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Focus Groups and Teen Opinions

March 2, 2011 in Agent, Publishing | 22 comments

This question comes from my Writers Digest webinar. The reader asks:

I recently conducted a focus group made up of 68 teenagers (male & female between the ages of 13-18). I had them read my manuscript and complete an anonymous survey at the end. I received many wonderful comments and scored an 8.5 on a scale of 1-10. Should I mention this in my query to agents or not?

The writer has done a lot of work to reach out to readers, which is always admirable. But does it matter? Will it sway my decision? Not really. Why? Because an agent’s first customers in publishing aren’t teenagers. In the trade process, my customers are publishers: the editors bringing my manuscripts to acquisitions, the sales and marketing people evaluating the work’s sales potential, the finance guys upstairs crunching numbers (in the form of a P&L, a “profit and loss” statement) to determine whether the project makes good business sense to bring to market.

While teens are the “end user” in the YA publishing process, they’re not my first buyer. They’re not even a publisher’s first buyer. After a house buys one of my manuscripts, they will edit it and then pitch it to booksellers and librarians. Those are my customer’s customers. And it’s booksellers and librarians who will then reach out to the teens: my customer’s customers’ customers. So before an actual reader gets their hands on a book, it will have gone through several layers of gatekeepers and decision-makers.

Is a B2B system that ignores its end-user in favor of a customer with more capital a good one? There are people who say that this is one of the things wrong with the publishing business model. Most publishers simply don’t do the kind of “on the ground” research that this writer did for their manuscript. But while these questions and issues are definitely valid, this post isn’t an attempt to address them. And for now, that’s the way things are in the trade publishing landscape.

With the above in mind, I say that I don’t really care what a focus group of teenagers said about a manuscript. Because I’m going to be pitching this project to editors, not teenagers. And most readers who don’t work in publishing and don’t read as much as the people who work in publishing may not have the discerning taste of those who work in publishing, so they’ll usually rate random things pretty highly.

It’s all a matter of context. Agents and editors, who read thousands of manuscripts a year, can be picky and choose the best of the best because they’ve also read the worst of the worst and the meh-est of the mediocre. The average teen who reads maybe a few dozen books a year will see something and think it’s pretty good because, well, why not? They don’t really have to be all that picky and entertainment is entertainment.

This is also why I’m not a fan of sites like Inkpop and Authonomy. Sure, they’re sponsored by HarperCollins, and, sure, highly rated manuscripts posted there get some official Haper eyeballs on them (having spoken to a few of the people who are on duty to vet these manuscripts, I can tell you it’s less glamorous than described), but your chances of getting a book deal out of posting there are still about the same as your chances of going through the slush or self-publishing something that becomes an international bestseller.

Writers often come to me with praise from real, live kids or high ratings on these online writing communities. But since most kid readers and most online community participants don’t have the kind of context and standards that I have — and since they’re not my immediate customers, publishers are — I don’t really weigh their opinions heavily when making my decision. I know that I have to impress publishers first, then impress the reading public with the products that publishers create on my client’s behalf.

I’m an agent. A tastemaker. A gatekeeper. My unique opinion and judgement, after all, is why people come to me in the first place. (And if they don’t like my judgment, they can go to another agent.) My personal list is what I shop around to editors. Who I rep and what projects I attach my name to are a matter of my opinion. When I’m considering a project, that’s the only opinion that matters to me. (And, of course, the opinions of my colleagues and my foreign rights co-agent but you know what I mean).

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Assistant Attitude

February 16, 2011 in Advice, Agent | 32 comments

For my Writer’s Digest webinar, I pledged to answer all the questions sent in by students. This one got me fired up enough to transfer the exchange to the blog:

What can we do to ensure that an actual agent sees my query? I’ve received rejection letters directly from assistants, therefore I know that the agent hasn’t seen my query or sample work. Perhaps the agent would have liked it, but if he or she wasn’t able to see it, then both the agent and I miss out on what could have been a wonderful opportunity.

