharge papers, for reasons that remain unexplained.
The second time we got it, we wrote a note saying it was the second time and we still weren't interested. Today, I wrote a little PS saying that it was the third time and we still weren't interested.
There are a class of people who buy a Writer's Digest, make a lot of photocopies, and just mail a query out blindly to every agency on the list. Then when they get rejected, they wait a little bit and send it out again. If the query hasn't changed at all we notice it. If the query is distinctive (like this guy's) we make it a point to, you know, tell him we aren't interested. The fact that he's a conspiracy nut makes it all the better, or at least more interesting.
If you work at a literary agency, have you gotten a letter from this guy?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Autobiographical
Just have to ask: do you write, send in submissions, and get rejected, too?
Just curious about what you want to be/do besides be "the rejecter."
In 5 years, what would you like to be? A published fiction writer? A screenwriter? In PR? A venture capitalist? Living in Alaska?
I did the whole submission/rejection business for years, finally got an offer on the third novel I tried to submit last summer. It's coming out in September. I've got two more in the pipeline that we're (me and my agent, not related to my boss) hoping to sell for actual money, instead of the tiny advance for the first one.
In five years I'd like to have all 10 of my historical fiction novels (9 written) bought, along with possibly some of my other work, and be living off my writing. That's my dream.
Just curious about what you want to be/do besides be "the rejecter."
In 5 years, what would you like to be? A published fiction writer? A screenwriter? In PR? A venture capitalist? Living in Alaska?
I did the whole submission/rejection business for years, finally got an offer on the third novel I tried to submit last summer. It's coming out in September. I've got two more in the pipeline that we're (me and my agent, not related to my boss) hoping to sell for actual money, instead of the tiny advance for the first one.
In five years I'd like to have all 10 of my historical fiction novels (9 written) bought, along with possibly some of my other work, and be living off my writing. That's my dream.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Impromptu Translation Market Discussion
I found this funny.
Novelist Strike Fails to Affect Nation Whatsover
Hi,
I'm an aspiring writer from Europe. Although it's not my first language, I do all my fiction writing in English. When submitting queries to agents, I was wondering how relevant my job is: I translate non-fiction texts to English, specifically websites and flyers for relatively small companies. It's not fiction, and it's not my own writing, but I do get paid for something that relates to my knowledge of the English language and ability to string sentences together in a vaguely coherent fashion (which is always a plus in writing). Since I have no other writing credentials, this was all I could think of that *might* be relevant in a query letter. What do you think/recommend? Would you see it as positive, neutral, or as grasping at straws?
And while we're on that subject, do you recommend mentioning that I'm a foreign author in the query letter, or to not bring it up until later (on the off chance that the agent is interested in my work)?
To answer your questions in random order:
(1) If your first language is English or you are very, very good at it and primarily write in it (as you seem to), there is no harm in saying you are a foreign writer. Some agents actually find it exotic, and there is an increasing interest in foreign markets (especially with the strength of the euro), so so ahead. Some people who do not know enough English to write in English do query us, but it's always very obvious from their query that they cannot write in English and would require a translator to help them.
(2) By all means, mention any translation work in or out of English, as that is a serious writing credit. Translation, as you know, is very difficult, and if you've done it professionally, it shows how you understand the importance of selecting words and phrases to convey meaning.
To discuss the topic at large, and not your questions specifically, there is a translation market in the US that is always seeking translators, small though it may be. The US market is notoriously xenophobic, and we export far more literature (translated and untranslated) than we import, so generally people who do work in translating foreign works into English are very proud and occasionally a little self-righteous about it.
The English language market is the biggest market for the written word in the world except perhaps for China (in Mandarin). There are a number of historical, political, and economic reasons for this. Thanks to British and American colonialism, English is spoken at least as a second language in - I want to say a majority of countries, but I can't back it up. America and Britain also have strong economies that can support massive book production and have high literacy rates, meaning we are an atmosphere to produce more readers and more people who have enough of a separate income to become writers. While China is approaching us on this, China also has massive state suppression of the press, which includes Chinese novels and the importation and translation of foreign novelists. My convocation speaker at Brown was some Chinese exile poet we'd never heard of.
The biggest translation market in the US, in both directions, is Spanish. English works are constantly translated into Spanish for Spanish-speaking Americans, while Spanish works are particularly hot items on the literary fiction market (especially if the writers are from South America). When I took a translation course for my MFA program to pass my second language competency requirement, almost everyone in the room did Spanish except for a few people who did French because they took it in high school, and three others. I did ancient Hebrew, one woman did Yiddish, and one girl was from Taiwan and did Chinese.
I'm forgetting a lot of growing markets, and leaving out religious markets (which aside from the Christian ones, are almost entirely separate from mainstream publishing) because this is off the top of my head. For all of the Arabic speakers in the world, I've seen very few translations of text that aren't the Qur'an (for which, I recommend Ahmed Ali's translation). Some famous Russian literature of course comes to mind, though most of it dates to pre-Communist or early Communist Russia. And then there's French literature, a lot of dating from when French was a second language to everyone who spoke English (i.e. the 1200s to the 1900s). So excuse me for leaving out major contributions here, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying.
Novelist Strike Fails to Affect Nation Whatsover
Hi,
I'm an aspiring writer from Europe. Although it's not my first language, I do all my fiction writing in English. When submitting queries to agents, I was wondering how relevant my job is: I translate non-fiction texts to English, specifically websites and flyers for relatively small companies. It's not fiction, and it's not my own writing, but I do get paid for something that relates to my knowledge of the English language and ability to string sentences together in a vaguely coherent fashion (which is always a plus in writing). Since I have no other writing credentials, this was all I could think of that *might* be relevant in a query letter. What do you think/recommend? Would you see it as positive, neutral, or as grasping at straws?
And while we're on that subject, do you recommend mentioning that I'm a foreign author in the query letter, or to not bring it up until later (on the off chance that the agent is interested in my work)?
To answer your questions in random order:
(1) If your first language is English or you are very, very good at it and primarily write in it (as you seem to), there is no harm in saying you are a foreign writer. Some agents actually find it exotic, and there is an increasing interest in foreign markets (especially with the strength of the euro), so so ahead. Some people who do not know enough English to write in English do query us, but it's always very obvious from their query that they cannot write in English and would require a translator to help them.
(2) By all means, mention any translation work in or out of English, as that is a serious writing credit. Translation, as you know, is very difficult, and if you've done it professionally, it shows how you understand the importance of selecting words and phrases to convey meaning.
To discuss the topic at large, and not your questions specifically, there is a translation market in the US that is always seeking translators, small though it may be. The US market is notoriously xenophobic, and we export far more literature (translated and untranslated) than we import, so generally people who do work in translating foreign works into English are very proud and occasionally a little self-righteous about it.
The English language market is the biggest market for the written word in the world except perhaps for China (in Mandarin). There are a number of historical, political, and economic reasons for this. Thanks to British and American colonialism, English is spoken at least as a second language in - I want to say a majority of countries, but I can't back it up. America and Britain also have strong economies that can support massive book production and have high literacy rates, meaning we are an atmosphere to produce more readers and more people who have enough of a separate income to become writers. While China is approaching us on this, China also has massive state suppression of the press, which includes Chinese novels and the importation and translation of foreign novelists. My convocation speaker at Brown was some Chinese exile poet we'd never heard of.
The biggest translation market in the US, in both directions, is Spanish. English works are constantly translated into Spanish for Spanish-speaking Americans, while Spanish works are particularly hot items on the literary fiction market (especially if the writers are from South America). When I took a translation course for my MFA program to pass my second language competency requirement, almost everyone in the room did Spanish except for a few people who did French because they took it in high school, and three others. I did ancient Hebrew, one woman did Yiddish, and one girl was from Taiwan and did Chinese.
I'm forgetting a lot of growing markets, and leaving out religious markets (which aside from the Christian ones, are almost entirely separate from mainstream publishing) because this is off the top of my head. For all of the Arabic speakers in the world, I've seen very few translations of text that aren't the Qur'an (for which, I recommend Ahmed Ali's translation). Some famous Russian literature of course comes to mind, though most of it dates to pre-Communist or early Communist Russia. And then there's French literature, a lot of dating from when French was a second language to everyone who spoke English (i.e. the 1200s to the 1900s). So excuse me for leaving out major contributions here, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Successful Queries
Dear Rejector,
What I always wished I could see would be query letter examples of books that 'made it' - you know, show me Stephen King's query letter for 'Carrie,' show me Alcott's query letter for 'Little Women,' show me a query letter for any of Oprah's books (which may or may not have deserved to make it, but that's neither here nor there). It's instructive because of what the authors leave out, much more than what they put in, you know? For all I know there's a website that does this, or a book of published ones, but I've never heard of any. If you have, would love to see it! Thanks!
and
Dear Rejecter,
I like your blog--thanks for sharing your insights. Here's my question: you say you put aside 5% in the "maybe" stack. There's so much info out there to warn the clueless, but very little for those people who are almost there, but not quite. I'm thinking of the ones getting full requests, getting comments back, yet ultimately end up with a pass. Could you explain a little about the line between YES! and We-e-e-ll, not quite?
Signed,
Curious
I get a lot of emails asking me to present a query that worked, and I've never done it. A couple of reasons:
(1) We generally do not keep them around.
(2) That would be a violation of copyright, as the author of the letter has a copyright on the letter.
(3) It's not very polite to do to the author.
(4) It wouldn't help you.
Once again, the basic query format is 2-3 paragraphs telling us what your book is about in a way that makes it sound awesome, and the last paragraph contains some technical information about the book and any writing credentials you may have. It isn't any more complicated than that.
I put a query in the maybe pile because it does just that: It makes the book idea seem interesting, or at least, would seem interesting to my boss (she has different tastes than I do, but for the purposes of my job, only her tastes are relevant). Me posting a query that got her attention because the author had a good idea would not help you very much because it doesn't help you with your idea, which I presume is different. Only you have the power to write a great book and then summarize it so well it sounds like we have to read it, and no amount of reading other people's book ideas is going to help you do that.
What I always wished I could see would be query letter examples of books that 'made it' - you know, show me Stephen King's query letter for 'Carrie,' show me Alcott's query letter for 'Little Women,' show me a query letter for any of Oprah's books (which may or may not have deserved to make it, but that's neither here nor there). It's instructive because of what the authors leave out, much more than what they put in, you know? For all I know there's a website that does this, or a book of published ones, but I've never heard of any. If you have, would love to see it! Thanks!
and
Dear Rejecter,
I like your blog--thanks for sharing your insights. Here's my question: you say you put aside 5% in the "maybe" stack. There's so much info out there to warn the clueless, but very little for those people who are almost there, but not quite. I'm thinking of the ones getting full requests, getting comments back, yet ultimately end up with a pass. Could you explain a little about the line between YES! and We-e-e-ll, not quite?
Signed,
Curious
I get a lot of emails asking me to present a query that worked, and I've never done it. A couple of reasons:
(1) We generally do not keep them around.
(2) That would be a violation of copyright, as the author of the letter has a copyright on the letter.
(3) It's not very polite to do to the author.
(4) It wouldn't help you.
Once again, the basic query format is 2-3 paragraphs telling us what your book is about in a way that makes it sound awesome, and the last paragraph contains some technical information about the book and any writing credentials you may have. It isn't any more complicated than that.
I put a query in the maybe pile because it does just that: It makes the book idea seem interesting, or at least, would seem interesting to my boss (she has different tastes than I do, but for the purposes of my job, only her tastes are relevant). Me posting a query that got her attention because the author had a good idea would not help you very much because it doesn't help you with your idea, which I presume is different. Only you have the power to write a great book and then summarize it so well it sounds like we have to read it, and no amount of reading other people's book ideas is going to help you do that.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Reviewers as Writers
Amazon Affiliates thing is up. I do solemnly promise to only post links to books I have read and enjoyed and/or think are valuable. This will severely narrow down the list of things in the store, but what can you do?
Dear Rejecter,
I'm a writer who MAY be ready to send things to agents soon- after three drafts, it's with members of the writing group I belong to. I'm writing- and trashing draft after draft of- a query letter. I'm trying to figure out if the book reviews I'm doing count as a writing credit- I'm not getting paid and I only got the job because my cousin works there. But none of that is what's bothering me.
I keep getting the feeling I've missed something. So I was wondering if you could tell me the mistakes most people querying make- not necessarily the ones the nitwits would make, but the mistakes or stylistic errors people who clearly put time and effort into something tend to miss. Care to enlighten me before I start my rejection pile?
I don't really think it counts as a "writing" credit, but it's a publishing credit (provided it's a legitimate review group) and therefore worth mentioning.
As for the second question, I have to say I get this a lot, and I answered it pretty early in the blog: Two paragraphs describing your novel, one paragraph listing word count, title, genre, and any credits, and don't do anything gimmicky or stupid. It's not harder than that, though that is pretty hard.
Sadly, mistakes generally fall into two categories: querying an agency that doesn't handle that genre (which would account for about half of my rejection pile), and not having a good novel in the first place, which admittedly is pretty hard to tell if you're the writer.
