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Slush Behind the Scenes

August 25, 2010 in Agent | 22 comments

Heidi recently wrote in to ask about the complexities of reading slush:

Before I started my YA novel, I learned about publishing, editing, agenting, etc., and was amazed at the examples of poorly written query letters making the rounds on the internet.Reading the examples of slush gave me hope - sort of a “what not to do” lesson in query writing, and I believed if I submitted a well crafted query it would naturally stand out among the rest. I imagined my letter receiving attention it might not have, if it weren’t for the dreck surrounding it.

But what if my query letter, well crafted or not, took on the qualities of the slush simply because it was part of it? Do agents find it easier to remember the delicious breadsticks they were served with dinner, despite the fact the rest of the meal was a disaster? Or because of it? I am sincerely not trying to trivialize agenting, I am just fascinated with how complex the process for selecting appropriate material is.

This is a really good question, and something I think about all the time. Literally, all the time. Writing and publishing are such human endeavors. There’s no way you can make a robot that creates great writing. In the same vein, you can’t really automate the process of submissions that feeds projects into traditional publishing. For everyone who writes, there are many readers who evaluate that piece of writing before it gets made into a published book.

As one of these people, I have to always keep my wits about me when I approach the slush. The slush is, indeed, a very peculiar thing to have in your inbox. It is made up of, alternately, people who’ve been querying for years, people who’ve been querying for minutes, published authors, unpublished writers, people who have no clue what they’re doing, experts, people who have never written before, people who can’t stop writing, really fantastic ideas, ideas I’d imagine were caused by some epic acid trip, future rejections, and future clients.

The nature of the slush is constantly shifting. One day, I can sit down and go through a skid of really great queries. The next, there’s a grouping of not-so-great ones. There’s no logic, rhyme, or reason to any of it. Rest assured, though, that good queries stand out. Even this, though, is problematic. And not in the way that Heidi is imagining.

There is one phenomenon that happens to anyone who reads slush. I call it, in jest, “slush psychosis.” After reading a lot of slush — and let’s face it, most slush tends to be pretty hard to read and pretty undesirable — I tend to latch on to the few queries that are actually well-written, that pitch projects with a clear premise, that, well, stick out from the rest.

And stick out they do, no worries there. But the “slush psychosis” part of it is…are these particular queries sticking out because they’re really good, like, going-to-be-a-book good, or just because they’re made better by the bad stuff around them? Well, I can’t always answer that question.

To avoid “slush psychosis” and to always be as keen and receptive as possible when I read slush, I try to stick to the following rules:

1. You gotta be in the mood. If I’m in a bad, bitchy, tired, or impatient place, I do not read submissions. The slush tends to magnify feelings like this, and it’s hard to give all of my submissions a fair look when I’m not feeling open. So I have to check in with myself before I sit down to slush.
2. Limit your slush time. After an hour, I pretty much lose my judgment, good or bad. Again, it’s not fair to the writers who query me if I’m not as receptive as possible, so I keep my slush runs short.
3. Put things in the Maybe Pile. If something catches my eye, rather than requesting it immediately (okay, so I’ve been known to request things immediately from time to time, but it’s rare), I flag it in my inbox as something for the Maybe Pile. This means I want to give it a second look. The Maybe Pile look doesn’t happen after I’ve spent my hour in the slush, though, because:
4. Come to the Maybe Pile with fresh eyes. If I’ve flagged submissions for a second look, I want to consider them carefully before requesting the full manuscript. This means I need to be sharp. I try to do a round of slush, then come back to the Maybe Pile from that round the next day. From there, I turn the Maybe Pile into rejections or requests.

As you can tell, I am pretty strict about how I handle my slush. I don’t want to miss out on anything awesome or be unfair to the writers who trust me and are putting their creative work in my hands. Looking through submissions is a very human business…and human often means flawed. And you can’t control it from your end, at the end of the day. So I try my best to control it from my end and make sure you’re getting the best read possible.

The other thing I do, religiously, if I find that I’ve been reading lots and lots of submissions in a row, is I “cleanse my palate” by reading published books. If I read too many submissions or too much slush, I find that my standards tend to dip a little and meet what’s in slush. To keep myself razor sharp, I recalibrate with published fiction and by rereading my favorite books.

Have I missed out on projects that went on to sell because I haven’t been in the mood to read slush that day and was quick to reject? Yes. We all have. Some days, my imagination stretches more than others. Have I requested projects because of “slush psychosis”? Sure. Again, we all have. And I don’t know if these are two situations that will ever go away. But this is a really good question, and I wanted to give you a peek into slush and its unique challenges here.