This writer seems to have what I would call Assistant Attitude. It’s a belief that assistants aren’t really important and that only the big names at an agency can make or break a writer’s chances at representation. A lot of (beginning) writers think very poorly of assistants and are shocked — shocked! — to learn that these are the people reading their queries.

I invite everyone currently suffering from a case of Assistant Attitude to consider, perhaps, the complete opposite viewpoint. The truth is, assistants are amazing. Especially when it comes to going through the slush. First off, they are often the hard-working, unappreciated souls who make sure your queries get a response. Would you rather you submission languish in obscurity while a big shot agent caters to clients, makes book deals, speaks at conferences — you know, agents — for a few months or years, or would you rather an eagle-eyed assistant go through submissions and respond to you in a timely manner?

Here’s another thing to consider: Assistants are hired directly by the agent and know the agent’s tastes intimately. They also tend to pay more attention while reading. Would you rather an assistant read the whole query and sample or the agent glance at it and reject after reading a sentence because they are overwhelmed with a deluge of other submissions?

Assistants are also on the hunt and spend more time and energy giving writers a chance. A really busy agent may not invest a lot of time on a promising-but-not-ready-yet writer. Their assistant, though, could really spearhead a writer’s growth and give someone some editorial feedback, a shot to revise, an invitation to resubmit, a phone call, etc. Some assistants can even take on their own clients (see the Newer vs. Established agent conversation for more thoughts on this). Since this is a chance for an assistant to prove him or herself — and use the training they’ve received directly from the agent you’re targeting — most assistants and new agents are really hungry and eager to lavish prospective clients with attention.

Finally, assistants are often the ones who champion things they find and recommend them to their bosses. “Stop what you’re doing and read this right now. It came in through the slush but it’s really good” is a very compelling argument when it comes from the right source. Who do you think an agent will listen to? A random query or a personal recommendation from their trusted colleague?

I don’t have a full-time assistant because I work from home, but I do have a wonderful, savvy, genius intern-slash-reader. My intern sometimes cruises my slush and picks out which queries sound the most promising. Sometimes, she emails me to tell me that I need to request something ASAP OMG it is the single best thing she’s ever read. (My intern can get really enthusiastic and persuasive.) So what do I do? If I’m near a computer, I zoom immediately over to that query to see what’s getting her so excited, of course. My intern is a tough cookie and has very discriminating taste — like me — and so I trust her judgment completely. When she gets excited, I’m often not far behind.

Assistant Attitude is toxic and it’s actually the writer missing out on the opportunity of a patient, well-trained, excited pair of eyes on their manuscript…and to get a very close ally within the agency they’ve queried. Assistants are people, too, and some of the smartest, brightest, and most dedicated I’ve ever met, to boot.

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Love vs. Sell

February 11, 2011 in Agent, Publishing | 18 comments

Evergreen reader and blog favorite, Siski, asked me, a long time ago:

Would you turn down a story you loved but knew wouldn’t be an easy sell? I’m imagining something literary that for whatever reason didn’t suit the market at this time…

Siski really knows how to stick it to the ol’ Kole-ster. (Yes, I really did just call myself that. It’s early. Leave me alone.) This is a great question and one I wrestle with all the time. It also illustrates how I’ve grown in my thinking as an agent. Unfortunately, I haven’t grown in the direction that some writers will want to hear.

Here’s a great qualification for someone looking to get into the agenting business: must love books. But a qualification to stay in the agenting business is that they must sell books, too. I’m not saying the two are mutually exclusive, by any means. I obviously need to love, very deeply, all the books I sell. However, it’s the selling part that matters undeniably in today’s marketplace, and I don’t plan to look for another job anytime soon, so I have to build my list accordingly.

Early in my agenting days (and it’s still relatively early, mind), I took on some projects that did tend toward the literary, the quiet, the beautiful. And I’m not going to lie when I say that some of them have turned out to be tough sells. I’ll sidestep a discussion on selling out and how the whole high-concept “commercial” book world is a travesty and what havoc it’s wreaking on the literature-starved youth of tomorrow and all that blah blah blah here and just mention that I am majorly bummed that these fine, beloved manuscripts of mine are still looking for a publishing home. Enough said. The undeniable fact, though, is that it is easier to sell something with a commercial, high-concept premise than something that’s a review-driven award contender or a school and library market darling these days.