Dear Rejecter,
I'm a writer who MAY be ready to send things to agents soon- after three drafts, it's with members of the writing group I belong to. I'm writing- and trashing draft after draft of- a query letter. I'm trying to figure out if the book reviews I'm doing count as a writing credit- I'm not getting paid and I only got the job because my cousin works there. But none of that is what's bothering me.
I keep getting the feeling I've missed something. So I was wondering if you could tell me the mistakes most people querying make- not necessarily the ones the nitwits would make, but the mistakes or stylistic errors people who clearly put time and effort into something tend to miss. Care to enlighten me before I start my rejection pile?
I don't really think it counts as a "writing" credit, but it's a publishing credit (provided it's a legitimate review group) and therefore worth mentioning.
As for the second question, I have to say I get this a lot, and I answered it pretty early in the blog: Two paragraphs describing your novel, one paragraph listing word count, title, genre, and any credits, and don't do anything gimmicky or stupid. It's not harder than that, though that is pretty hard.
Sadly, mistakes generally fall into two categories: querying an agency that doesn't handle that genre (which would account for about half of my rejection pile), and not having a good novel in the first place, which admittedly is pretty hard to tell if you're the writer.
I Am Speechless (Metaphorically)
So apparently writing "Websites by Scam Agents and Fake Contests" was not obvious enough for some people, who have emailed me under the impression that I either (a) endorse the agencies Google Adsense chooses to put in my ad space or (b) work for them. I honestly don't know how much more obvious I could be, short of writing a paragraph saying HI GOOGLE SELECTS ADS BASED ON PAGE CONTENT AND THE ADS ARE FOR SCAM AGENCIES DO NOT USE THOSE AGENCIES AND IF YOU CANNOT READ THESE WORDS YOU PROBABLY CAN'T READ AND SO WHY HAVE YOU BOTHERED TO WRITE A NOVEL IF YOU'RE NOT LITERATE?
Seriously people. As far as I can tell, I cannot ask Google to eliminate certain sites as much as I can specify which ones I want to use (thereby eliminating everything else) but I can't think of anything I want to use, much less dozens of sites that are advertising. So I'm torn between the money (which has been $40 so far) and worrying about sheer idiocy.
I could try an affiliate program with Amazon, but honestly I would only endorse books I've both read and liked, so that narrows it down a lot.
Seriously people. As far as I can tell, I cannot ask Google to eliminate certain sites as much as I can specify which ones I want to use (thereby eliminating everything else) but I can't think of anything I want to use, much less dozens of sites that are advertising. So I'm torn between the money (which has been $40 so far) and worrying about sheer idiocy.
I could try an affiliate program with Amazon, but honestly I would only endorse books I've both read and liked, so that narrows it down a lot.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Rejections Are A Hint
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Dear Rejecter:
My first novel has received several detailed, flattering rejections from some of New York's top agents. They say the story is well-plotted, deftly written, poignant, a hell of a read, has memorable characters and I'm evidently enormously talented as well as gifted. However — and there's always a however or a but or a sorry — none of these agents has offered representation, citing the crowded and difficult fiction market. I sympathize with their plight, but what am I to do? My query letter works, my novel works, yet I can't get an agent. Help!
Signed,
Frustrated
I think everyone who's spent any time reading this blog knows what I'm going to say here, which is that clearly this person's novel doesn't work. If it did, the many, many people who are paid by their ability to valuate novels for their potential quality would have replied positively. The query letter might be bad and the novel is probably bad too. Write another one.
Dear Rejecter:
My first novel has received several detailed, flattering rejections from some of New York's top agents. They say the story is well-plotted, deftly written, poignant, a hell of a read, has memorable characters and I'm evidently enormously talented as well as gifted. However — and there's always a however or a but or a sorry — none of these agents has offered representation, citing the crowded and difficult fiction market. I sympathize with their plight, but what am I to do? My query letter works, my novel works, yet I can't get an agent. Help!
Signed,
Frustrated
I think everyone who's spent any time reading this blog knows what I'm going to say here, which is that clearly this person's novel doesn't work. If it did, the many, many people who are paid by their ability to valuate novels for their potential quality would have replied positively. The query letter might be bad and the novel is probably bad too. Write another one.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The Job Market
Well, the job market is just terrible right now in publishing, and though I am still employed, I seek more employment. Until that happens, does anyone mind if I put up some banner ads? I'm not trying to become an internet millionaire here, but I'd like to pay the electricity bill.
Or if you want to employ The Rejector for your publishing-related purposes, you probably grasp from this blog that I have some sense of the industry and experience in it, can do some editing (I'm better at other people's work than my own words), and have an MFA in Fiction. Email me. I will not grant interviews that involve the words "abandoned" or "alley."
Or if you want to employ The Rejector for your publishing-related purposes, you probably grasp from this blog that I have some sense of the industry and experience in it, can do some editing (I'm better at other people's work than my own words), and have an MFA in Fiction. Email me. I will not grant interviews that involve the words "abandoned" or "alley."
Submitting Again
Dear Rejecter,
I'm in a bit of a quandary and a little confused. I started submitting my first novel about five years ago and received several requests for partials/fulls and even managed to option the film rights (alas a no go.) Everybody passed, so back to the old drawing board to rewrite with the help of a writing coach since I had no idea how to write a novel. Resubmitted to some of the agents who had requested additional material and again all passes. (I still had a lot to learn about characterization and I may still have a lot to learn. Hope not.)
Fast forward three years, a partially completed second novel and a complete reworking of first novel and I learn that an agent who is a partner to one of the aforementioned agents (who was kind enough to take a look at my first rewrite and then passed again) is looking for material in a category that might encompass my first novel. She requests a partial after getting my query and then . . . silence. Three months later, after a polite inquiry. More silence.
Apparently I have violated some unwritten code of ethics. (Their agency website does not address this issue nor state outright that a "No" from one agent means a "No" from all agents. Because so much time had passed -- almost three years -- and the material was so different and re-titled, I assumed it would be viewed as something new. It appears I was wrong. But I'm not sure.) I've never read anything on a writer's blog about the appropriateness of submitting to a different agent in an agency after requested material is declined.
I am getting ready to send out queries on my second novel which is in an entirely different genre from the first and which is best suited to the first agent from the agency in question and now I don't know what to do. They would have been on the top of my list. Now I'm wondering if I should cross them off all together. I would have liked to work with them, assuming, of course, my second novel is publishable. Yes, I know. Lots of fish in the sea. But . . .Any advice?
So I'm a bit confused myself, as to why you think you violated a code of ethics because you didn't get a response. Sometimes agents don't respond. It's not very professional but agents are busy. It's nothing to take personally.
Here are some handy rules that other agent blogs will surely disagree with me on:
(1) It is generally considered OK to query other agents in the same group. Just don't do them all at once and have the letters arrive on the same day, as it looks sort of tacky.
(2) If you're resubmitting a manuscript, chances are the agent will recognize if they read the whole thing both times. We have long memories for plotlines and writing styles. And there was probably a valid reason we rejected you the first time, so don't be surprised if we do it a second time. Sometimes the reason is "well, I just don't like the story" or "I'm just bored by the writing" and not "I had a problem with this scene and some of the grammar."
Every once in a while we have to go through the "Have we seen this query letter/manuscript?" game, and we don't like the game very much. Mention that it's a re-submission. Emphasize your revisions. It's worth a shot. Then try some other agencies.
(3) If it is a totally new manuscript that you are submitting to an agent who rejected a manuscript like 5 years ago, you can resubmit with no mention of a former submission. We don't care.
I'm in a bit of a quandary and a little confused. I started submitting my first novel about five years ago and received several requests for partials/fulls and even managed to option the film rights (alas a no go.) Everybody passed, so back to the old drawing board to rewrite with the help of a writing coach since I had no idea how to write a novel. Resubmitted to some of the agents who had requested additional material and again all passes. (I still had a lot to learn about characterization and I may still have a lot to learn. Hope not.)
Fast forward three years, a partially completed second novel and a complete reworking of first novel and I learn that an agent who is a partner to one of the aforementioned agents (who was kind enough to take a look at my first rewrite and then passed again) is looking for material in a category that might encompass my first novel. She requests a partial after getting my query and then . . . silence. Three months later, after a polite inquiry. More silence.
Apparently I have violated some unwritten code of ethics. (Their agency website does not address this issue nor state outright that a "No" from one agent means a "No" from all agents. Because so much time had passed -- almost three years -- and the material was so different and re-titled, I assumed it would be viewed as something new. It appears I was wrong. But I'm not sure.) I've never read anything on a writer's blog about the appropriateness of submitting to a different agent in an agency after requested material is declined.
I am getting ready to send out queries on my second novel which is in an entirely different genre from the first and which is best suited to the first agent from the agency in question and now I don't know what to do. They would have been on the top of my list. Now I'm wondering if I should cross them off all together. I would have liked to work with them, assuming, of course, my second novel is publishable. Yes, I know. Lots of fish in the sea. But . . .Any advice?
So I'm a bit confused myself, as to why you think you violated a code of ethics because you didn't get a response. Sometimes agents don't respond. It's not very professional but agents are busy. It's nothing to take personally.
Here are some handy rules that other agent blogs will surely disagree with me on:
(1) It is generally considered OK to query other agents in the same group. Just don't do them all at once and have the letters arrive on the same day, as it looks sort of tacky.
(2) If you're resubmitting a manuscript, chances are the agent will recognize if they read the whole thing both times. We have long memories for plotlines and writing styles. And there was probably a valid reason we rejected you the first time, so don't be surprised if we do it a second time. Sometimes the reason is "well, I just don't like the story" or "I'm just bored by the writing" and not "I had a problem with this scene and some of the grammar."
Every once in a while we have to go through the "Have we seen this query letter/manuscript?" game, and we don't like the game very much. Mention that it's a re-submission. Emphasize your revisions. It's worth a shot. Then try some other agencies.
(3) If it is a totally new manuscript that you are submitting to an agent who rejected a manuscript like 5 years ago, you can resubmit with no mention of a former submission. We don't care.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
A Question of Style
Rejecter,
The topic of using italics came up in my writer's group last meeting. Specifically, we were discussing the merits of using italics to indicate the thoughts of the character. A typical passage:
"Peter turned to face the monster. Unbelievable, that thing has enormous fangs! He gulped and picked up his sword."
Some writers, such as Terry Pratchett, use this method selectively and with some success, while others, such as David Payne, use it extensively and not with great success.
I started to use italics as thoughts in writing, but after I read Payne's Back to Wando Passo, his excessive use of italics felt cumbersome and I never bothered to finish the story. It even encouraged me to go back and rewrite my novel to remove the italics.
I have noticed that the usage of italics for thoughts is slowly becoming more common in fiction, which leads me to ask this question: how do agents/editors view italics as thoughts? Is it discouraged, encouraged, or do different people have different views?
This is really more of a stylistic question than a publishing question, but as a writer myself currently entrenched in editing my second novel for publication, I'd be happy to give my opinion.
As writers practice their craft, they experiment with different techniques with language. Most people who write constantly experience fads, where they like a concept (such as using a lot of italics to indicate inner thought) and use it to the point of overusing it, at which point they might realize what they're doing and stop. This usually comes from some recent external influence. From ages 13 to about 15 I was really into ...s everywhere to indicate the pacing of the sentences because I was reading a lot of fanfic writers who were doing it. It was an embarassing phase for me, but I learned from my mistakes. Also, not all of my experiments have been mistakes. Some legitimately entered my style as a common technique.
If you find something new and you like it, have fun with it, but be aware that you shouldn't overuse it, especially if it's grammatically incorrect.
The topic of using italics came up in my writer's group last meeting. Specifically, we were discussing the merits of using italics to indicate the thoughts of the character. A typical passage:
"Peter turned to face the monster. Unbelievable, that thing has enormous fangs! He gulped and picked up his sword."
Some writers, such as Terry Pratchett, use this method selectively and with some success, while others, such as David Payne, use it extensively and not with great success.
I started to use italics as thoughts in writing, but after I read Payne's Back to Wando Passo, his excessive use of italics felt cumbersome and I never bothered to finish the story. It even encouraged me to go back and rewrite my novel to remove the italics.
I have noticed that the usage of italics for thoughts is slowly becoming more common in fiction, which leads me to ask this question: how do agents/editors view italics as thoughts? Is it discouraged, encouraged, or do different people have different views?
This is really more of a stylistic question than a publishing question, but as a writer myself currently entrenched in editing my second novel for publication, I'd be happy to give my opinion.
As writers practice their craft, they experiment with different techniques with language. Most people who write constantly experience fads, where they like a concept (such as using a lot of italics to indicate inner thought) and use it to the point of overusing it, at which point they might realize what they're doing and stop. This usually comes from some recent external influence. From ages 13 to about 15 I was really into ...s everywhere to indicate the pacing of the sentences because I was reading a lot of fanfic writers who were doing it. It was an embarassing phase for me, but I learned from my mistakes. Also, not all of my experiments have been mistakes. Some legitimately entered my style as a common technique.
