A site for writers, readers and fans of children’s literature written by Mary Kole, associate agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency!
There are a lot of glances being shot on the pages of most novels. Sarcastic ones, annoyed ones, angry ones…characters always seem to have meaningful looks and glances for each other.
This is often a tic for writers. What do I mean by “tic”? Something you do in your writing that you’re not aware of. Something you usually do a lot. Some writers have favorite words, other writers have pet descriptions, and yet others have go-to actions and gestures for their characters.
Why do I think so many writers rely on “She shot him a glance” or “He gave her a look” in their writing? Because it’s a cinematic construct that we’re used to in movies and on TV. When a real life person or a movie character shoots a glance, we can read their body language, see the expression on their face, and interpret meaning from their eyes.
Right away, we can get the flavor of the look or glance and what it is meant to communicate to the target character and to us, the viewer. Loaded looks are pretty much the staple of soap operas and sitcoms. A lot goes without being said in words in these visual mediums.
But that’s just the problem. In prose, we don’t have the added benefits of seeing the character’s facial expressions or reading their looks as they give another character a meaningful glance. And if we can’t see the look…it loses a lot of its meaning. The glance becomes vague instead of specific, as it can be on the screen. And vagueness is the death of good prose.
What’s the solution? Try to wean yourself off of glances. Sure, you can use a well-placed glance or look if you have enough context to make it count. And you can always qualify the glance, ie: “She shot him a murderous glance” or “He fired daggers at her with his eyes,” but these are so overused that they’ve verged into cliche territory. It may be easier to just face it — a loaded look in prose will never carry the same weight as it does in visual mediums — and more on to finding a fresher way for characters to communicate, something that reads better on the page.
Tags: Character, Description
This is a comment I make to writers often, and it’s a heartbreaking one, at first, but one that is encouraging if you really think about it. Often, I receive picture book submissions that are nice, well-written, tell a story or have a nice poem in them, and are, overall, pleasant to read.
But are they a picture book or are they a short story that’s more suited for the magazine market than the book market?
I assume that adult non-fiction editors see this issue all the time. They get proposals for non-fiction books that are too narrow in scope or too limited in audience and they suggest that the author pursue it as a non-fiction magazine or how to piece instead.
That’s never something a writer wants to hear, of course. But it is good feedback. That means the reader found something in you writing style that’s good and they liked your idea…they just don’t think you can carry an entire book with your concept.
I see this a lot in my picture book submissions with clever poems, poems about an object or character rather than an event, and stories that are just too specific to be universally appealing. The picture book market is really, really, really (seriously) tough right now. Editors are looking for the most universal, marketable, trade-oriented picture books right now. Sure, they want quirky and funny, but they also want character-driven stories that have a dramatic arc and are also something that the most possible readers will relate to.
So if I get a poem about swirling leaves in autumn, that might be too quiet and not have a character or story to drive it. Or if I get a story about a character who just couldn’t tie her shoes, that might be really character-driven, yes, but without a lot of story to back it up. Maybe I receive a character-driven story, but it’s about a family who lives on a maple syrup farm in Vermont (I just came from Vermont for a conference and LOVED IT!). That’s lovely, has a story, and has characters, but it might be too niche to appeal to a wider audience, and might be a better fit for a magazine (maybe for an autumn issue) or a regional press that could publish a very specific picture book and get it to a more targeted audience (say, Vermonters or maple syrup enthusiasts).
The most frequent question I ask myself, when looking at a picture book, after I see that the writing is publication-ready and of a certain level, is: Is this a story that will appeal to a wide market?
If not, I suggest that the author try another market, like magazines or a regional/small/specialized press.
The other ruler I use in my head is the fact that a picture book is about a $50,000 investment for a publisher. An agent told me this figure once and it has always stuck with me. What goes into this investment? This is obviously a simplified example with simple math, but it’s worth paying attention to. The $50,000 investment covers the author’s advance, the illustrator’s advance, the publisher’s overhead costs that pay the editor and designers who work on it, the costs of production, producing test copies and f&g’s, marketing, etc. And that’s before publication. Once the book is ready to sell, there are other costs, per copy, once the book is actually being printed, shipped, distributed, warehoused, and put on shelves.