Two things. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to sell what I already have that’s in this vein. My love for those books is unwavering. And that doesn’t mean I’ll lower my literary/writing quality standards for the lure of the commercial money-grab. But I do have to think about the sales pitch and market viability as I’m falling for a story. That aspect weighs heavily on my mind as I’m deciding which projects to represent. These days, sales potential is probably the number one thing that separates a beautifully written near miss from a client on my list. So, to answer Siski’s tough question, if I didn’t think I could sell something I loved, I would probably pass and ask to see the writer’s next book. Love can’t be the only consideration anymore.

That’s not a bad thing at all. What would you like? An agent who gushes over your book as it sits unsold? Or an agent who gushes over your book and then sells it, makes your dreams come true, and turns you into a soon-to-be published author? Sorry to be so callous, especially with Valentine’s Day around the corner, but I think you’d best be served by the latter, and that’s who I want to be for my clients.

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How Soon Do I Query Again?

January 12, 2011 in Advice, Agent, Publishing, Queries | 12 comments

At last, another good picture book querying question! Plus, this one is useful to novel writers, too (if only a bit less relevant). Read on, everyone! Megan asks:

How often is too often to query an agent with different projects? For example, I’m in the process of sending queries for project A and writing project B. By the time I wait for agent responses to trickle in, I may be ready to query project B. Is it crazy to send another project to an agent who rejected me within 3 or 4 months? Am I just being annoying? Or, since picture book manuscripts can be written, revised, revised, revised, and polished faster than other genres, maybe this frequency for queries is expected?

I tell my picture book writer clients — AND THESE ARE CLIENTS…people who’ve already cleared the “hurdle” — that one out of every ten of their picture book ideas/manuscripts is going to be saleable. Picture books are “easy” to write and generate and revise and get 700 or whatever words into shape, sure, but it’s infinitely harder to hit upon a winner idea. GOODNIGHT MOON was first published in 1947 and parents still read it to their kids every night, all over the world. Publishers are tightening their lists and, ideally, would love a book with that much power and longevity. In other words, everyone wants something that will backlist for eternity. It’s not easy. I would even argue that’s it just as hard to hit upon such a picture book idea as it is to write a publishable novel, especially in this current marketplace.

Personally, I balk a little when writers hit me up with picture book after picture book, even if some time lapses between attempts. The point is to evolve and go to the next level between picture book manuscripts. Every submission round to agents will bring you valuable feedback and insight. (If you get absolutely no personalized feedback, that’s feedback in and of itself.) Keep writing while you’re on submission, of course, but you should also, in my opinion, wait to see how a submission round goes before you jump back into the querying game. You don’t want to give off the idea that you’re just churning projects out without stopping to learn and grow in between attempts.

Look at it from my angle. I have, oh, six picture book clients. They can all, in a good year, give me 10 manuscripts. That’s 60 manuscripts. Say I decide to just go out with them all (which I would never do). For each submission, I go out to about 8-10 editors at various houses. That would be between 480 and 600 picture book projects that I would send out. About 10 submissions a week. There are about 300 editors actively acquiring in children’s books these days (at the major, mid-size houses, and smaller houses), so even if I cast my net as wide as possible, I would still hit up every editor at least once, sometimes twice, regardless of whether they’re a good fit or even looking for picture books (if you want to know, that particular number of PB-hungry editors is at about 70-100). You also have to consider that, if an editor and I have a good relationship, existing projects together, or similar tastes, I will send to that  group of particular editors more frequently over the course of the year. Those editors — the ones I really love and want to work with — would probably get more like five or ten projects each.