If you find something new and you like it, have fun with it, but be aware that you shouldn't overuse it, especially if it's grammatically incorrect.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Waiting and Choosing Agents
Dear Rejecter,
While new to the "The Rejecter" as such, I thought I was familiar with rejection until I received a request for a full from a repudiable NY agency last July and have yet to hear a word. Could that be considered a rejection by omission rather than rejection by commission? What's the protocal regarding an e-mail to the agency and asking "What's up?"
Three months is the average wait for a partial or full. A good way to put it is, "I just wanted to contact you and make sure the manuscript was safely received." That's a good way of not stepping on any toes.
Dear Rejecter,
Let's say that you finally get that phone call from an agent offering representation. Are there any questions that you think writers should ask before making their decision to work with that agent? Is there any way to tell if that agent is the right fit for you?
It's very difficult. A good thing to do is ask them questions about where they would submit your novel and what they could do for its publicity. Try to get a feel for how excited they are about it and how committed they would be to the project.
If you have multiple books in multiple genres, try to get an agent who works in all of those genres. That's what I did when I was selecting between agents, and now my agent is helping me revise my second novel, which is sci-fi, for publication.
While new to the "The Rejecter" as such, I thought I was familiar with rejection until I received a request for a full from a repudiable NY agency last July and have yet to hear a word. Could that be considered a rejection by omission rather than rejection by commission? What's the protocal regarding an e-mail to the agency and asking "What's up?"
Three months is the average wait for a partial or full. A good way to put it is, "I just wanted to contact you and make sure the manuscript was safely received." That's a good way of not stepping on any toes.
Dear Rejecter,
Let's say that you finally get that phone call from an agent offering representation. Are there any questions that you think writers should ask before making their decision to work with that agent? Is there any way to tell if that agent is the right fit for you?
It's very difficult. A good thing to do is ask them questions about where they would submit your novel and what they could do for its publicity. Try to get a feel for how excited they are about it and how committed they would be to the project.
If you have multiple books in multiple genres, try to get an agent who works in all of those genres. That's what I did when I was selecting between agents, and now my agent is helping me revise my second novel, which is sci-fi, for publication.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Oscars Post
For those of you interested in the literary vs. commercial fiction argument, you can look for another example of it in the Academy Awards, which I painfully got through most of on Sunday night. Nobody in Hollywood should really be stumped as to why they have such low ratings. Without the glamor, the celebrities, and the jokes, it would be nothing but an expensive graduation ceremony for the honors students.
I'm going to make a wild guess that most people who tuned in had not seen most of the nominees in most categories (except perhaps the sound and technical categories). I see a lot of movies over the course of the year - I'm going to say 20+ - and I had only seen two of the five nominated for Best Picture, and the second one (Juno) was because I was dragged by my mother and grandmother. Michael Clayton was great, though not Best Picture great. No Country for Old Men I consistently put off in favor of movies that were more fun because everyone I know who saw it said it was long, slow, and had a confusing ending. There Will Be Blood had an extremely limited release and came out at a time when I was especially busy with other things. Atonement I just plain didn't want to see; I can't properly explain it but some movies just put me off.
If not for a lot of publicity and the nominations themselves, the main winners of the evening are easily in reverse proportion to box office proceeds, which means most people didn't see them in favor of "crap." Spider-man 3 was the highest grossing movie of the year. It was followed by other action-adventure movies, only a few of which were nominated for anything other than freebies like costume and sound mixing. I don't even know what sound mixing is, but it gave Bourne Ultimatum the most awards it in a tie with No Country for Old Men.
As we get to know the awards process better, we learn that maybe it's in Hollywood's best interest that we don't. The voters, it seems, are industry insiders and experts (that means retirees with experience and a lot of time on their hands). It also includes actors, who can even vote for themselves and their friends with a clear conscience. In other words, they live in the fantasy world they created and they award accordingly, with little concern to which movies the public seemed to be willing to part with hard-earned money for. Now I'm not saying the tons of bad J-horror remakes I see should win anything, but man do I love them and I'll see them over a long, pretentious movie any day.
The Academy is what it is: a group of expert voters who have the qualifications to discern what is quality and the time to see every movie to make sure that they have what to compare to. In other words, yes, they should be the decision makers, but I increasingly don't like that they ask me to care. I can tell what's a quality movie or not - it's just my choice whether to devote the time to see it. I went out of my way to see Persepolis, which got robbed despite being an uneven movie that was not as good as the two books it was based on.
In short, if you haven't guessed the metaphor, Winners = Mostly Literary Fiction, and Ignored Movies = Commercial Fiction. It would be a better comparison if the Pulitzers had many categories, a flashy show to promote itself, and months and months of hype. Fortunately it remains what it is: a bunch of professionals sitting in a room, discussing it down to the last few books and then a vote. I think that's about all of the process we could stand, though a nominee list would be nice for those of us who do seek out quality literary fiction.
Also, 300 got fucking robbed in every technical category there was.
I'm going to make a wild guess that most people who tuned in had not seen most of the nominees in most categories (except perhaps the sound and technical categories). I see a lot of movies over the course of the year - I'm going to say 20+ - and I had only seen two of the five nominated for Best Picture, and the second one (Juno) was because I was dragged by my mother and grandmother. Michael Clayton was great, though not Best Picture great. No Country for Old Men I consistently put off in favor of movies that were more fun because everyone I know who saw it said it was long, slow, and had a confusing ending. There Will Be Blood had an extremely limited release and came out at a time when I was especially busy with other things. Atonement I just plain didn't want to see; I can't properly explain it but some movies just put me off.
If not for a lot of publicity and the nominations themselves, the main winners of the evening are easily in reverse proportion to box office proceeds, which means most people didn't see them in favor of "crap." Spider-man 3 was the highest grossing movie of the year. It was followed by other action-adventure movies, only a few of which were nominated for anything other than freebies like costume and sound mixing. I don't even know what sound mixing is, but it gave Bourne Ultimatum the most awards it in a tie with No Country for Old Men.
As we get to know the awards process better, we learn that maybe it's in Hollywood's best interest that we don't. The voters, it seems, are industry insiders and experts (that means retirees with experience and a lot of time on their hands). It also includes actors, who can even vote for themselves and their friends with a clear conscience. In other words, they live in the fantasy world they created and they award accordingly, with little concern to which movies the public seemed to be willing to part with hard-earned money for. Now I'm not saying the tons of bad J-horror remakes I see should win anything, but man do I love them and I'll see them over a long, pretentious movie any day.
The Academy is what it is: a group of expert voters who have the qualifications to discern what is quality and the time to see every movie to make sure that they have what to compare to. In other words, yes, they should be the decision makers, but I increasingly don't like that they ask me to care. I can tell what's a quality movie or not - it's just my choice whether to devote the time to see it. I went out of my way to see Persepolis, which got robbed despite being an uneven movie that was not as good as the two books it was based on.
In short, if you haven't guessed the metaphor, Winners = Mostly Literary Fiction, and Ignored Movies = Commercial Fiction. It would be a better comparison if the Pulitzers had many categories, a flashy show to promote itself, and months and months of hype. Fortunately it remains what it is: a bunch of professionals sitting in a room, discussing it down to the last few books and then a vote. I think that's about all of the process we could stand, though a nominee list would be nice for those of us who do seek out quality literary fiction.
Also, 300 got fucking robbed in every technical category there was.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Comic Book Writers
Hello Rejecter,
Have you ever worked with someone who wrote for comics before turning to novels? Seeing how I write what could be called "fantasy thrillers" I've had little success in getting a short story published; most magazines and journals seem to favor literary fiction.
Not that I think that comics will be any easier to break into, but at least there are plenty of opportunities for writers like me who favor a more commercial kind of story.
I remember a case where we thought about representing someone who was really more of an artist than a writer. His prose was terrible, but the drawings were awesome. We told him to go write a graphic novel instead of trying to write a novel with illustrations.
If you've been published as a comic book writer, that's a legitimate previous publication and you should list it in your query letter in the credentials section. That said, you still have to write a great novel.
Have you ever worked with someone who wrote for comics before turning to novels? Seeing how I write what could be called "fantasy thrillers" I've had little success in getting a short story published; most magazines and journals seem to favor literary fiction.
Not that I think that comics will be any easier to break into, but at least there are plenty of opportunities for writers like me who favor a more commercial kind of story.
I remember a case where we thought about representing someone who was really more of an artist than a writer. His prose was terrible, but the drawings were awesome. We told him to go write a graphic novel instead of trying to write a novel with illustrations.
If you've been published as a comic book writer, that's a legitimate previous publication and you should list it in your query letter in the credentials section. That said, you still have to write a great novel.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Save Money, But Not Too Much
Encountered a bunch of these today:
(1) Do not send a post card query with your novel's website, unless it has a postcard SASE, and those don't exist. We will not check your website. We will not even like you very much for your total lack of effort. If you invest postcard SASEs and they move into general circulation as a product, we can talk.
(2) That said, there is no need to spend more than 82 cents on a query unless you live out of the US or this is an old post and the price of stamps has gone up. 41 cents for the original, 41 for the return. If you want to include a synopsis or the first 5 pages, you can get them into a regular envelope. There is no need to waste money sending the query a special speed, through a courier service (it's been done), or sending it in a nice presentation folder that cost you $5.00 to send. We only care about your manuscript and how you describe it in the query. It will go into the pile like everyone else's when it arrives, so save yourself some money and don't bother. For a letter envelope, the rates are:
Ounces and Cents Above 1 Ounce/.41c
Really, if you're going to be submitting, query widely, and don't spend a lot of money doing it if you don't have to. The rejections will not sting so badly if you're not down a hundred bucks.
(1) Do not send a post card query with your novel's website, unless it has a postcard SASE, and those don't exist. We will not check your website. We will not even like you very much for your total lack of effort. If you invest postcard SASEs and they move into general circulation as a product, we can talk.
(2) That said, there is no need to spend more than 82 cents on a query unless you live out of the US or this is an old post and the price of stamps has gone up. 41 cents for the original, 41 for the return. If you want to include a synopsis or the first 5 pages, you can get them into a regular envelope. There is no need to waste money sending the query a special speed, through a courier service (it's been done), or sending it in a nice presentation folder that cost you $5.00 to send. We only care about your manuscript and how you describe it in the query. It will go into the pile like everyone else's when it arrives, so save yourself some money and don't bother. For a letter envelope, the rates are:
Ounces and Cents Above 1 Ounce/.41c
2 | 0.58 |
3 | 0.75 |
3.5 | 0.92 |
Really, if you're going to be submitting, query widely, and don't spend a lot of money doing it if you don't have to. The rejections will not sting so badly if you're not down a hundred bucks.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Loooong Wait
Regarding requested manuscripts...
I sent a query letter and the first 30pps of my manuscript to an agency back in mid August. In mid September the agent's assistant emailed me requesting the full. She said "we're looking forward to reading more." I followed up with an email January 7th to see if the assistant or the agent had gotten around to reading my MS. Have not heard back. (it is now Feb. 15) Does that mean rejection?
I think this is one of the rare cares where they're fair game for a phone call from you, simply because you've already reached the full stage and it's been an excessively long time.
I sent a query letter and the first 30pps of my manuscript to an agency back in mid August. In mid September the agent's assistant emailed me requesting the full. She said "we're looking forward to reading more." I followed up with an email January 7th to see if the assistant or the agent had gotten around to reading my MS. Have not heard back. (it is now Feb. 15) Does that mean rejection?
I think this is one of the rare cares where they're fair game for a phone call from you, simply because you've already reached the full stage and it's been an excessively long time.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Questions, Some About Historical Fiction and Dating
I wrote a mystery novel over a decade ago. Had a top agent send it a few places and then give up. I put it aside for a long time and now want to polish it and start querying agents.
I know that people write books about long ago (World War II, the Victorian era, Adam & Eve) but would having a story take place not all that long ago be a deterrent? I mean with scenes where a reader might say "Why didn't he just Google it?" or "Where's his cell phone?" Because a few things about the novel might make it a bit difficult to bring into the 21st century.
Unless, of course, I have to. But the presence of beepers and the novelty of personal computers do play roles in the story. I know that John MacDonald's Travis McGee novels are still on shelves, but people who buy them understand they were written 20 or 30 years ago...
So, if your setting is not contemporary (meaning set about now, i.e. when then novel is published), it's arguably historical fiction. In this case it's a historical mystery, like Ellis Peters wrote, just more by happenstance than by intent. Query away. Don't mention that you wrote it twenty years ago.
i could use an honest opinion: received rejection letter from literary magazine. is this (below) a form letter or at all made-it-past-the-slush-pile personalized?
>
> Dear [my name]:
>
> Thank you for sending us "story title". We really enjoyed this piece, but we didn't feel it was right for [literary magazine].
>
> We hope that you will continue to send us your work.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Editors of [literary magazine]
Formalized, though that doesn't tell you how far it got, especially for a literary magazine. Some people still do the formal one even if it was in the final running.