A magazine has a much lower financial investment for each piece they publish. Sure, they pay much less money to run your piece and you’ll never get to see it fully illustrated or see royalties from it, but the magazine is also much more likely to buy your piece and do something with it than a publisher who is looking at that $50,000 figure in their minds when deciding whether or not to acquire your work.
In today’s really difficult picture book market, I am forced to look at stories like this, too. While I naturally have a more literary, more obscure, more quiet sensibility based on what I grew up reading, I’m seeing some quieter and more literary projects rejected once I go out on submission with them, so I have to look at commercial considerations. I have to think: “Is this a $50,000 story?”
If it’s not, it very well could have a life in print…just maybe in a magazine or with a regional publisher. The good thing about magazines, also, is that you only use certain rights when you publish, and you may be able to exploit that same story in other markets or the book market once it has been published in a magazine. Lots of food for thought for picture book writers. A great place to see some magazine markets for children’s work is the 2010 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market, published by Writer’s Digest Books and edited by Alice Pope. Tons of magazines and smaller presses are listed there for your perusal…and submissions!
Tags: Picturebook
One good and well-meaning piece of advice floating around online is: research an agent’s list and query that agent if your project is similar to what they already represent. This makes total sense, right? If they liked it once, they have a high chance of liking it again and representing your similar project.
And this is, like I said, good advice. It encourages you to do research and to choose your submission list carefully and with good reason.
On the other hand, though, you could set yourself up for disappointment by doing this. There are two ways to miss the mark with this strategy. An agent’s deals on Publishers Marketplace, where a lot of writers get information about books an agent has sold, are usually for books that haven’t come out yet, if the deal is recent. That means you can’t find the book and check it out. The agent knows that book better than you do, then, so they know for sure whether your project and their existing project are similar or not. If you see that they sold a mermaid project recently, and you have a mermaid project, those two projects could be similar in subject matter, sure, but maybe they’re actually completely different: yours is a frothy romp, the sold project is a dark tragedy. So you never know for sure.
This brings up a very important point: you should look for similarities in tone, voice, style, characterization…not just subject matter. It’s the subject matter that could get you in trouble, but those other elements, themes, and craft considerations, could get you through the door. Why? Read on!
If your book is too similar to an agent’s existing sale, the agent could pass on your project because it could, in fact, be competition. And an agent doesn’t want to compete with his or herself, meaning they don’t want to sell two books that would take business away from each other when on the same bookstore shelves. An agent wants all their clients to do well. If they sell too many similar books, they are cannibalizing their own list, especially if the books are slated to come out around the same time. So if you target agents and cite previous projects that are too close, you may get a pass from that agent you were hoping to work with.
The other side of the coin is for the agents themselves. I’ve spoken to a lot of agents who are frustrated because they have become “known” for a certain type of book. And, for the reasons stated above, they can’t sell too much of that type of book without doing potential damage to existing clients’ titles. So they want to branch out and do other things…but writers keep sending them the type of book they’re known for.
For example, Stephenie Meyers’ agent is Jodi Reamer, at Writers House. I haven’t personally read Jodi’s slush, but I could make a very educated guess and say that it probably contains a lot of vampire books. Why? Because Jodi has a very well-known track record with vampires.
But do you think Jodi will jump on every vampire manuscript that comes along and risk a) cannibalizing Stephenie’s book sales (as if that was possible!) or b) try to place yet another vampire book in a crowded vampire market? I can’t say “no” for sure, but that would be my best guess.
So I would say that research is really important, but you may find that the common ground you think you have with an agent may actually decrease your chances of placing a manuscript with them. Unless, of course, you don’t use subject matter as your criteria for similarity. There are many other ways in which books can be similar.
For example, “My book has vampires, just like your client Stephenie Meyers’ book!” may not get you far, but “This book has a romantic feel and a star-crossed relationship at the heart of it” or “This manuscript has a sarcastic tone that reminded me of another book on your list” might, since those themes and voices, not the subject matter of the story, are attractive to the agent.
Tags: Voice
ETA after reading comments: If you’re happy to blog, please do it. This post is geared mostly to people who are on the fence and who are feeling pressure to start a blog because they hear that’s what they’re supposed to do. The tone of this question is usually, “Do I have to blog?” I’ve changed the title to reflect the framing.