Do you think all those editors are going to see my email or get my phone call and think, “Wow, I haven’t heard from Mary in a while, and I know she only goes out with projects she thinks are really top notch, so I am really excited to hear all about this one!” Absolutely not. They will most likely think, “Yikes, another call/email from Mary. What does she have for me this month and how quickly can I get it off my desk?”

I don’t go out with everything my clients give me. I have to be selective and keep my currency with editors high, so that if they see something from me, they don’t roll their eyes. The worst position you can be in, I think, is if someone gets an email from you and groans. So I’m selective. And I have extremely high standards for the work that I pitch to publishers (just ask some of my impatient clients…and we all know how I feel about patience). You should strive to be this way, too, so I don’t groan when I get your second or third or fourth query for the year.

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How Much to Sell Yourself?

January 5, 2011 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 18 comments

Some writers are notoriously shy — or at least timid — when it comes time to plug themselves in queries, at conferences, etc. I’ve heard lots of published authors say that they’re writers, not salespeople. They rely on their agents to vouch for their work and pitch it to editors, so they can focus on their craft and building their readership. Contracts, pitching, negotiation…that’s the domain of agents.

Well, what happens until you get an agent, or if you choose to go without one? You advocate for yourself. From your query to your networking at conferences to meeting librarians and booksellers and telling them about your book, you’ll have to sell your book at least a few times in your career (ideally, you’ll have the opportunity to sell it to lots and lots of readers). So how much plugging is too much? Where’s the line between confident and bombastic?

Whether you pitch in person or in writing, here is the dividing line and where it lies for me:

Bombastic: This is an amazing story of wonderful proportions, full of thrilling adventure and poignant emotion, lovable characters and a breathtaking plot…
Confident: My thriller pits my main character against his biggest enemy in a high-voltage climax, with a surprising twist ending.
The Difference: Don’t be lavish in your self-praise and, for goodness’ sake, cut down on the adjectives. Everyone knows you love your story…that’s why you wrote it. Nobody wants to hear you praise your own work. It means nothing coming from your mouth, so I’d avoid all the fluff.

Bombastic: My uncle, who is a (unpublished) writer, thinks this is the best book ever written. My children love this story and ask that I read it to them every night. My professor, who has a PhD (in, ahem, civil engineering), said I was an exceptional writing talent.
Confident: Award-winning sci-fi writer, Writer McWriterpants, says of my book, “A rare debut full of heart and fantasy thrills. A great new voice on the scene!”
The Difference: Praise doesn’t count as much when it comes from a relative or friend of yours, unless maybe your brother is Stephen King. I’d much rather hear what an unbiased third party has to say about the book, and ideally have it be someone who knows what they’re talking about (ie: a writer, not an engineering professor). If you can’t get any casual blurbs like this (and that’s totally fine), don’t include something just for the sake of including it.

Bombastic: This will sell like hotcakes and there are endless opportunities to leverage my idea. It lends itself easily to greeting cards, music videos, apps, video games, theme parks, movies, t-shirts and other merchandise, and, of course, sequels!
Confident: The ending of this manuscript gives my story sequel opportunities and, as a trained screenwriter with a cinematic writing style, I can see potential for the screen as well.
The Difference: We all want our work to go from book to screen to the toy store to the clothing rack. If you have experience and possible connections to another industry that can be a great cross-promotional avenue for your book idea, you can hint at it. Maybe bring up some marketing or subrights ideas if you talk to agents or editors on the phone after they express interest. But keep the pie out of the sky and don’t rattle off all your merchandising dreams in the query.

Bombastic: My self-published/previously published book was a bestseller.
Confident: I sold 200 copies of my self-published book in its first year and it is regularly reordered by two independent bookstores in my community. My previously published book enjoyed three printings in one year from a small press.
The Difference: Words like “expert,” “bestseller,” “hit,” and others are a bit like adjectives. They sounds like fluff. If a book sells five copies at a local indie bookstore, sure, it can end up on their bestseller list, especially if your book has a regional tie-in to the region or if you recently did an event at the store. But that’s quite a different level of bestseller than what Stephenie Meyer gets to write on her resume. Use words like this sparingly, and be really specific as to what they mean in your case.