My current WIP is set roughly twenty years ago, and I've been told that this time frame could be problematic when I start shopping the MS. Twenty years isn't far enough in the past to be considered historical, but is much too far back to be contemporary.
The story isn't necessarily tied to that time frame by a major event such as war or disaster, and I originally started writing in the vague and general "present day." But I found the story just seemed to work better when set at the start of the '90s - possibly because that's when I went through experiences similar to those of my characters. So what do you think? Is a story set in the recent past at an automatic disadvantage?
So I'm currently struggling with this, too. I wrote a novel two years ago that was set in 1996 because it follows some historical events that happened in 1996. Various people who read it said that the connections to 1996 were kind of irrelevant and distracting, and I should set it in "now" and make it a generic president and just have the events be the events. However, because of the rate of advancement of technology, the story is definitely dated by 12 years. Only one character has a cellphone, and it almost never has reception and the battery runs out quickly. People have the internet but the way we did in 1996, i.e. they're not using it for communications in a time of major crisis, they're using pay phones and landlines and television. Really it would be a major set of revisions for me, but recently my agent has decided the manuscript is worthwhile in terms of trying to sell it to a publishing house, so she might ask me to go and do that. I'm not looking forward to it, but if it makes the story better, it'll be worth it.
The difference between "historical" and "dated" is a very fine line. If there's no reason for the events to be set in the past, they probably shouldn't be, but changing them is always a pain. On the other hand, if you're brushing off an old piece of work, brush it off properly.
One of the problems is that as we slowly approach the Singularity, technology advances at a rate where an ordinary story can become "dated" by a single reference to any piece of technology. We're willing to give some leeway, but not a lot. If it's set in "now," it should be current when you submit it. If it's loaded with pop-culture references, expect a short shelf-life.
I know that people write books about long ago (World War II, the Victorian era, Adam & Eve) but would having a story take place not all that long ago be a deterrent? I mean with scenes where a reader might say "Why didn't he just Google it?" or "Where's his cell phone?" Because a few things about the novel might make it a bit difficult to bring into the 21st century.
Unless, of course, I have to. But the presence of beepers and the novelty of personal computers do play roles in the story. I know that John MacDonald's Travis McGee novels are still on shelves, but people who buy them understand they were written 20 or 30 years ago...
So, if your setting is not contemporary (meaning set about now, i.e. when then novel is published), it's arguably historical fiction. In this case it's a historical mystery, like Ellis Peters wrote, just more by happenstance than by intent. Query away. Don't mention that you wrote it twenty years ago.
i could use an honest opinion: received rejection letter from literary magazine. is this (below) a form letter or at all made-it-past-the-slush-pile personalized?
>
> Dear [my name]:
>
> Thank you for sending us "story title". We really enjoyed this piece, but we didn't feel it was right for [literary magazine].
>
> We hope that you will continue to send us your work.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Editors of [literary magazine]
Formalized, though that doesn't tell you how far it got, especially for a literary magazine. Some people still do the formal one even if it was in the final running.
My current WIP is set roughly twenty years ago, and I've been told that this time frame could be problematic when I start shopping the MS. Twenty years isn't far enough in the past to be considered historical, but is much too far back to be contemporary.
The story isn't necessarily tied to that time frame by a major event such as war or disaster, and I originally started writing in the vague and general "present day." But I found the story just seemed to work better when set at the start of the '90s - possibly because that's when I went through experiences similar to those of my characters. So what do you think? Is a story set in the recent past at an automatic disadvantage?
So I'm currently struggling with this, too. I wrote a novel two years ago that was set in 1996 because it follows some historical events that happened in 1996. Various people who read it said that the connections to 1996 were kind of irrelevant and distracting, and I should set it in "now" and make it a generic president and just have the events be the events. However, because of the rate of advancement of technology, the story is definitely dated by 12 years. Only one character has a cellphone, and it almost never has reception and the battery runs out quickly. People have the internet but the way we did in 1996, i.e. they're not using it for communications in a time of major crisis, they're using pay phones and landlines and television. Really it would be a major set of revisions for me, but recently my agent has decided the manuscript is worthwhile in terms of trying to sell it to a publishing house, so she might ask me to go and do that. I'm not looking forward to it, but if it makes the story better, it'll be worth it.
The difference between "historical" and "dated" is a very fine line. If there's no reason for the events to be set in the past, they probably shouldn't be, but changing them is always a pain. On the other hand, if you're brushing off an old piece of work, brush it off properly.
One of the problems is that as we slowly approach the Singularity, technology advances at a rate where an ordinary story can become "dated" by a single reference to any piece of technology. We're willing to give some leeway, but not a lot. If it's set in "now," it should be current when you submit it. If it's loaded with pop-culture references, expect a short shelf-life.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Back-up - I'm up to Christmas Emails!
I have a question for you about writing credits...you said in a previous post to not include writing credits unless they're for something substantial, like a short story published in a reputable magazine. For a while, I've been trying to revise my short stories so that they're ready for publishing, so that I can include the writing credits in a query letter. Honestly, it would be nice to have a short story published, but my passion truly lies with novel writing, so I'd be doing it more as a means to an end. And I also wonder if some of the reputable magazines are looking for writing credits as well, which I of course don't have.
So my question is this: should I even bother getting a short story published, if my main motivation is to have writing credits? Or should I focus more on writing a query letter an agent would have a hard time passing up?
Absolutely focus on writing the query. Even great writing credits will not get you past me if the novel doesn't sound very good, and I'll put it in the maybe pile if it sounds great and has no credits.
For those of us who don’t live in NY or LA and are not in a position to leave a paid job and spend a year doing free labor at a literary agency, can you recommend any way to learn to business of literary agency? Are there no classes, workshops, books, events, external internships….?
If you want to become an agent (which is the reason to learn the business), you basically have to live in NY or LA, or work for an agent who lives in your area for a long time. If you want to learn about publishing in general, there are plenty of on-line, low-residency, and normal graduate-level courses available at universities across the country.
Whatever would I do without you to answer my most burning questions? Here's a new one: I've queried widely regarding my first manuscript for the past few months, gotten a few partial requests and a couple of fulls, too. However, I haven't landed an agent yet. So, in those few months I was querying the first manuscript, I've had a chance to write and polish an entirely new project. I feel much more confident about this one and can't wait to start sending some queries out to see what will happen. My question is, how long should I wait between querying an agent about the first project before sending a query for this new project? It has been a couple of months, but I wasn't sure if that was long enough. Then again, I hate to sit and cool my heels when I feel that this one is polished and ready to go. What's your expert advice?
For an entirely new project? I would wait about a week between submissions. Usually after a week or so we've forgotten your name, if that would even make a difference to us, which it probably wouldn't. We only care about what you're currently submitting.
So my question is this: should I even bother getting a short story published, if my main motivation is to have writing credits? Or should I focus more on writing a query letter an agent would have a hard time passing up?
Absolutely focus on writing the query. Even great writing credits will not get you past me if the novel doesn't sound very good, and I'll put it in the maybe pile if it sounds great and has no credits.
For those of us who don’t live in NY or LA and are not in a position to leave a paid job and spend a year doing free labor at a literary agency, can you recommend any way to learn to business of literary agency? Are there no classes, workshops, books, events, external internships….?
If you want to become an agent (which is the reason to learn the business), you basically have to live in NY or LA, or work for an agent who lives in your area for a long time. If you want to learn about publishing in general, there are plenty of on-line, low-residency, and normal graduate-level courses available at universities across the country.
Whatever would I do without you to answer my most burning questions? Here's a new one: I've queried widely regarding my first manuscript for the past few months, gotten a few partial requests and a couple of fulls, too. However, I haven't landed an agent yet. So, in those few months I was querying the first manuscript, I've had a chance to write and polish an entirely new project. I feel much more confident about this one and can't wait to start sending some queries out to see what will happen. My question is, how long should I wait between querying an agent about the first project before sending a query for this new project? It has been a couple of months, but I wasn't sure if that was long enough. Then again, I hate to sit and cool my heels when I feel that this one is polished and ready to go. What's your expert advice?
For an entirely new project? I would wait about a week between submissions. Usually after a week or so we've forgotten your name, if that would even make a difference to us, which it probably wouldn't. We only care about what you're currently submitting.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
More from the Backup
About three months ago, an agent's assistant instructed me to send my full in response to a query. I learned that recently the assistant sent emails out to two people whose fulls had been requested after mine. One was a pass, the other was an update letting the writer know the full was still under consideration.
My question is this: What are the possible reasons an agent/assistant gets to manuscripts out of the order in which they were received? I am going nuts because I don't know if this means I should be worried, or request an update, etc.. It's not the time frame that concerns me...I expect to wait. But would you care to speculate about this?
There usually is not an order that we do things in with the mail pile. It's just the pile and we do it. As for fulls, we respond to those (in the rare cases where the agent doesn't respond themselves) basically in the order/priority the agent wants to do it in, which is usually dependent upon their schedule and interest level and a lot of other factors that have nothing to do with the manuscript itself. Agents are only human.
The following questions are all from the same person:
Do query letters work? From your blog comments I have gained new doubts, my previous belief was that you needed to get to someone on the right day, in the right moment, while they're in the right mood, with an interest in exactly what they're thinking about and have them misread what you've written in a favorable way to get any response... besides a rejection slip. Now, you make it sound more implausible for a query to work.
I would say a majority of my boss's current clients were people sending in normal query letters. The rest were query letters with strong referrals from someone my boss knew. So your answer is: yes.
What should a query letter really say to you? I have the books (bought used from half.c--) but you dismiss them. Of course, you probably realize that I'm operating under the delusion that my books are great and if you only heard what they were about you'd love them too.
It should tell me what your book is about and make it sound interesting.
The rule is to only query with a finished work - of fiction - right? I mean, while I spend a year polishing something to where I think it's finished I'm also writing another two or three stories that won't be finished anytime soon. These don't count to you, I know, unless I was established... so a shelf load of stories means what... anything?
Never send in anything that is not complete. Auto-reject.
Are novel posting sites actually of any interest to your profession? I posted a finished novel (I'm not sure about trying to market it as it strikes me as bland, though some friends actually reacted to what was in it... in a positive way) and a work in progress in the belief that those of us on this site would comment, discuss and offer advice about each others work... me, looking for the best in others. Anyway, they also make the claim that agents (they gave a list) peruse this site. Maybe they do if they want a snigger, most of what I read on the site (NovelMaker.c--) was incredible... I was making comments to one book (unfinished) so much that (POSSIBLY) I can no longer make comments to the site... hopefully it's a glitch, I'd hate to think it was personal. Of course, thinking about it, maybe that's what you go through constantly... dealing with so many obvious mistakes or yuck that you can't believe someone would try to pass it off as literature.
I spend absolutely no time on the internet whatsover looking at websites of writers who post their novels, and I spend a LOT of time on the internet. It is a way to workshop, but it is not a way to get found.
IF I aquired an agent through some arcane means (totally legal) would said agent be interested in looking through my shelf (list) of stories to give advice... you know, polish this one, finish this one, shelf this one far in the back... that kind of thing? Or is that always up to me?
Generally yes, but not until after the sale of the initial piece.
In my post on your blog I wondered about serial erotica... is there such a thing? It's not something I've yet investigated but I thought you might have a clue... do magazines, online outlets, or something I'm unfamiliar with do stuff like that. I mean, I started it as a character development exercise and it's still growing... I read it and there are parts that keep me inspired about my writing. The way it's going, though, it may devolve into a murder mystery or occult apocalyptic sci fi tale with just enough gratuitous sex to keep it erotica...
There are erotica magazines that I believe do post serial stories. I can't name them off the top of my head. However if you're chiefly writing sci-fi and it just has a lot of sex, it's not erotica. It depends if the central focus is the sex or the sci-fi.
I am actively marketing a sci fi novel, with 2.75 sequels... currently it's at Baen as that is the last publisher to accept unsolicited manuscripts of this genre... at least that I know of... anyway, I say this to let you know I am trying.
Tor also accepts unsoliticed queries. As does DAW. And I would work on not using so many ...s in your sentences.
My question is this: What are the possible reasons an agent/assistant gets to manuscripts out of the order in which they were received? I am going nuts because I don't know if this means I should be worried, or request an update, etc.. It's not the time frame that concerns me...I expect to wait. But would you care to speculate about this?
There usually is not an order that we do things in with the mail pile. It's just the pile and we do it. As for fulls, we respond to those (in the rare cases where the agent doesn't respond themselves) basically in the order/priority the agent wants to do it in, which is usually dependent upon their schedule and interest level and a lot of other factors that have nothing to do with the manuscript itself. Agents are only human.
The following questions are all from the same person:
Do query letters work? From your blog comments I have gained new doubts, my previous belief was that you needed to get to someone on the right day, in the right moment, while they're in the right mood, with an interest in exactly what they're thinking about and have them misread what you've written in a favorable way to get any response... besides a rejection slip. Now, you make it sound more implausible for a query to work.
I would say a majority of my boss's current clients were people sending in normal query letters. The rest were query letters with strong referrals from someone my boss knew. So your answer is: yes.