(Also, as much as I admit that this is an imperfect process, this isn’t an open invitation to requery me, just so see if perhaps I was having a bad day when I passed on your project. It’s the best system I have, I stand by my decisions, and it works for me.)

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Referrals vs. Cold Querying

August 13, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 4 comments

Here’s a question from a reader that I got a few weeks ago:

I shared my manuscript with two published authors who write in the same genre as me (upper MG). One of them loved it and offered to refer me to her New York agent, who has placed books with all the major houses. The woman who read my book seems happy with this agent; however, they would not have been on my “top ten” list.

This seems like a great opportunity and I don’t want to screw it up. My question: Do I send her the polished manuscript to refer to her agent at the same time I query my top picks? Do I still query my top picks or wait to hear back on the referral? Or do I strategically time my queries between the referral and the “cold calls”? Does it even matter or am I overthinking this?

First of all, “am I overthinking this?” is my favorite question ever because it’s almost always self-answering. Yes. You are overthinking this. But I do understand that it’s not a no-brainer and that most writers who have an opportunity are fanatically afraid of screwing things up.

Luckily, there’s a very simple answer to this question. If you have a lead with any agent, take it, but don’t let it be your only lead. In other words, do take the referral, but don’t waste any time. Query other agents, also. You don’t need to mention anything to anyone except the usual, “This is a multiple submission.”

Why? Well, sure, the referral is great. Agents always take referrals from clients more seriously than straight slush. At the same time, though, while we’ll linger on the submission longer than we usually would and while we’ll probably look at it more quickly since it has a client’s name attached, we still have to evaluate the writing and the story and whether it’s a fit for us, as if it was any other submission. And it might not be a fit, even if a client vouches for it.

So, submit to other agents at the same time. You can always entertain interest from more than one agent at once. And be sure to thank your friend for the referral, even if the agent might reject you or if they’re not really on your radar. At the end of the day, you never know what might happen.

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Should You Send a Slew?

August 11, 2010 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 14 comments

There is lots of good stuff happening over at WriteOnCon.com…lots of fantastic articles and chats and vlogs from editors and agents. (Seems like there were issues with the site yesterday, and now it’s back up, at least for me. I don’t know what that was about.) As a result of all the great content going up online, I’m feeling a little less-than-inspired about my own blog topic today. Ho hum.

Well, since you’re all probably learning about new agents and editors who you’d like to submit to at WriteOnCon, I wanted to tackle a submission question that came in from reader Siski a long time ago:

Is it worth providing an agent with a synopsis of several manuscripts so they can assess you as an author, rather than assess you in terms of one manuscript? Would that make rejection less likely? Or will an agent be able to see what you’re capable of from just one MS and therefore wouldn’t want to know of others?

I get this question a lot at conferences and through the blog. Should you send a slew of your stuff or charge into the great query yonder with just one project at a time?

I’m very adamant about my answer: send only your absolute strongest project out. No ifs ands or buts. I don’t care if it’s a ten word picture book. If it’s your strongest work, that’s what you should show the world. In most cases — especially with picture book manuscripts, but this could apply to novels, too — having a really great, strong submission will either get you an offer or at least get your foot in the door.

After the communication lines between you and the editor/agent are open, you can broach other projects. Or the agent/editor may ask to see what else you have. But the time for that is AFTER they show interest in your initial blow-the-door-off-its-hinges submission.

When we get a slew of submissions from a writer, either in one email or in twenty, we’re overwhelmed. We’re annoyed. We wonder why you have those twenty manuscripts sitting around on your hard drive and, yes, why you decided to unleash them on the world in one big deluge. It also makes us panicky. Do you want us to sell all twenty of those for you right off the bat? Are your expectations completely unrealistic?

So be patient. Really take a long, hard look at all the projects you have to potentially offer an agent/editor. Choose your favorite, the one you feel is most marketable or the one you’re most passionate about (ideally, it will have both of those qualities!). And send that one as a way to engage the editor/agent into asking for more. That’s the right way to do it. Sending your entire slew will have the opposite effect — you’ll get that agent/editor shutting the door of opportunity in your face instead of opening it wider

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Picture Book or Short Story?

July 26, 2010 in Agent, Publishing, Writing | 19 comments

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!

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Similarities to Existing Clients

July 23, 2010 in Agent | 17 comments

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.

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Leaving Your Agent

July 19, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 14 comments

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.

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Business vs. Art

July 9, 2010 in Agent, Publishing, Writing | 23 comments

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.

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Paying Agents by the Hour?

June 25, 2010 in Agent | 23 comments

Fantastic agent Colleen Lindsay asked a really interesting question on Twitter a few days ago. You can find the conversation, including a few of my comments, if you scroll that far, here, or on your own by searching Twitter for the hashtag #agentpay.