What are the takeaways here? Be specific. Instead of blowing your pitch full of hot air with adjectives or buzzwords like “bestseller,” be straight and direct with the reader. You want to project a healthy amount of confidence, but make sure everything you’re saying is grounded in fact and doesn’t go flying off into Hyperbole Land. All that stuff isn’t what I’m reading for when I read queries. In fact, I skim over most of it.

Caveat: I often tell people to look at the copy on the back of book jackets when they’re crafting their queries. That’s about the length and tone that you’re aiming for when you write the meat of your pitch. However, book jackets can get away with adjectives and buzz and blurbs and all that hype because they’re actually trying to make someone go to the cash register and buy the book.

When I look at queries, I care more about the story you’re pitching to me than how you’re pitching (check out my evergreen article on How to Write a Simple, Compelling Query), but I would greatly prefer a writer who falls on the confident side of the fence rather than the bombastic. If you’re having the opposite issue, and you tend to undersell yourself when you present projects, look at the confident examples again and see if you can’t take more of a stand for you and your writing when you pitch. Either way, remember: we want to be sold. We just don’t want the sweaty-handshake-used-car-salesman hardball sell. Nor do we want the looking-at-your-feet-and-mumbling sell. We want the simple, compelling, concise, and thoughtful pitch that comes from your confidence in your work!

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Should I Post My Writing Online?

December 20, 2010 in Advice, Agent, Publishing | 21 comments

In the last week or so, a few people have emailed to ask me whether or not it’s okay to post samples of your work online (like a few pages or a few chapters) on your blog, in forums, or whatever. This can be tricky. In the Internet age, if you post something online on a blog, social networking site, online literary journal, or public forum, it is considered “published.”

Obviously, the length of the sample you post is important. Read on:

If you are posting an entire poem or short story online, and then you try to sell it to a literary magazine, for example, the fact that is has previously been “published” is not good, as the entire work has appeared elsewhere. The editor of that literary magazine wants new, never-before-seen content. This applies both to print and online venues, as there are a lot of respectable online journals and literary magazines.

If you are posting a short portion of a novel online, and then the novel gets interest from an agent or editor, I’d say you could be okay, since the sample is short. Even though most editors and agents don’t like to work with previously published material, whether posted online or self-published, a short sample on your blog may not be enough to put them off your project. (Careful, though, as individual policies here do vary greatly.)

So when you think about posting online, consider how much of your work you’ll be exposing. Are you posting all of it? That will count as “published” and that website will be your venue for the piece, so you better make your peace with it. A sample that’s less than 5% of the total work? You could post, if you really want to, but know that you may run into some obstacles down the road.

The one exception to the “published” rule is if you post your writing in a private forum, such as the Verla Kay Blueboards. One reason to do this is if you want to get critique of your work from other writers. What you post in a members-only area of the Internet isn’t available to the general public and is therefore not considered “published” once it goes up. If getting feedback is really the reason you want to post your writing online in the first place, I’d do it behind the closed doors of a private forum.

Now, I know there are people thinking: But what if I post something and then take it down? Ah, Grasshopper, the reason is simple: online content never dies. Search engines log all new web content as it is created. If you put something online, ever, even for a short while, it will stay in a search engine’s cache and will still appear in search results.

I’m probably not going to be popular for this opinion, but I don’t think you should post your writing online as a means of attracting editor or agent interest. While some agents and editors do troll blogs looking for talent, I get most of my clients from submissions and conferences. I’m not crazy about most unpublished writer blogs, as some of you know, so I don’t go prospecting there. Don’t even get me started on sites like Authonomy and InkPop.

Plus, your writing should change and grow as you keep at it. And first chapters are usually the most wildly revised in any book. I know a lot of writers who keep hammering at their oh-so-important openings, draft after draft. Your beginning might change, so do you really want an old draft online for all to see? Maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but it certainly bugs me. When I turned in my MFA thesis, I declined to make a copy available in the university library (what usually happens with thesis manuscripts). Why? After one revision, that manuscript becomes just another rough draft, and I don’t want a rough draft floating around. I don’t know about you, but I often look back at old writing and cringe. Unless you plan to keep updating your writing sample online, it will become stale work at some point.