What should a query letter really say to you? I have the books (bought used from half.c--) but you dismiss them. Of course, you probably realize that I'm operating under the delusion that my books are great and if you only heard what they were about you'd love them too.
It should tell me what your book is about and make it sound interesting.
The rule is to only query with a finished work - of fiction - right? I mean, while I spend a year polishing something to where I think it's finished I'm also writing another two or three stories that won't be finished anytime soon. These don't count to you, I know, unless I was established... so a shelf load of stories means what... anything?
Never send in anything that is not complete. Auto-reject.
Are novel posting sites actually of any interest to your profession? I posted a finished novel (I'm not sure about trying to market it as it strikes me as bland, though some friends actually reacted to what was in it... in a positive way) and a work in progress in the belief that those of us on this site would comment, discuss and offer advice about each others work... me, looking for the best in others. Anyway, they also make the claim that agents (they gave a list) peruse this site. Maybe they do if they want a snigger, most of what I read on the site (NovelMaker.c--) was incredible... I was making comments to one book (unfinished) so much that (POSSIBLY) I can no longer make comments to the site... hopefully it's a glitch, I'd hate to think it was personal. Of course, thinking about it, maybe that's what you go through constantly... dealing with so many obvious mistakes or yuck that you can't believe someone would try to pass it off as literature.
I spend absolutely no time on the internet whatsover looking at websites of writers who post their novels, and I spend a LOT of time on the internet. It is a way to workshop, but it is not a way to get found.
IF I aquired an agent through some arcane means (totally legal) would said agent be interested in looking through my shelf (list) of stories to give advice... you know, polish this one, finish this one, shelf this one far in the back... that kind of thing? Or is that always up to me?
Generally yes, but not until after the sale of the initial piece.
In my post on your blog I wondered about serial erotica... is there such a thing? It's not something I've yet investigated but I thought you might have a clue... do magazines, online outlets, or something I'm unfamiliar with do stuff like that. I mean, I started it as a character development exercise and it's still growing... I read it and there are parts that keep me inspired about my writing. The way it's going, though, it may devolve into a murder mystery or occult apocalyptic sci fi tale with just enough gratuitous sex to keep it erotica...
There are erotica magazines that I believe do post serial stories. I can't name them off the top of my head. However if you're chiefly writing sci-fi and it just has a lot of sex, it's not erotica. It depends if the central focus is the sex or the sci-fi.
I am actively marketing a sci fi novel, with 2.75 sequels... currently it's at Baen as that is the last publisher to accept unsolicited manuscripts of this genre... at least that I know of... anyway, I say this to let you know I am trying.
Tor also accepts unsoliticed queries. As does DAW. And I would work on not using so many ...s in your sentences.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Twenty-Something Writers
Hello Rejecter,
So tell me, what's it like being a young person in a field where it seems no one is under the age of thirty-five?
By "no one" I mean authors, of course. Aside from that Harvard student who plagiarized her novel and ended up being dropped by her publisher, I haven't heard of any other cases of young adults in America writing books.
Do you think there is a bias against young people? Are publishers or agents particularly worried about things like plagiarism -- especially after the incident I described above? Do you feel that your age was a factor (be it positive or negative) in your own path to publication?
I'm still young and delusional enough to think that my novel is going to sell and do very well. However the only case I can find of someone under the age of twenty-five who had a big hit was Brett Easton Ellis w/ "Less Than Zero" and later "American Psycho."
When I'm published I will be twenty-seven by only a few days. For the record. I wrote it when I was twenty-five.
In an earlier post I discussed writers in high school and gave some controversial advice about them submitting their writing. I didn't say that they shouldn't write - they should - but they're probably not going to have much success in publication and it's probably for the best.
This advice does not apply when people enter adulthood, which is a different age for everyone, but seems to happen between the ages of 18 and 25. When people become an adult they start writing like one (hopefully), and YA even takes some serious sophistication in thought. So why don't see you see more twenty-something writers?
(1) Generally people are not published on the first novel they write. The industry lore is that it's the third book you submit for publication that is the one that gets published. For me it was true, though I would say that was the ... I don't know, 10th manuscript I'd written. Something like that. And this is not including any writing I did in junior high or high school. Except for the occasional literary genius, writing a novel is a bit like driving: it takes some hours behind the wheel before you're good enough for a license.
(2) Many young authors are published, but in the form of short stories. There's probably two main reasons for this. One, a short story simply isn't as long, so you can get more practice in less time, though I could easily argue that a ten-page short story is as hard to perfect as a full-length novel. Two, most writing workshops (especially at the college and graduate level) are geared towards short stories, so that's what people are going to be encouraged to write.
(3) Many novelists do not report their age on the back cover. You usually have to go look it up somewhere, if it is to be found at all. Just because they haven't announced that they're twenty doesn't mean that they aren't.
So tell me, what's it like being a young person in a field where it seems no one is under the age of thirty-five?
By "no one" I mean authors, of course. Aside from that Harvard student who plagiarized her novel and ended up being dropped by her publisher, I haven't heard of any other cases of young adults in America writing books.
Do you think there is a bias against young people? Are publishers or agents particularly worried about things like plagiarism -- especially after the incident I described above? Do you feel that your age was a factor (be it positive or negative) in your own path to publication?
I'm still young and delusional enough to think that my novel is going to sell and do very well. However the only case I can find of someone under the age of twenty-five who had a big hit was Brett Easton Ellis w/ "Less Than Zero" and later "American Psycho."
When I'm published I will be twenty-seven by only a few days. For the record. I wrote it when I was twenty-five.
In an earlier post I discussed writers in high school and gave some controversial advice about them submitting their writing. I didn't say that they shouldn't write - they should - but they're probably not going to have much success in publication and it's probably for the best.
This advice does not apply when people enter adulthood, which is a different age for everyone, but seems to happen between the ages of 18 and 25. When people become an adult they start writing like one (hopefully), and YA even takes some serious sophistication in thought. So why don't see you see more twenty-something writers?
(1) Generally people are not published on the first novel they write. The industry lore is that it's the third book you submit for publication that is the one that gets published. For me it was true, though I would say that was the ... I don't know, 10th manuscript I'd written. Something like that. And this is not including any writing I did in junior high or high school. Except for the occasional literary genius, writing a novel is a bit like driving: it takes some hours behind the wheel before you're good enough for a license.
(2) Many young authors are published, but in the form of short stories. There's probably two main reasons for this. One, a short story simply isn't as long, so you can get more practice in less time, though I could easily argue that a ten-page short story is as hard to perfect as a full-length novel. Two, most writing workshops (especially at the college and graduate level) are geared towards short stories, so that's what people are going to be encouraged to write.
(3) Many novelists do not report their age on the back cover. You usually have to go look it up somewhere, if it is to be found at all. Just because they haven't announced that they're twenty doesn't mean that they aren't.
Monday, February 04, 2008
More Questions from the Email Back-up
Of the queries I’ve sent out, 2 agents requested the full MS and one recently asked for a partial. My question: What is a reasonable or accepted length of time to wait before asking for feedback?
For a full or a partial, it's fair to give them an email after 3 months.
Do agents get turned off if they get queries from other countries? I live in Brazil and I'll be seeking representation at some point. I did live in the US for five years and came back a year ago to Brazil, so I do speak English fluently.
No. In fact, my boss particularly likes foreign writers, because she does a lot of work in foreign rights, and she's very interested in the international situation. In general, agents don't care where the manuscript came from so long as it's written in English.
I read somewhere that a huge novel like Shogun wouldn't even get published today, which I have a hard time believing. Do you think that's true?
No. In general, we give historical fiction and sweeping epics a much larger acceptable word count than we do with a mystery or click-lit, just as historical movies tend to be longer in running time than romantic comedies. It's mainly about the public and their attention span, which is tuned to certain expectations of time/length and it's our business to know them.
In general, it's not wise to go over 200,000 words on your first novel. That's really quite long and it would take us a massive effort to consider it, accept it, edit it, and sell it to a publisher. Then again, there are always exceptions to the rule.
For a full or a partial, it's fair to give them an email after 3 months.
Do agents get turned off if they get queries from other countries? I live in Brazil and I'll be seeking representation at some point. I did live in the US for five years and came back a year ago to Brazil, so I do speak English fluently.
No. In fact, my boss particularly likes foreign writers, because she does a lot of work in foreign rights, and she's very interested in the international situation. In general, agents don't care where the manuscript came from so long as it's written in English.
I read somewhere that a huge novel like Shogun wouldn't even get published today, which I have a hard time believing. Do you think that's true?
No. In general, we give historical fiction and sweeping epics a much larger acceptable word count than we do with a mystery or click-lit, just as historical movies tend to be longer in running time than romantic comedies. It's mainly about the public and their attention span, which is tuned to certain expectations of time/length and it's our business to know them.
In general, it's not wise to go over 200,000 words on your first novel. That's really quite long and it would take us a massive effort to consider it, accept it, edit it, and sell it to a publisher. Then again, there are always exceptions to the rule.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Knocking off questions...
I've got a lot of questions to go through from the backup at my Yahoo account. Here we go!
Hello! I'm curious about P.O.D books, such as from iUniverse or Lulu. If a book does well, are agents usually interested in considering the book for representation in order to submit it to large publishing houses? Best regards.
As POD technology becomes better and easy and cheaper, more people head straight to self-publishing and then submit their manuscript to us, so we see it all the time. Sometimes they send us the whole book.
In general, unless your book has sold over 3000 copies (which means you didn't sell them all to family and friends or by hand at conventions), it doesn't mean much to us that it was previously published. We will review it like we review any other submission - as potential new material to be weighed on its own merit.
Hello Rejecter,
If you could represent a book today that would be your dream-come-true novel, a book that you knew would go to bid with so much excitement that a large print order was initiated, a book that would be sought after by reviewers and written by an author, who was saavy about the promotional end of the business, committed to a writing life; an author who would promote his or her work extensively while working on several additional novels what would that book be? A James Patterson novel? Nicholas Sparks? Jodi Picoult? Or does it no longer exist today in a culture with so many diverse forms of media?
First let me clarify that I'm just an assistant, and don't represent anything myself. I'm not sure what your question is because of how it's worded, but I'm fairly sure that the answer is your guess at the end.
Recently I began a blog about being a waiter, and because I write fiction, I also posted stories on the blog from time to time. I thought it might be a great idea to start a blog that serializes a novel I've written but never worked on getting published. Several readers of my blog advised that if I posted the whole novel, it would be near impossible to then get it traditionally published. Is this true and if so why? I have since published it to a password protected blog that only a handful of people can access. Do I still run the risk of hurting my chances of publication by posting it in this way?
Not really. Chances are no one is going to steal your unpublished novel. Many writers are nervous about this, and go through the trouble of registering the manuscript at the copyright office (which under the new copyright laws, you don't even have to do) and including the form indicating it's registered with their submission, just in case we were thinking of stealing it and publishing it ourselves. Novels are not worth anything until they're published, and it's very difficult to get published. I would not lose any sleep over having your novel on the internet prior to signing a contract with a publishing company. After you sign, if they've bought the digital rights, you have to take it down.
My agent just informed me that he would start querying editors about my novel, but that most wouldn't be looking at new work until the start of the new year. Do you find that's true, too? Also, what kind of query do agents send? Does it include the whole ms... or is it the same as a writer would send an agent? My agent is a junior agent at a small firm and has made just a few non-fiction sales so far. Mine would be his first fiction sale.
(Obviously this question came in a while ago, when I was not getting my mail delivered) First of all, it's fairly standard to not submit new things in December. (The email is dated December 8th) The first three weeks of December are generally spent trying to finish up everything that needs to get finished up before the end of the year, for tax or press deadline purposes. The last week is vacation. Your agent is wise to wait.
As to your second question, it varies from agency to agency, but everyone has their own style of submitting and sometimes will not submit the same way to different editors. Good agents know editors personally, so they go out to lunch and the agent talks up this new manuscript they've got, and the editor says, "Send it over and I'll take a look." Or sometimes agents simply mail out the manuscript to as many editors as they know who they know are looking for your sort of novel, hoping for at least a few hits. It depends on the agent, their connections, and their style. The only thing that matters for you is if they make a sale and for how much money.
Hello! I'm curious about P.O.D books, such as from iUniverse or Lulu. If a book does well, are agents usually interested in considering the book for representation in order to submit it to large publishing houses? Best regards.
As POD technology becomes better and easy and cheaper, more people head straight to self-publishing and then submit their manuscript to us, so we see it all the time. Sometimes they send us the whole book.
In general, unless your book has sold over 3000 copies (which means you didn't sell them all to family and friends or by hand at conventions), it doesn't mean much to us that it was previously published. We will review it like we review any other submission - as potential new material to be weighed on its own merit.
Hello Rejecter,
If you could represent a book today that would be your dream-come-true novel, a book that you knew would go to bid with so much excitement that a large print order was initiated, a book that would be sought after by reviewers and written by an author, who was saavy about the promotional end of the business, committed to a writing life; an author who would promote his or her work extensively while working on several additional novels what would that book be? A James Patterson novel? Nicholas Sparks? Jodi Picoult? Or does it no longer exist today in a culture with so many diverse forms of media?