The conversation was triggered by a hypothetical question that Colleen posed: What if we paid agents by billable hours instead of by a percentage of the sale?

I won’t lie. I sometimes wish that I was getting paid by the hour instead of by the sales percentage. Why? Well, as I’m getting started, I am spending a lot of time developing projects. It’s a learning experience for me, as well as for the writer. And some of those projects have not gone on to sell. In fact, throughout my career, there will be projects that don’t end up selling. There might not be as much of a market for them as I originally thought, or it might not be the right time for them to cross the transom. For whatever reason, there will be unsold projects in my career…just as there are for any agent.

And, sure, it would be nice to see some cash for the billable hours I’ve spent on these projects. But you know what? I place a very high value on a learning experience. It’s almost impossible for me to be disappointed or bitter about something if I’ve learned from it. I try to seek out like-minded writers for clients, those who want to learn and grow and turn into publishing success machines, as much through their touchdowns as their fumbles (I know nothing about football, can you tell?). Of course, I’d much rather sell a project than sit around singing “Kum ba yah” and learning, because I have responsibilities to my clients, but still. These experiences are really important. I’d feel strange charging for them.

I think the sales percentage system works. Especially at the beginning of an agent’s career. Not only does this weed out the agents who are not hungry, not passionate, not crazy enough to work for, basically, free for a few years just to launch themselves, but it breeds a drive and determination that is an asset to any client. And it armors newer agents for the long haul, it gets us into the right mindset so that we doggedly serve our authors long after cash starts coming in.

If publishing were to, for some crazy reason, start the precedent of agents charging by the hour, here are the pros and cons, in my opinion. Remember, this is purely hypothetical.

Newer agents, in the short term, would be able to feed and clothe themselves. They’d still make a pretty decent salary and get rewarded for all their editing, counseling, advising and development work. The short-term benefits would be great for the agent. (Benefits? What’s that?) However, the barrier to entry for using an agent, for a writer, especially a debut writer, would be very high. They’d have to invest thousands of dollars into launching their writing career — and that project might not sell, after all, so those costly hours would be for nothing.

Except, of course, learning experience, but I doubt someone who has sunk years or their life and thousands into it would feel as peaceful as I do, with my hypothetical by-the-hour wage.

I predict there would be huge backlash against the system of literary agents. If big houses persisted in only accepting agented submissions, there would be great unrest among writers. Loyalty between agent and writer would also decrease. Writers would begrudgingly pay their agents to “break into the business” and then might dump them once they have an “in” with a publisher, to avoid the agent’s steep hourly fees.

The problems would only get worse for established agents with established clients. These clients would have a reputation. They’d be able to make income off of subrights or foreign sales, they’d be able to sell subsequent books in a series, they’d be able to sell books on proposal. They’d need their agents more for negotiation than matchmaking and introductions. Their agents, then, would be doing much less of that really hardcore developmental, editing, and counseling work. That’s really what eats up the hours, folks.

Of course, established agents would have many more clients and much more of the business-end work of negotiation, contracts, selling subrights (A movie contract, by the way, can weigh in at about 300 pages! That’s a lot of pleasure reading!), so they wouldn’t suffer necessarily, but getting the deals and selling books would take less time for their established writers. They wouldn’t get as much reward from the sale itself.

With billable hours, unless the established agent raised their rates, they’d also have less opportunity for that out-of-control growth that every percentage-based worker dreams of. They could find the next Jo Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, but they wouldn’t have a right to a percent of that runaway success…they’d still be plodding along at whatever dollars per hour.

So in the short term, billable hours could benefit rookie agents. But it could also make them lazy and never instill in them that marvelous drive and hunger. I’d take my passion any day over silly things like shelter from the elements or job security. Some jobs, you draw a salary just by showing up every day and doing whatever someone tells you. (There are some agents who receive a salary for office duties or subrights work, depending on their agency, but they also get a percentage of sales, so this is not meant to disrespect my colleagues at other agencies.)

Other jobs, where you’re getting paid only based on your successes, you either have a mental breakdown or you become more invested. Me? I like the challenge. I like the risk. I like working my butt off. It makes me a better asset to you than if I was getting paid, sale or no. It makes me more determined to sell.

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Prequerying

June 16, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 23 comments

Some writers send me (and other agents) messages I like to call “prequeries.” They go something like this:

Hi! I have a project and it seems just like something you might like. It’s about… (brief description) and I’m all done with it. I’d love to submit. Are you accepting submissions? Should I go ahead and submit?

This is a useless email and one I’m not fond of answering. If I wasn’t accepting submissions, my email address wouldn’t be plastered all over the Internet. And I can’t tell anything about the project until I read the writing, so I don’t know if I’ll like it or not just for a few lines of description.