If you do want to post something tantalizing about your book, post a query-like summary of the story and a tag line. That’s the same kind of advertising that a published book has: the back and flap copy that is meant to describe the story and entice the reader. Write some flap copy for your manuscript — this will be good practice to help you hone in on  your hook, too — and put it on your blog. Some writers make a short and cheap video trailer. Others pick a playlist or images that evoke their work. That should be enough marketing to get people excited.

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How Agents Rep Author/Illustrators

December 13, 2010 in Agent, Client, Editors, Queries | 11 comments

This post is for all the author/illustrators out there, and the question comes from Siski:

I’d like to know more about agents and how they go about repping author/illustrators. I read an awful lot about query letters for authors but how does an author/illustrator query?

As we do with our authors, agents help author/illustrators develop their projects, work up a submission plan, and connect our clients with potential editors. The nature of the editorial work is a bit different, though. I’ll be the first to tell you that I am not an artist. (Despite a very promising banana still life at age three that remains framed in my mother’s…closet. Ouch.) But my mom is actually a rather well-known fine art painter. I’ve spent my entire life around art and almost every fall, I go on tour with her and hang out in even more galleries. I may not know how to pull what’s in my mind and get it down on paper visually, but I do know what I like (and what’s good) when I see it.

With author/illustrators, I comment on issues of composition, image choice, character, expression, color, etc., but the art mastery has to be there before I sign an author/illustrator or illustrator. All of my illustrators came to books from being artists first, writers second. It is much easier to hone the picture book writing side of a creator’s craft (though it’s still very difficult to write a timeless, smash hit picture book) than it is to teach them art. That’s why I don’t recommend writers take up art and try to become illustrators. Unless you are gifted visually, it will be very difficult to compete with all the illustrators on shelves today or in BFA or MFA programs. Aspiring illustrators should spend a few hours in the picture book section of a bookstore and see what the professionals are doing. Even the most deceptively simple styles have a lot of artistry going on behind the scenes. Adding writing to an illustrator’s toolbox is a lot easier (and more feasible) than adding illustration to a writer’s.

So for me to take on an illustrator, I need to be wild about their illustration style and talent. They also need to have at least one really fun or commercial story idea that we can work with. If the writing isn’t stellar (yet), I know I can work with them just like I would my author clients in order to get things into shape.

Submissions work similarly with author/illustrators, except I’m often sending out a full sketch dummy, anywhere from two to five mock finishes (full color renderings of sketches), and the manuscript text. I will either send this in the form of a physical, mail submission, if the art works better when you can spread it out in front of you and really dive in, or as a digital PDF file.

The other part of how I work with an author/illustrator is trying to rustle up illustration work. This is very tough going for most agents, and most illustrators, because a lot of illustrator-project pairing is a matter of luck and timing. Not all editors are equally patient or talented when it comes to stretching their imaginations for either a text or an art sample. This isn’t a slam on editors…far from it. Matching text to art is quite a skill, and that’s why some children’s editors don’t even have a lot of picture books on their list, because working with art isn’t something they love to do.

Some will see an artist’s sample postcard and, if it features a dog, think of their text that also needs a great dog character. A match is made! Some editors will leave a text sitting unmatched until the last possible moment, then see a great postcard that crosses their desk and…again, art alchemy! Others will fall in love with an artist, keep their postcards on hand or a link to their online portfolio in their favorites, and hunt tirelessly for the right text.

Most illustrators and editors swear that it’s all about when an art sample crosses their eyes. The right sample at the right time will get hired. Others think it’s about consistency…if they see an artist a certain number of times, they will start to think about them for jobs.