This is a question that comes up a lot at conferences and from people who email me. It’s the familiar scenario: You’re an unpublished writer chasing publication. You don’t have a book or a deal to blog about yet, but you’ve heard that writers need platform and Internet presence, and you’ve heard that blogs get you friends and traffic and riches and unicorns, and you’ve also heard about this Twitter thing. Yet it sounds overwhelming. And you wonder if you have enough to blog about. You wonder if you have the time to keep up with all these things.
But the online writing community you see other unpublished writers enjoying keeps bugging you — You have to blog! You have to Tweet! You have to Facebook!
What do you do?
I’m going to say, probably, the exact opposite of what you’d expect. See, I’m a person who blogs. And I have a Twitter. And I’m on Facebook. I also grew up in the Silicon Valley and worked for a bunch of Internet start-ups before I got involved in publishing. You think I’d be totally into unpublished writers blogging, Tweeting, flickring, Buzzing, Facebooking, and all that. Right?
Wrong.
I never look at the blogs of people who query me unless they can give me some kind of impressive fact, like “30,000 people visit this blog per month” or “I draw a daily web cartoon and have a following” or “I’ve created an interactive game that you can play” or whatever.
If you’re iffy on blogging and worry, already, that you’ll run out of material, I say don’t do it. There are too many bad blogs, blogs about people’s cats (I swore I would never blog about my cat…then she got sick and I freaked out and I blogged…at every conference I attend, people still ask me about my cat!), blogs about their word count for the day and what book they’re reading, blogs by people who think they need a blog. Don’t add one more to the pile. Blogs without good, useful information or blogs by a clearly reluctant author are the worst.
The thing about blogs is that they’re a living thing. Blogs take your most recent entry and post it first. For the savvy, content-rich blog, that’s great. For the reluctant blog, that’s bad. Readers can log on and see the exact date when you lost your zest for blogging or ran out of content. And I’d say that a blog last updated in September 2009 is worse than no blog at all. It makes you seem out-of-date, irrelevant…maybe even dead. (Old blogs frozen in time are almost creepy.)
Fiction writers don’t need to pay attention to that whole “You have to have a platform” myth as much as nonfiction writers do. If you’re writing a novel or a picture book…what is your platform? That you like writing and you’re writing a novel or a picture book. Just like all the other writers out there. Unless you happen to be an expert in a subject matter that plays into your fiction, or you’re some other kind of professional writer who is crossing over, you’re not going to have any more platform than that.
The reason why I’m so negative about unpublished writers blogging and Tweeting is that it’s usually not good content. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Internet from actually working for it for all those years, it’s that users come to the Internet to see, “What’s in it for me?” They want valuable content that speaks to them. They Google: “How do I get this stain out of my white carpet?” “Is it okay that my baby is turning sort of purple?” (It’s probably not.) “How do I stop the hiccups?” “What’s a great summer BBQ recipe?”
Most writing blogs — and most blogs in general — are about the writer of the blog, not about the user. I have a blog, but you’ll notice that I try to keep myself and my life out of it (and I was doing a dang good job until my cat got sick!). I want to use this space to give you valuable content, because I know that’s what people want from me. At the end of the day, they have their own cats to worry about, but they would like some writing and publishing advice.
Unpublished writing blogs do one positive thing, usually: they foster community among other unpublished writers. You can come gripe about rejections, brag about word count, share your successes and frustrations and make friends. While that’s nice for you, it has little value to an agent or editor (and not all of us feel this way, so please take this as my opinion) who comes to visit. Unpublished writers also write about writing in their blog, and that may attract other unpublished writers, but it does have a limited reach. Published writers who write about writing usually attract a wider audience, as they have perceived authority.
If you have a blog where you can give people really valuable content, tips, and things to make their lives better (or at least to give them good cocktail party conversation), do it. If you are just thinking of blogging because everyone else does it or you heard that agents won’t consider you unless you have a blog, don’t.
Plus, Web 2.0 (social networking) is a time suck. You can go pretty far down the rabbit hole with Tweets and Facebook updates. Then you lose sight of the thing that’s really going to get you published: writing.