First let me clarify that I'm just an assistant, and don't represent anything myself. I'm not sure what your question is because of how it's worded, but I'm fairly sure that the answer is your guess at the end.
Recently I began a blog about being a waiter, and because I write fiction, I also posted stories on the blog from time to time. I thought it might be a great idea to start a blog that serializes a novel I've written but never worked on getting published. Several readers of my blog advised that if I posted the whole novel, it would be near impossible to then get it traditionally published. Is this true and if so why? I have since published it to a password protected blog that only a handful of people can access. Do I still run the risk of hurting my chances of publication by posting it in this way?
Not really. Chances are no one is going to steal your unpublished novel. Many writers are nervous about this, and go through the trouble of registering the manuscript at the copyright office (which under the new copyright laws, you don't even have to do) and including the form indicating it's registered with their submission, just in case we were thinking of stealing it and publishing it ourselves. Novels are not worth anything until they're published, and it's very difficult to get published. I would not lose any sleep over having your novel on the internet prior to signing a contract with a publishing company. After you sign, if they've bought the digital rights, you have to take it down.
My agent just informed me that he would start querying editors about my novel, but that most wouldn't be looking at new work until the start of the new year. Do you find that's true, too? Also, what kind of query do agents send? Does it include the whole ms... or is it the same as a writer would send an agent? My agent is a junior agent at a small firm and has made just a few non-fiction sales so far. Mine would be his first fiction sale.
(Obviously this question came in a while ago, when I was not getting my mail delivered) First of all, it's fairly standard to not submit new things in December. (The email is dated December 8th) The first three weeks of December are generally spent trying to finish up everything that needs to get finished up before the end of the year, for tax or press deadline purposes. The last week is vacation. Your agent is wise to wait.
As to your second question, it varies from agency to agency, but everyone has their own style of submitting and sometimes will not submit the same way to different editors. Good agents know editors personally, so they go out to lunch and the agent talks up this new manuscript they've got, and the editor says, "Send it over and I'll take a look." Or sometimes agents simply mail out the manuscript to as many editors as they know who they know are looking for your sort of novel, hoping for at least a few hits. It depends on the agent, their connections, and their style. The only thing that matters for you is if they make a sale and for how much money.
My email address died ... three months ago
Normally my Rejector account forwards to my main account so that I don't have to log in to two accounts. I woke up thinking today, "Gee, it's been a long time since I got email as the Rejector," and individually logged into that account, only to discover - to my horror -that there were 669 messages for me.
Apparently Yahoo!Plus didn't auto-renew the forwarding at the end of the year, i.e. late October. So you may get a really, really, really delayed response to your email. Sorry.
Apparently Yahoo!Plus didn't auto-renew the forwarding at the end of the year, i.e. late October. So you may get a really, really, really delayed response to your email. Sorry.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Salt, Granulated
Every once in a while I do a search for people who mention this blog, to see if I'm being praised or criticized, or if there's an issue I want to address. Every single time, the same few websites pop up that take a stance against something I said, either because it was wrong or because they have a different opinion. With all the scammers out there on the internet, trying to make a buck off unpublished writers, people tend to stay away from anything they hear something bad about.
Let me establish right now: I don't know everything. Nobody knows everything, certainly not about book publishing, which is a confusing enough industry as it is. Anyone who tells you they know everything is full of shit.
In fact, there's little I can say other than anecdotal tangents that could not be argued against. If you're reading this blog trying to get an opinion of the industry, don't only read this blog. Read other agent blogs, editor blogs, and blogs of published writers. When you see a consensus, it's probably true.
These things, however, in the specific area of literary agency submissions, are facts:
(1) You should always include a SASE unless the agent says to do otherwise.
(2) If you have an email address, include it in your query letter in case your SASE gets lost, never made it into your envelope, gets destroyed by the postal service, or is sealed by moisture because your mail was delivered in the rain. We would prefer to have some way of contacting you that isn't the phone. In fact, we need it.
(3) At some point in your query letter, you should mention your manuscript and tell us what it is about.
Everything else is opinion. Maybe it's a well-formed opinion based on experience, but it's still an opinion. Most of the time.
Let me establish right now: I don't know everything. Nobody knows everything, certainly not about book publishing, which is a confusing enough industry as it is. Anyone who tells you they know everything is full of shit.
In fact, there's little I can say other than anecdotal tangents that could not be argued against. If you're reading this blog trying to get an opinion of the industry, don't only read this blog. Read other agent blogs, editor blogs, and blogs of published writers. When you see a consensus, it's probably true.
These things, however, in the specific area of literary agency submissions, are facts:
(1) You should always include a SASE unless the agent says to do otherwise.
(2) If you have an email address, include it in your query letter in case your SASE gets lost, never made it into your envelope, gets destroyed by the postal service, or is sealed by moisture because your mail was delivered in the rain. We would prefer to have some way of contacting you that isn't the phone. In fact, we need it.
(3) At some point in your query letter, you should mention your manuscript and tell us what it is about.
Everything else is opinion. Maybe it's a well-formed opinion based on experience, but it's still an opinion. Most of the time.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Short Stories as First Chapters
Two PSAs:
- If you want me to answer your question and you're fairly sure it hasn't been answered in archives, email it instead of putting it in the comments, as I'm less likely to miss it.
- This is off-topic, but if you live in New York City and you get in a cab with a TV screen, shut off the volume. It's an inaccurate weather forecast and local fluff news anyway, and they only do three or four editions of it in a 24-hour period, so the cabby has probably heard it 10 times before you got in. I asked a cabbie today and yes, it's driving him mad. Do cabby a favor and talk on your cell phone instead. At least that's new material.
So, I have a book finished, and the first chapter would make a great short story. If I submit it to you, should I tell you that I'm also shopping around the first chapter, or should I hold off until you've had a chance to look at it?
So while it is kind of neat to have had the first chapter published as a short story and it builds your writing resume, there are legal issues here. When the magazine purchases your story for print, they buy the copyright for a stipulated period, usually a year. That means that we can't sell your novel if it contains the short story to a publishing house without some difficulty because there's a copyright on part of the novel and you'll have to wait for the contract to expire and the rights to publish the short story/chapter to revert back to you.
It is possible to get the first chapter published as a short story when the novel is sold and coming out; some people do this for publicity reasons, but the publishing company is involved or at least aware of it and not bothered by it. So I would say: Don't shop the short story and the novel at the same time at all, much less mention it to an agent.
- If you want me to answer your question and you're fairly sure it hasn't been answered in archives, email it instead of putting it in the comments, as I'm less likely to miss it.
- This is off-topic, but if you live in New York City and you get in a cab with a TV screen, shut off the volume. It's an inaccurate weather forecast and local fluff news anyway, and they only do three or four editions of it in a 24-hour period, so the cabby has probably heard it 10 times before you got in. I asked a cabbie today and yes, it's driving him mad. Do cabby a favor and talk on your cell phone instead. At least that's new material.
So, I have a book finished, and the first chapter would make a great short story. If I submit it to you, should I tell you that I'm also shopping around the first chapter, or should I hold off until you've had a chance to look at it?
So while it is kind of neat to have had the first chapter published as a short story and it builds your writing resume, there are legal issues here. When the magazine purchases your story for print, they buy the copyright for a stipulated period, usually a year. That means that we can't sell your novel if it contains the short story to a publishing house without some difficulty because there's a copyright on part of the novel and you'll have to wait for the contract to expire and the rights to publish the short story/chapter to revert back to you.
It is possible to get the first chapter published as a short story when the novel is sold and coming out; some people do this for publicity reasons, but the publishing company is involved or at least aware of it and not bothered by it. So I would say: Don't shop the short story and the novel at the same time at all, much less mention it to an agent.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Kindle: The Update
So yesterday I made a fool of myself, but so did most of the other people in the room, so I feel justified.
I attended an AAR panel, similar to the one in November, except this one was from non-traditional publishers and other technology companies. Google Books was there (not all of it, just a guy), playwright company was there, some people in audio books, and a representative of for the Kindle devision of Amazon.
Now keep in mind that most people have not seen the Kindle. It's only available online, and Amazon doesn't have stores to host demos. I had not seen it, nor had most of the agents in the room, so of course we all swarmed this guy with questions about it as we made an all-out mob trying to get a chance to hold it in our hands while the cash bar was still open.
The big seller of eBooks (versus my cheaper tablet PC) is their eInk technology. It uses a different screen than an LCD screen. It has no back light and it's much easier on the eyes. I asked the Amazon representative if eInk could be ported to a normal computer, and he said it was hardware, not software - hence, the pricetag, because you need to buy the device (or another e-Reader like the Sony or the iLiad) to have the technology.
I was wrong about a few things. Technically, you do have unlimited storage, if you buy memory cards. He gave the example of a customer who'd already bought 500 books on his Kindle. He did not address customer concerns (like out-of-range wireless issues, or the cost of Kindle books, though I admit I think their prices are not outrageous compared to what they could be). Nonetheless, like any piece of technology, we wanted to hold it, play with it, see how it worked. Our collective inner-geek emerged.
Five minutes later, I calmed down and my opinion on the advise is only slightly raised. It's still too expensive and too reliant on wireless. No, it will not replace books (he didn't think that, either). Does the eInk technology have potential? Yes. Could I see myself buying one if the price were much lower and the technology a bit more advanced? Yes. But for that moment, I wanted one.
This is why I don't go to tech demos very often.
I attended an AAR panel, similar to the one in November, except this one was from non-traditional publishers and other technology companies. Google Books was there (not all of it, just a guy), playwright company was there, some people in audio books, and a representative of for the Kindle devision of Amazon.
Now keep in mind that most people have not seen the Kindle. It's only available online, and Amazon doesn't have stores to host demos. I had not seen it, nor had most of the agents in the room, so of course we all swarmed this guy with questions about it as we made an all-out mob trying to get a chance to hold it in our hands while the cash bar was still open.
The big seller of eBooks (versus my cheaper tablet PC) is their eInk technology. It uses a different screen than an LCD screen. It has no back light and it's much easier on the eyes. I asked the Amazon representative if eInk could be ported to a normal computer, and he said it was hardware, not software - hence, the pricetag, because you need to buy the device (or another e-Reader like the Sony or the iLiad) to have the technology.
I was wrong about a few things. Technically, you do have unlimited storage, if you buy memory cards. He gave the example of a customer who'd already bought 500 books on his Kindle. He did not address customer concerns (like out-of-range wireless issues, or the cost of Kindle books, though I admit I think their prices are not outrageous compared to what they could be). Nonetheless, like any piece of technology, we wanted to hold it, play with it, see how it worked. Our collective inner-geek emerged.
Five minutes later, I calmed down and my opinion on the advise is only slightly raised. It's still too expensive and too reliant on wireless. No, it will not replace books (he didn't think that, either). Does the eInk technology have potential? Yes. Could I see myself buying one if the price were much lower and the technology a bit more advanced? Yes. But for that moment, I wanted one.
This is why I don't go to tech demos very often.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
E-Readers, Part Deux
So I decided to put my money where my mouth is and get some kind of e-Reader before going on vacation. I started scoping them out, and wasn't particularly impressed.
The Kindle ($400) - holds 40 books, but only in Amazon's Kindle format unless you hack it. Connects to some internet but not in remote areas. Black-and-white monitor. 10 ounces. About 1-3 gigs of storage.
The Sony E-Reader ($300) - holds 160 books. Reads more formats. No wireless. Black-and-white monitor. 9 ounces. Can hold up to 10 gigs of storage with extra devices.
iLiad ($700) - from iRex Technologies. Don't know about books but reads tons of forms and has unlimited memory, so I'm assuming, a lot. Wireless WiFi active. Black-and-white monitor (more shades than other two). 13 ounces. 158 MB memory, but has USB port, so unlimited memory with flash cards.
So I got to thinking - why the hell am I shelling out hundreds of dollars for a machine that can do less than my iPod? And I mean much less. The iPod has an LCD computer screen with full color, 20 gigs of hard drive space, and can play movies. The technology exists to create an e-Reader that can hold most of the world's literature and have a color screen the size of any of their screens, so why the hell isn't anyone making one?
I decided instead to buy a refurbished Fujitsu Tablet PC, which cost me $160 (after shipping). And it's a freakin' computer. It has a full-color screen the size of of any of the e-Reader screens, it has 6 gigs of memory and a USB flash drive (which means it has unlimited memory, especially when you buy one of those 16 gig flash drives). It runs Windows 2000. It plays movies and reads every type of file that a book would be in. It connects to the internet and you can even remove the wireless card and replace it with a better one. I installed Microsoft Office and a video player so I could watch movies stored on my flash drive and do some writing. The only downside is its weight (2.5 pounds), but I think it was worth it to go on vacation with 1653 books. Most were downloaded public domain freebies from Google Books or current books I got through file sharing.