The Andrea Brown submission guidelines are quite easy to find online. We request the query letter and the first 10 pages of prose (or the full picture book manuscript) copied and pasted into the body of an email message. It’s very easy stuff.

So if you’re on the fence about submitting, maybe go back and revise a few times. If you don’t know whether or not I’ll like something, you really can’t tell that for sure without showing me your submission.

All I’m ever going to say in response to a prequery is: “Sure, send it along and follow our submission guidelines!” So let’s cut out the needless back and forth. Submit away!

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Copyrighting Submissions and Agent Plagiarism

June 9, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 38 comments

Neveah asked in the comments:

What happens if you submit the first couple of chapters to an agent, and that agent copies it?

A lot of submissions come to me with copyright symbols on them. Writers are, understandably, paranoid about someone stealing their hard work or their idea. However, I wish most writers knew what really happens when an agency considers their submission, how long (or not) we dwell on it, and how quickly we move on to the next if it doesn’t pique our interest. Agents receive thousands of submissions a year and, aside from their incoming mail, have client and agenting duties to do.

We have precious little time. And most of the submissions we receive are not up to par and ready for publication. Even if your idea is the best idea in the world, I won’t notice unless it’s executed well (great writing, voice, plot, characters, etc.). If you don’t do your own idea justice, I’m not interested and I move on. There are other ideas and talented writers out there. If you do, indeed, do your idea justice, I’d much rather take you on as a client, develop your craft, and share in the profit in a legitimate way. It’s much easier for us to hunt for the next great talent than deviously copy the unpolished slush we get in the hopes that we can…what? Publish it under our own name? Give it to one of our clients? Risk getting sued?

And for those obtaining copyright before submission, take heart: something is automatically copyrighted once you write it and create the digital file, in the United States, at least. If you’re super-duper paranoid, print your document out and mail it to yourself. Keep the sealed, postmarked envelope around in the unlikely case that a dispute arises. Know, though, that including your copyright information, the copyright symbol, or warnings not to plagiarize, marks you as a true amateur in the submission process and is a red flag for agents. This type of paranoia usually comes from not really being familiar with the way publishing works. The first time most manuscripts get copyrighted is when the publisher does it on the author’s behalf, after contract.

I’ve said before that agenting is all about return on investment. Nurturing our clients and their ideas? Great ROI and totally worth it. Stealing another person’s idea and doing…something…with it? A waste of time.

The topic of ideas and plagiarism is treated a bit differently on the publishing level. Some publishers will not accept a single unsolicited submission because their legal departments do not want to encounter intellectual property theft litigation. And other companies treat ideas and execution separately — they’re called book packagers. Book packagers, like Alloy Entertainment, pair a killer, commercial book idea (usually developed in-house, like THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS) with a writer who will execute it and take less money for their work than if they had done both the idea development and the execution. If you contact a book packager with your idea or a writing sample, they might want to buy either your idea or your writing (on a for-hire basis) to develop further.

But, when you’re presenting both the idea and the writing for publication, as one author/creator, a good idea is all about the execution. It’s easier to have an idea than to bring it to fruition in a way that works. It’s much simpler to try for great execution with another idea than to steal someone’s baby and fit it into your own way of thinking. As a writer, I can’t get as creatively passionate about other people’s ideas as I can about my own.

I’ve actually been thinking about this issue, personally, since I’m a writer. I see thousands of book ideas a year, not just in my slush but in the publishing catalogs of upcoming titles that I pore over religiously and in the books already on bookstore shelves. Do the ideas I see influence what I choose to write about? Sure — they make me want to get as far away from what’s already been done as possible. But with a written and oral tradition as long as mankind’s, everything has already been done. There are no new ideas out there, only new ways to execute a particular story. So my job, as a writer, (and your job, too!) is to imagine a story that I’m passionate about and then put my own unique spin on it.

Still, the last thing I want is a writer claiming that I consciously or subconsciously stole their book idea for myself. As a human being, I cannot control what sticks in my backbrain and what might, at some point, whether in an image or a character name or a plot point or a line of dialogue, come out again. I read so many things over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year…I just have no idea what I’ll retain and what I won’t. The good thing is, I have no time to deviously sit here and plagiarize something outright. The bad thing is, I read so much that certain ideas are bound to stick. How do I avoid those ideas emerging in my own writing? I don’t know.

But I urge squeamish, litigious writers not to query me. I trust and respect writers and want the same courtesy in return. If a writer is reluctant to show me their work or legitimately thinks I’ll steal it, I can’t be bothered with them. There are lots of other talented writers and worthwhile projects out there.

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