Focus on your writing. And if you feel the need to be online, which you should, at least in some small way, put up a simple three page site: main landing page with info about your work, about you page, contact page. That’s it, and it should be cheap to make a page that actually looks good and professional.
Once you’re under contract with a publisher, of course, everything changes. You’ll have stuff to say. You’ll have a book to sell. You’ll have events to publicize. You’ll have readers who want to know more about you. For now, though, don’t bow to the peer pressure if you really don’t feel comfortable blogging or Tweeting or Facebooking.
Tags: Etc.
Writers splitting with their representation happens a bit more often than many would like to think. The thing is, we all want to have a long-term relationship with a client (just like clients always strive, I should hope, to have long-term relationships with their agents), but sometimes there is turnover.
Writers figure out that they don’t like their agent’s particular way of doing things, or their agent’s editorial suggestions, or they feel dissatisfied with how their submissions are being handled, and they move on. It’s for the best. This is your career and, if you’re feeling unhappy, you need to either try and fix things with your current agent or move on to find another one.
I see too many writers who are intimidated by their agent. I can understand it from a stars-in-their-eyes new writer’s point of view, sure. You have a busy professional who is close to the publishing industry. They hold your dreams in their hands, supposedly. They’ve given you the time of day and they like you, they really like you!
Many new writers are blinded by this and don’t take into account that their agent’s editorial advice doesn’t match up with their own vision. Or they sit there and take it while their agent takes forever to respond to emails or to read revisions. Or they are afraid to ask their agents questions via phone or email, so they hit the online message boards and ask the other writers the things other writers probably don’t know — but that the agent definitely would, if the writer could summon up the guts to fire off an email.
We’re just people, people. We strive to do what’s best for clients and strive to take on clients who are a true fit, but, at the end of the day, we’re human beings and sometimes all parties can make mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes are a short-term error in communication that can be fixed by coming to an understanding. Sometimes, these mistakes will mean the end of your agent/writer relationship, but it’s usually for the best. So don’t be afraid to ask your agent questions. Don’t be afraid to disagree with editorial feedback. Don’t be afraid to prod when your agent goes a while without a response you’ve been expecting.
Agents have a list of writers that we work with. And we have our own careers. You only have one career to worry about, and one life. There’s an old adage: “Nobody will ever care about your business as much as you do.” I believe that’s true. But it’s my job to be the person by your side who cares the next most about your writing business.
If you don’t feel that your agent is serving you and your career — the only one you have — then it’s time to decide whether or not you’re a good fit. There are lots of agents out there. There’s a good chance that someone will be more attuned to your work if you really feel neglected or misunderstood. Remember, we’re the ones with the authority and the connections, but we can’t do any work without you. So make sure the agent you take on to represent you is giving you the best that you deserve.
Also, if anyone is in Manhattan this Wednesday, July 21st, I’m teaching a class for the Learning Annex. Click here for more information.
Tags: Writing
Reader Melissa asked this a few weeks ago and it’s one of my pet issues in YA. I talk to a few of my clients about this, and to anyone that asks, really, because it is a mystery, a frustration, a conundrum:
I am hoping you can answer a question for me. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about boy MC’s (YA) being a hard sell, yet many agents request boy books on their websites/blogs. Are boy MC’s a hard sell? My current involves a boy MC but with a romantic element to the story. Is this the same topic or are these two different types of books? To me, it would seem that boy MC books directed at boys alone are very different than boy MC books that have the romantic element so desirable to girls.
When people request “boy books,” I find that they’re more often talking about MG, where boy readers are still more active. In YA, boy readers are almost extinct. They have a) stopped reading or b) moved on to adult sci-fi/thriller/fantasy, etc. In MG, adventure and mystery and especially boy/girl teams of siblings or friends are doing well in the marketplace right now, so editors are looking to add those types of stories to their lists.
Not so much in YA. When I’ve gone on submission with boy YA and boy main characters in YA, I have literally heard from editors, “Oh, we’ve already filled our slot.” That’s right. A single slot. Some houses usually do one or two boy-centric YA books per season and that’s it. Because that’s not where the readers are, unfortunately. As much as editors would like to change the reality of older boys not reading, most have found that putting more and more books out there for them doesn’t necessarily move the needle.