And in the end? ...Uh, I didn't use it. Well I did, to be honest, but to watch episodes of Family Guy I'd downloaded. Nothing against the machine, but I brought along a few real books, and my hand just went straight for them instead. If I'd been there longer and run out of things to read, it would have been a different story, and on the machine would have went.
Also, it's good for referencing things. The end result is that I'm happy with it even if I rarely used it for book files because just carrying a library around is cool, but I would never buy a standard official "e-Reader" - not until they start being honest and sell the ones they produce now for what they're worth, which I'd say, technology-wise, is under $40.
The Kindle ($400) - holds 40 books, but only in Amazon's Kindle format unless you hack it. Connects to some internet but not in remote areas. Black-and-white monitor. 10 ounces. About 1-3 gigs of storage.
The Sony E-Reader ($300) - holds 160 books. Reads more formats. No wireless. Black-and-white monitor. 9 ounces. Can hold up to 10 gigs of storage with extra devices.
iLiad ($700) - from iRex Technologies. Don't know about books but reads tons of forms and has unlimited memory, so I'm assuming, a lot. Wireless WiFi active. Black-and-white monitor (more shades than other two). 13 ounces. 158 MB memory, but has USB port, so unlimited memory with flash cards.
So I got to thinking - why the hell am I shelling out hundreds of dollars for a machine that can do less than my iPod? And I mean much less. The iPod has an LCD computer screen with full color, 20 gigs of hard drive space, and can play movies. The technology exists to create an e-Reader that can hold most of the world's literature and have a color screen the size of any of their screens, so why the hell isn't anyone making one?
I decided instead to buy a refurbished Fujitsu Tablet PC, which cost me $160 (after shipping). And it's a freakin' computer. It has a full-color screen the size of of any of the e-Reader screens, it has 6 gigs of memory and a USB flash drive (which means it has unlimited memory, especially when you buy one of those 16 gig flash drives). It runs Windows 2000. It plays movies and reads every type of file that a book would be in. It connects to the internet and you can even remove the wireless card and replace it with a better one. I installed Microsoft Office and a video player so I could watch movies stored on my flash drive and do some writing. The only downside is its weight (2.5 pounds), but I think it was worth it to go on vacation with 1653 books. Most were downloaded public domain freebies from Google Books or current books I got through file sharing.
And in the end? ...Uh, I didn't use it. Well I did, to be honest, but to watch episodes of Family Guy I'd downloaded. Nothing against the machine, but I brought along a few real books, and my hand just went straight for them instead. If I'd been there longer and run out of things to read, it would have been a different story, and on the machine would have went.
Also, it's good for referencing things. The end result is that I'm happy with it even if I rarely used it for book files because just carrying a library around is cool, but I would never buy a standard official "e-Reader" - not until they start being honest and sell the ones they produce now for what they're worth, which I'd say, technology-wise, is under $40.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Blog Powers Activate!
The blog is comment-enabled again, as I am back. Comments about my dad being part of a corrupt system will be deleted. Turns out he had to go; he has to have 50 hours of meeting credits a year because the government feels that doctors need continuing education about new treatments. He paid for everything but his own flight. Oh, and this dinner, but it wasn't very good.
Comments on the e-Book experience later.
Comments on the e-Book experience later.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Friendly Skies and Skin Cancer
Since apparently you can only learn about skin cancer in a place where you're most likely to get it, my dad has a dermatology meeting in St. Thomas. I once asked my dad if there's direct connection between his not paying for his hotel stay while doing a drug study and the fact that my Zofran costs $39 a pill, and he said "Absolutely not" with a straight face. He's not lying; he's just delusional.
The rest of the family does have to pay, but the point of this little ramble is that I'm going to be away from now until Sunday, so I'm turning off the comments because I won't be around to approve them. When I get back we can discuss my test drive of my e-Reader (actually a refurbished Fujitsu tablet PC). Cheers!
The rest of the family does have to pay, but the point of this little ramble is that I'm going to be away from now until Sunday, so I'm turning off the comments because I won't be around to approve them. When I get back we can discuss my test drive of my e-Reader (actually a refurbished Fujitsu tablet PC). Cheers!
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Deal with Deals for a Series
Anyone who uses a tiny envelope as an SASE for a normal-sized query letter already has a mark against them when I open up their query. It's not fair, but I'm declaring it. I hate stationary envelopes. Hate them, hate them, hate them. Anyway...
Did you sell the series as as series? Or did you sell the first one as a standalone, with hopes that it would sell well enough to get the subsequent volumes picked up as well? I keep reading conflicting advice about whether to tell an agent that your book is the first of a series or not.
I sold it as a stand-alone first book even though both editor and agent knew very well I had a series that was mostly written. Remember that this was a case where the editor made the offer first (she took unsolicited submissions) and then I got myself an agent. She discussed (briefly) a multi-book deal but dropped the subject when I said I had an agent, knowing that the agent probably wouldn't go for it.
First of all, once you have an agent, tell them everything. Well, not what you had for breakfast, or what you think of their new skirt, but the point is, holding back from your agent will only hurt you, not help you.
Second, multi-book deals are a complicated thing and they're pretty rare except in certain genres, or if the author is already fairly established. That's probably why I've never personally seen the contract for one. Also, there has to be serious money on the table for a multi-book deal to happen, because if the first book takes off, you've just lost possible high advances for the rest of the books. It also doesn't guarantee that the publishing house won't drag its heels on publishing the books, especially if the first one doesn't do well, or break the contract altogether.
Further complicating it is if it's a series or not. Some well-known authors (well-known in that they sell a lot of books) get deals where they promise to write a few books in a certain genre for a certain amount of money over a certain period of time. The books are usually only connected by genre. Then there's books that are actually a series, meaning one follows the other, with the ultimate intention (most of the time) of ending. Publishers like series a lot because each time a new book comes out, there's be some buying up by new fans of the older books, and they make a considerable portion of their money from their backlist. On the other hand, they're slow to commit to the first one, especially if it doesn't stand-alone (meaning, it requires the other books for the series to end, so they have to buy the whole trilogy and whatnot). They're trying to forecast the market and not lose money, like any company that wants to stay in business, but any browsing through the sci-fi/fantasy section will tell you that publishers love series for that genre. (Romance and thriller, not so much. Certainly not thriller, but sometimes you can get a "series" of romances that are different characters but the same setting)
backlist - earlier books that are still in print because they're still selling. Backlist books are more likely to have earned back their advance and are now just making more money each printing, as all of the work (except for printing the books and shipping them) is done.
frontlist - books currently being published and promoted by the company.
Did you sell the series as as series? Or did you sell the first one as a standalone, with hopes that it would sell well enough to get the subsequent volumes picked up as well? I keep reading conflicting advice about whether to tell an agent that your book is the first of a series or not.
I sold it as a stand-alone first book even though both editor and agent knew very well I had a series that was mostly written. Remember that this was a case where the editor made the offer first (she took unsolicited submissions) and then I got myself an agent. She discussed (briefly) a multi-book deal but dropped the subject when I said I had an agent, knowing that the agent probably wouldn't go for it.
First of all, once you have an agent, tell them everything. Well, not what you had for breakfast, or what you think of their new skirt, but the point is, holding back from your agent will only hurt you, not help you.
Second, multi-book deals are a complicated thing and they're pretty rare except in certain genres, or if the author is already fairly established. That's probably why I've never personally seen the contract for one. Also, there has to be serious money on the table for a multi-book deal to happen, because if the first book takes off, you've just lost possible high advances for the rest of the books. It also doesn't guarantee that the publishing house won't drag its heels on publishing the books, especially if the first one doesn't do well, or break the contract altogether.
Further complicating it is if it's a series or not. Some well-known authors (well-known in that they sell a lot of books) get deals where they promise to write a few books in a certain genre for a certain amount of money over a certain period of time. The books are usually only connected by genre. Then there's books that are actually a series, meaning one follows the other, with the ultimate intention (most of the time) of ending. Publishers like series a lot because each time a new book comes out, there's be some buying up by new fans of the older books, and they make a considerable portion of their money from their backlist. On the other hand, they're slow to commit to the first one, especially if it doesn't stand-alone (meaning, it requires the other books for the series to end, so they have to buy the whole trilogy and whatnot). They're trying to forecast the market and not lose money, like any company that wants to stay in business, but any browsing through the sci-fi/fantasy section will tell you that publishers love series for that genre. (Romance and thriller, not so much. Certainly not thriller, but sometimes you can get a "series" of romances that are different characters but the same setting)
backlist - earlier books that are still in print because they're still selling. Backlist books are more likely to have earned back their advance and are now just making more money each printing, as all of the work (except for printing the books and shipping them) is done.
frontlist - books currently being published and promoted by the company.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Authorial Slump
Have you ever taken on a writer that had a great first novel but went down hill from there? I'm only curious because I keep reading most authors never sell their first work because they get better at the craft the more they work. I'm just curious if you have ever come across the opposite of that. Thank you for doing this. It's a huge help.
Let me clarify as to how I understood your comment: The author has a first book, but the second tanks, is hard to sell, or we can't sell at all.
We see this all the time with fiction authors. It occurs in film as well, where it's called the "sophomore slump." Directors have been planning a film their whole lives, they make it, it works, and then they have to come up with a film in a much shorter span of time and they don't have it in them.
In fiction it's not always a question of time (since we can't make our authors writer) but ideas. Some people only have one good book in them. It's not a bad thing - most people have no good books in them. They had an idea, a story they wanted to tell (similar to their own or their own with some window dressings) and they told it. Now what?
Generally the author will get a second chance and make it to the third book, unless the second is really terrible. The second-book clause will kick in, and the publishing company will think the second book is worth a chance because it will ride on the name of the author, which is now an established name. It does, to some extent, but people notice it's not quite as good. Then we get the third manuscript in, and it's become even more obvious that the author has really mined his/her brain for ideas and come up dry. They have another story, but it's got very similar themes and the same general message, only it's less interesting. Or it's a departure from form in an attempt to escape that, and it's terrible. We try to revise it, we shop it, and generally advise the author to take the highest amount offered, which is far lower than the previous books. Sometimes we end up selling it to a small press simply because it's been rejected everywhere else, or have an honest session with the author and tell them to try again.
(Note: This does not refer to books that are part of a series. Once a series gets going, the books get bought in bunches or generally just get bought as long as they look basically the same because there's an established storyline and fan base. This has resulted in a lot of bad books being published, but I'm for it because I have a series, and the first book sold. If it does well, the second will be picked up. If I make it to the third, I might be in the clear for all 10, even the ones that are weaker than others)
Let me clarify as to how I understood your comment: The author has a first book, but the second tanks, is hard to sell, or we can't sell at all.
We see this all the time with fiction authors. It occurs in film as well, where it's called the "sophomore slump." Directors have been planning a film their whole lives, they make it, it works, and then they have to come up with a film in a much shorter span of time and they don't have it in them.
In fiction it's not always a question of time (since we can't make our authors writer) but ideas. Some people only have one good book in them. It's not a bad thing - most people have no good books in them. They had an idea, a story they wanted to tell (similar to their own or their own with some window dressings) and they told it. Now what?
Generally the author will get a second chance and make it to the third book, unless the second is really terrible. The second-book clause will kick in, and the publishing company will think the second book is worth a chance because it will ride on the name of the author, which is now an established name. It does, to some extent, but people notice it's not quite as good. Then we get the third manuscript in, and it's become even more obvious that the author has really mined his/her brain for ideas and come up dry. They have another story, but it's got very similar themes and the same general message, only it's less interesting. Or it's a departure from form in an attempt to escape that, and it's terrible. We try to revise it, we shop it, and generally advise the author to take the highest amount offered, which is far lower than the previous books. Sometimes we end up selling it to a small press simply because it's been rejected everywhere else, or have an honest session with the author and tell them to try again.
(Note: This does not refer to books that are part of a series. Once a series gets going, the books get bought in bunches or generally just get bought as long as they look basically the same because there's an established storyline and fan base. This has resulted in a lot of bad books being published, but I'm for it because I have a series, and the first book sold. If it does well, the second will be picked up. If I make it to the third, I might be in the clear for all 10, even the ones that are weaker than others)
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
ZZZZZZZZ...
That's what I wish I was doing, actually. Stupid, stupid insomnia.
So things have been a bit slow at the office. That's not a huge surprise but it doesn't make for a lot of posts. The slowest times of the year for queries are, predictably, mid-December to mid-January, and the month of August. You know, when you (the writer) are on vacation or getting ready for vacation and the last thing on your mind is the query letter or finishing up the novel so you can write the query letter. While this shouldn't technically affect the response, I would submit during these periods, because chances are the mail piles are a little light and the agent isn't overwhelmed and the assistant has shorter hours.
No, the publishing industry is not asleep. Most of us are in the office, and some of us are even in the office on the actual holidays. The industry goes through cycles that adhere to the natural rhythm of the seasons. Also, we're all dreading doing our taxes and cursing ourselves for not implementing that better filing system of receipts that we promised ourselves we would do last year, just like everyone else.
So, questions? Haven't gotten a lot in the emailbox recently. Can't be that I've done them all.