One way that writers with boy MCs in YA can be successful is if they take lots of girl appeal, as Melissa says, and apply liberally. John Green is a really successful test case. He writes boy MCs that girl readers want to date, simple as that. His boy protagonists are quirky, nerdy, in love with a girl, and chasing her with such passion that boys can relate, sure, but girl readers swoon.
Girl readers can easily see themselves in the role of that girl, and they want the geeky, cute, dedicated boyfriend type that populates John’s pages, even if he is a loner or flawed or otherwise damaged. Girls love a good fixer-upper in some cases, not just the blazing-hot romantic hero. Vulnerable boys, not just sparkly ones, really do appeal.
So I think Melissa’s on the right track with the romance element. More than 80% of your readers, even with a male MC or a mixed-gender or gender-neutral tale, will be girls. Give them lots to dig into. And a guy they can dig. Give the boy readers good stuff, too, and a character to relate to who’s not a total girl-pleaser, but know that your core audience will most likely be girls. And if you’re planning a book that’s totally boy-centric, it will be a harder push to get it on publisher’s lists, unless it is just really appealing and awesome for teen boys and you nail the demographic well.
Tags: Character, Commercial
This is a notice to any people who are emailing me or any of the Andrea Brown agents, or if you’ve tried to email us since yesterday. It seems that our andreabrownlit.com email addresses are not working for the moment. We are troubleshooting the issue and hope to have them back up soon.
If anybody needs me for business issues, in the meantime, please use my mary (at) kidlit (dot) com email address.
Also, I have caught up with queries as of midnight, July 12th, as far as I know. If you have not heard back on a query sent before midnight, July 12th, or if you have sent a query since then, please resend to the above address.
Tags: Etc.
People were such fans of my Critique Connection post in April that I wanted to give new readers a shot at it and existing readers who didn’t find their love connection more space to find possibilities. I’m thinking of turning this into a semi-regular thing.
Remember, finding the right critique partner is like dating. Don’t try one or two and decide that critique isn’t for you or that you don’t benefit from feedback. I just went to Utah and saw the kind of passionate, supportive writing community they have there. I’m more convinced than ever before that a critique group is the secret of writers whose work is above and beyond the rest.
So keep trying. Try to find good critique partners here, try other online resources, try writing classes at your local university or bookstore, get creative. People still post on my April Critique Connection, so I’m sure there’s still interest.
If you want a critique partner: write down your name, the age range you write for (picture book, chapter book, MG, YA, etc.), your genre and anything else you want to say about your story, the word count, your email address so that prospective partners can contact you (I suggest typing it like this: mary at kidlit dot com, instead of mary@kidlit.com, so you don’t make yourself a spam target.) You can also tell people a little about how you like to work. Do you like to exchange chapters? Read full manuscripts? Do you give notes? Do you want to Skype? It’s up to you to work out communication style, critique frequency, and other rules with your new partner.
People who’ve posted on the April Critique Connection thread recently: You may want to repost your listing here to keep it most current.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve made any critique connections from April, and any other thoughts you might have. Then cruise the comments and see if your next critique partner isn’t listing themselves, ready to read your work!
Tags: Critique
What better way to commemorate a big day than with embarrassing photographs? I wrote this post ahead of time, so I didn’t have to add to an already-hectic morning. Right now, I’m probably rolling out of bed, shoving Sushi in her carrier, and trying to get to the airport with my boyfriend, who has been kind enough to come out and celebrate my last week in California with me. All my stuff is shipped, all my remaining stuff is in storage, and San Francisco is wrapping itself up in its foggy coat and wondering why it feels so lonely.
(I think I’m technically pointing west here, instead of east, but whatever. I don’t know why, but I have always loved this picture of me on the S.S. Balclutha at the Hyde Street Pier. You can see the Coit Tower and the Transamerica Building through the rigging behind me. Arrrrrrr!)
I’m headed from my longtime home of San Francisco:
To probably the only other place I could ever call home…New York!
(That’s not a picture I’ll ever get to take again. Now you know why I wasn’t what you’d call “popular” as a kid. The whole “smiley face t-shirt, grunge-era flannel” combination was not as unusual as I’d like to think.)
I’m keeping a residence in California and will be back often to see family, friends, go to meetings, do Big Sur, and all that jazz. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to many new adventures and new successes as your east coast kidlit representative.