So things have been a bit slow at the office. That's not a huge surprise but it doesn't make for a lot of posts. The slowest times of the year for queries are, predictably, mid-December to mid-January, and the month of August. You know, when you (the writer) are on vacation or getting ready for vacation and the last thing on your mind is the query letter or finishing up the novel so you can write the query letter. While this shouldn't technically affect the response, I would submit during these periods, because chances are the mail piles are a little light and the agent isn't overwhelmed and the assistant has shorter hours.
No, the publishing industry is not asleep. Most of us are in the office, and some of us are even in the office on the actual holidays. The industry goes through cycles that adhere to the natural rhythm of the seasons. Also, we're all dreading doing our taxes and cursing ourselves for not implementing that better filing system of receipts that we promised ourselves we would do last year, just like everyone else.
So, questions? Haven't gotten a lot in the emailbox recently. Can't be that I've done them all.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
The Meaning of Life
Over the years I have opened many, many query letters from people who have found the meaning of life, or the one true answer, or however you want to put it. I think Christmas brought out the crazies, because literally 3/4's of today's queries were what I just said. Let me now impart to you the secret to ultimate happiness:
(1) Find G-d.
(2) Do good stuff.
(3) Don't do bad stuff.
(4) Appreciate the things you have, even if one of them is cancer or something.
Oh wait, that's the message of every single religion ever. My bad. Nothing to see here. Move along.
(1) Find G-d.
(2) Do good stuff.
(3) Don't do bad stuff.
(4) Appreciate the things you have, even if one of them is cancer or something.
Oh wait, that's the message of every single religion ever. My bad. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Short Stories and Credentials
Dear Rejecter:
I've been following your blog for some time as part of my attempt to create the perfect query letter - I want to do this before the manuscript is finished so I won't be tempted to send out a hurried query letter. Do you read science fiction? The reason I ask is because I'm wondering which short story venues, apart from magazines that contribute to SFWA eligibility, would impress you favorably if you saw them on a cover letter. Are you familiar with any magazines so pathetic the title would be a negative?
I do read science fiction. When I do read fiction, it's generally sci-fi/fantasy or historical fiction, unless something else has been recommended to me.
Your question addresses a larger issue, which is credentials. Yes, publications in important literary journals and sci-fi magazines (in this case) are very impressive to us. Your college's literary mag, not so much.
With that said, novel writers out there: Don't stress over short stories if you're not a short story writer. Some people aren't. If you are, by nature, a novelist, then you might burn a lot of time and frustration trying to get some short story that you threw together for the query letter published. The magazines/journals we care about have very, very high standards and way too many submissions to publish everything they would even want to publish.
I made my own foray into trying to get short stories published when trying to sell my second manuscript, which never sold. Eventually I got some short story into an online mag that paid me $5.00, but really, it was an excruciating process. I rarely write short stories and when I do, they're not my best work. All of the different magazines have their own standards and processes and then there's the waiting, waiting, waiting. If you have strong short stories it's worth it, but if it's just eating time that could be spent on another novel, it's not.
I've been following your blog for some time as part of my attempt to create the perfect query letter - I want to do this before the manuscript is finished so I won't be tempted to send out a hurried query letter. Do you read science fiction? The reason I ask is because I'm wondering which short story venues, apart from magazines that contribute to SFWA eligibility, would impress you favorably if you saw them on a cover letter. Are you familiar with any magazines so pathetic the title would be a negative?
I do read science fiction. When I do read fiction, it's generally sci-fi/fantasy or historical fiction, unless something else has been recommended to me.
Your question addresses a larger issue, which is credentials. Yes, publications in important literary journals and sci-fi magazines (in this case) are very impressive to us. Your college's literary mag, not so much.
With that said, novel writers out there: Don't stress over short stories if you're not a short story writer. Some people aren't. If you are, by nature, a novelist, then you might burn a lot of time and frustration trying to get some short story that you threw together for the query letter published. The magazines/journals we care about have very, very high standards and way too many submissions to publish everything they would even want to publish.
I made my own foray into trying to get short stories published when trying to sell my second manuscript, which never sold. Eventually I got some short story into an online mag that paid me $5.00, but really, it was an excruciating process. I rarely write short stories and when I do, they're not my best work. All of the different magazines have their own standards and processes and then there's the waiting, waiting, waiting. If you have strong short stories it's worth it, but if it's just eating time that could be spent on another novel, it's not.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
A Post With My Writer's Hat On
This week my book went to copy-editing, which is essentially the last stage of editorial. Generally editorial works like this, after you signed the contract, but in this case it started before we actually signed the contract because it got held up for a ton of reasons.
1. I, according to the contract, give them a polished copy of the manuscript.
2. The editor suggests revisions and you do them, or the editor likes it the way it is and says "I'm sending it to copy-editing."
3. You panic on a level on which you've never panicked before, knowing that once it goes to copy-editing, no major revisions (addition or removal of scenes, etc) can be done, and this is you presenting yourself to the world even if the novel has nothing to do with you, so G-ddamn it, it had better be perfect, because those Amazon commentators are going to find something wrong and you're going to look like an idiot, you just know it.
4. The editor eventually pries the manuscript out of your hands, assures you that it's fine, and sends it to copy-editing.
5. Months later, it comes back with some minor (grammatical) revisions, you get a final pass at it, and it goes to press. Changes at this point are only cosmetic.
Last week I was not a sane person, and worried about this scene that I didn't do and that scene that I did do and was I really satisfied with it and G-ddamn this thing had better be perfect and so on. Granted, I am very, very grateful to be this far along and having my lifelong dream fulfilled and whatnot, but DAMN, this sort of thing will keep you up at night.
1. I, according to the contract, give them a polished copy of the manuscript.
2. The editor suggests revisions and you do them, or the editor likes it the way it is and says "I'm sending it to copy-editing."
3. You panic on a level on which you've never panicked before, knowing that once it goes to copy-editing, no major revisions (addition or removal of scenes, etc) can be done, and this is you presenting yourself to the world even if the novel has nothing to do with you, so G-ddamn it, it had better be perfect, because those Amazon commentators are going to find something wrong and you're going to look like an idiot, you just know it.
4. The editor eventually pries the manuscript out of your hands, assures you that it's fine, and sends it to copy-editing.
5. Months later, it comes back with some minor (grammatical) revisions, you get a final pass at it, and it goes to press. Changes at this point are only cosmetic.
Last week I was not a sane person, and worried about this scene that I didn't do and that scene that I did do and was I really satisfied with it and G-ddamn this thing had better be perfect and so on. Granted, I am very, very grateful to be this far along and having my lifelong dream fulfilled and whatnot, but DAMN, this sort of thing will keep you up at night.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Kindle
So Amazon.com's pushing their Kindle e-reader on us pretty hard, as anyone who regularly visits the site in the past few weeks has noticed. Now normally I associate "kindle" with some flammable pieces of garbage you use to start a fire, which seems to be the consensus about the device in general, only it costs more and is hard to burn.
To be fair, I have never seen a Kindle in real life or used it myself, so I'm not the most well-versed of judges here. The Amazon reviewers gave it a "mediocre" rating, which is I suppose not as bad as it could be, but in principle I never buy a new piece of technology/software first off the line. I wait until the second edition at least, when they've fixed all the bugs from the first edition and there's been a price drop. I also am not a fan of e-readers, as I do a lot of my reading on Shabbos, when electronic devices are forbidden because the rabbis who decreed that didn't have a Playstation (or that's my feeling on the matter).
I have to say, for a device that seems overpriced and ridden with obvious difficulties which would bother me as a customer (like not working in rural areas, or not reading .pdf files), they are pushing the hell out of it, and I have to admire them for that. Suddenly my account has a "Kindle orders" page (empty) and every book's profile makes sure to let publishers know they can have it in a Kindle edition. With all the timidity and confusion about the e-book market, they are going headfirst into it with the determination to at least attempt to temporarily corner the market. With all that effort, you'd think they would have designed a better reader, but they were probably rushing it a bit.
This all amuses me more than it annoys me because about a month ago, I may (or may not, future employers) have been at an AAR meeting with the heads of the big 6 publishing houses for a panel on digital publishing. In short:
CEOs: OH NOES, THE INTERNET HAS PUBLISHABLE WORDS AND NO ONE TOLD US!
Agents: Can our authors have 50% royalties on eBooks?
CEOs: No.
All of the major publishing houses are currently throwing millions of dollars into research and development for the digital revolution they know is coming, but can't predict the outcome of, since a book is not the same as a song or a movie. Fair enough. That didn't stop them from saying some things that I, as a Technocrat, was utterly baffled by.
"No, we don't see a reason why the author royalty rate should be significantly higher on an eBook than on the print version."
"I think eBooks should be priced at the same retail price as regular books, because it's essentially the same thing."
"Though it hasn't worked for the record or movie industry, we should definitely put a lot of money into investing in DRM technology."
(in response to a question about file sharing) "Why would someone do that?"
Amazon, as a website run by people who work on computers all day, is obviously ahead of the curve on this one, though for some reason one of the publishers felt that Amazon was no longer worth talking about because their book sale profits were on a downward slope, in a study that failed to take the blossoming used book market into account, from which Amazon reaps huge commission fees.
Amazon also thought of a way around file sharing, at least until someone cares enough about a Kindle to hack it, which is that the Kindle editions are in Kindle files that are sent straight to your Kindle reader, and you never really own them, and they don't go on your computer and you can't send them to other Kindle machines. Oh, and you can't upload non-Kindle files to the Kindle reader. I have good faith that my friends will hack the device sooner or later (if they haven't already) and find a way to get .pdf files on it, or they'll just buy a better eBook reader that actually lets them do that and lets them store more than 40 books at a time. (40? 40? Are fucking kidding me?)
Will Kindle dominate/topple publishing as we know it? No. Will a future, better device succeed where the Kindle will ultimately fail? No. Someday, I may buy a cheap e-reader, load my library into it, and use it for reference purposes while writing, but otherwise, it's books for me. Cheap, used books available on Amazon.
To be fair, I have never seen a Kindle in real life or used it myself, so I'm not the most well-versed of judges here. The Amazon reviewers gave it a "mediocre" rating, which is I suppose not as bad as it could be, but in principle I never buy a new piece of technology/software first off the line. I wait until the second edition at least, when they've fixed all the bugs from the first edition and there's been a price drop. I also am not a fan of e-readers, as I do a lot of my reading on Shabbos, when electronic devices are forbidden because the rabbis who decreed that didn't have a Playstation (or that's my feeling on the matter).
I have to say, for a device that seems overpriced and ridden with obvious difficulties which would bother me as a customer (like not working in rural areas, or not reading .pdf files), they are pushing the hell out of it, and I have to admire them for that. Suddenly my account has a "Kindle orders" page (empty) and every book's profile makes sure to let publishers know they can have it in a Kindle edition. With all the timidity and confusion about the e-book market, they are going headfirst into it with the determination to at least attempt to temporarily corner the market. With all that effort, you'd think they would have designed a better reader, but they were probably rushing it a bit.
This all amuses me more than it annoys me because about a month ago, I may (or may not, future employers) have been at an AAR meeting with the heads of the big 6 publishing houses for a panel on digital publishing. In short:
CEOs: OH NOES, THE INTERNET HAS PUBLISHABLE WORDS AND NO ONE TOLD US!
Agents: Can our authors have 50% royalties on eBooks?
CEOs: No.
All of the major publishing houses are currently throwing millions of dollars into research and development for the digital revolution they know is coming, but can't predict the outcome of, since a book is not the same as a song or a movie. Fair enough. That didn't stop them from saying some things that I, as a Technocrat, was utterly baffled by.
"No, we don't see a reason why the author royalty rate should be significantly higher on an eBook than on the print version."
"I think eBooks should be priced at the same retail price as regular books, because it's essentially the same thing."
"Though it hasn't worked for the record or movie industry, we should definitely put a lot of money into investing in DRM technology."
(in response to a question about file sharing) "Why would someone do that?"
Amazon, as a website run by people who work on computers all day, is obviously ahead of the curve on this one, though for some reason one of the publishers felt that Amazon was no longer worth talking about because their book sale profits were on a downward slope, in a study that failed to take the blossoming used book market into account, from which Amazon reaps huge commission fees.
Amazon also thought of a way around file sharing, at least until someone cares enough about a Kindle to hack it, which is that the Kindle editions are in Kindle files that are sent straight to your Kindle reader, and you never really own them, and they don't go on your computer and you can't send them to other Kindle machines. Oh, and you can't upload non-Kindle files to the Kindle reader. I have good faith that my friends will hack the device sooner or later (if they haven't already) and find a way to get .pdf files on it, or they'll just buy a better eBook reader that actually lets them do that and lets them store more than 40 books at a time. (40? 40? Are fucking kidding me?)
Will Kindle dominate/topple publishing as we know it? No. Will a future, better device succeed where the Kindle will ultimately fail? No. Someday, I may buy a cheap e-reader, load my library into it, and use it for reference purposes while writing, but otherwise, it's books for me. Cheap, used books available on Amazon.
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