Tags: About Me
Is writing a business or is it art?
Should a creator focus on one or the other exclusively?
How far into art do you go before you’re an idealistic hippie with no “real world” perspective or chance for success? How far to the business side do you have to lean before you’re a capitalist sell-out with no heart? Is there a happy medium?
This is a fascinating topic that brings a million different conversations to mind. Just for the record, I don’t believe any of the stereotypes I mentioned in the last paragraph, but a lot of people do. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what art really is, about what business really is, and about the gray area where the two meet. But, as most working writers and publishing professionals will tell you, that gray area is more productive and beneficial to both sides of the debate (the art, and the business) than the fringes.
As much as writers and agents and editors want it to be all about the art, they need to make money for themselves, for their agency, for their house. As much as people like paying their rent and putting their kids through school, they also want to create something meaningful and fulfilling…that’s what attracted us to books in the first place.
I wish more people would see the creative calling as a mix between business and art, instead of thinking that this mix is somehow dirty. But people’s bad attitudes about either “stuffy business” or “flaky art” — and, as an agent, I’m biased — is that this is a delusional, destructive stance. Writers need to learn about the business end of things, even as they’re honing their craft. Not to sell out their artistic ideas but to be informed about how things work, what happens once you write your book. I agent. I’ve also worked at a publishing house. I believe that business and art can — and must — coexist. A book isn’t just a beautiful dream poured into paper and ink form. It’s not just creativity personified. It’s a product, too.
And that’s a wonderful thing. Not only is your creation out in the world (art), but others can buy it and read it and share in the experience of it (business).
One of the big shockers in my self-publishing debate on the blog seemed to be that I ask myself, “Can I sell this?” when considering a project. A lot of people were outraged that the question wasn’t, “Is this good? Is this well-written?”
Since part of my business is selling, I really don’t mind being labeled a sell-out by people who don’t know better. But this is a writing blog. I write mostly about writing here. And I just finished my own MFA in…yep…creative writing. Why would I possibly bother being so darn passionate about writing if the writing of my submissions or client manuscripts didn’t mean squat to me? A huge part of what goes into the answer to “Can I sell this?” is about the writing. Bad writing is severely grating to me. I can’t imagine reading a poorly-written manuscript once, let alone the four or five times it will take to fully revise it. So representing good writing to me is a matter of course. I should’ve mentioned that, I guess. I didn’t think I had to.
But I can’t just have the art, I need to think of the business, too. The truth is, not everything that publishers publish is fantastic art. Because a lot of fantastic art novels, the ones with lower projected sales numbers, are bigger risks for publishers. And I don’t think a lot of editors would be taking those risks if they didn’t have revenue from the less-artistic-but-really-commercial properties that are selling like hotcakes. So the “literary” books balance out the “commercial” books and vice versa.
This is the #1 reason why I have absolutely nothing but love for the Twilight saga. Is it great literature? No. My literary standards are much higher than that for most books. But has it revitalized YA? Did it pump money into the publishing industry? Did it get kids and adults into bookstores, where they discovered other kidlit to read? Yes! So while it won’t be remembered as a literary masterpiece, it has done a lot for the publishing industry, the children’s book biz in particular, at a bad economic time. And that bit of great business has enabled a lot of art.
There’s something out there for everyone on publisher’s lists. And that’s what I strive for with my own list. And there are publishing tools and technologies for every kind of writer — the one that wants to publish traditionally and the one that wants to self-publish.
I keep saying it but it needs to be said: this is all so subjective. What’s good writing, to me, could be too literary for someone else. Or it could be too commercial for yet another reader. I think the “business vs. art” debate is tiresome and short-sighted, just like the “publishing is dead, long live publishing” debate, just like the “e-books will completely replace printed books.”
No, no, and no. As everything changes these days, life and business and writing becomes all about the gray area. Not everyone has to be a businessman or an artist. Traditional publishing doesn’t have to be a writer’s only answer anymore, but the other route isn’t a magic bullet, either. Not every book has to be published in paper or in digital or vice versa. To get the most solid books, the most solid products, the most solid careers, you need to think of a blend. Both business and art, traditional publishing and self-publishing, printed books and e-books, are necessary and valid.
Tags: Writing
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