My job is to work with my artists to create the perfect sample image, portfolio, and postcards and then get them out there. For some clients, my colleagues and I do postcard mailings. I also do digital art mailings, the ABLA Artists of the Month email blasts that go out every month and feature two artists the agency’s client lists. Editors love having both hard copy postcards and links to online portfolios, so we try to do everything we can to get illustration jobs as well as sell the client as an author/illustrator (get them a book deal where they do both and there’s no other name on the cover).

As far as query letters for author/illustrators go — and remember, we only accept online submissions — I prefer having a query, a link to your online portfolio mentioned in your query letter, then the text of the picture book copied and pasted in the body of an email.

Yes, you do need an online portfolio, absolutely. It can be simple and you can pay someone to do it, but make sure you can update it easily with new images. I’d say you need about ten to twenty really strong examples of your characters, some micro scenes that focus really closely on one or two things, some macro that get a wide scope of action in one picture, some setting, some animals…really show off your range.

If you have a physical dummy blocked out, mention that in your query. If I like what I see electronically, I’ll give you the mailing address to send it my way.

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Do Agents Remember Submissions?

December 10, 2010 in Agent, Queries, Revision | 18 comments

Estee came up with a really interesting question, inspired by Wednesday’s post:

I’m curious if you remember the slush. I mean, if someone submits something that isn’t good enough, revises it and re-submits it at least six months later, do you recognize them?

Other comments joked about agents and their all-remembering powers. Since we see thousands of submissions a year, it’s a funny idea that we’d remember them, right? Well, I have news for you. I remember submissions pretty well, considering the circumstances! I can’t really remember what I had for dinner a few days ago or to pick up the one thing I really need at the grocery store, but I do start to get submission deja vu when reading something I’ve seen before.

For me, and I don’t know about other agents out there, it’s always a turn of phrase or a description that triggers my memory. In cases where the query or submission had a really focused premise, the premise will jog my memory if I see it again. The same goes for other random tidbits: funny character names, strange author names, jokes, exotic locations that the author is writing from, random connections we have that they might have brought up in their queries, etc. There are a million different things that catch my attention, of course. And I probably wouldn’t recognize everything I’ve ever seen if it was presented to me again, but my memory has been pretty accurate so far.

If the question was asked in the context of whether to mention a resubmission in the query, I say you should always mention it. Don’t count on the agent to forget that you’ve submitted before. Most of us who use email can search for your previous correspondence. And it’s not a bad thing to resubmit something. We all know that writing is a craft and that writers end up revising, sometimes days after they send their first query, sometimes months or years.

What do you say if you’re resubmitting something? How about something simple along the lines of:

Dear Mary,

You saw this query and passed with some really insightful feedback (Ha! My fake letter is laying it on a bit thick, but if you did get a response from the agent the first time around, don’t be afraid to mention something about it…). I’ve since revised the project and am hoping you’ll be interested in taking a second look. To refresh your memory, the story goes like this:

And then you launch into the meat of your query again because, as good as my memory may sometimes be, I’ll always appreciate another pitch to remind me of the key points of your project.

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Clarifying ABLA Submission Policies

December 8, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 10 comments

Every conference I go to, I’m asked about the Andrea Brown Literary Agency rules and policies about submissions. Even though I think it’s all very clearly spelled out on our website’s Submissions page, I’ll take a crack at clarifying our instructions. These are the questions we usually get:

“Is a ‘no’ from one really a ‘no’ from all? Can I send my project to another ABLA agent?”

At ABLA, a “no” from one of us on a project is indeed a “no” from all. If you have chosen one of us — and I know it can be hard, with nine such wonderful agents — and we reject you, don’t send to another one of us just to be sure you chose the right agent in the first place. We are all looking for talent, whether debut or well-published, but we tend to pick only the top caliber submissions out of our slush. If you get no response or a rejection, assume that none of us is interested in the project as is.

You are, of course, welcome to submit a new project to us, whether you send to the same agent or a different one. You can also resubmit your original project six months (or more) after your first rejection, to the original or a different agent, if you can honestly say you’ve revised it and the work is different and stronger than it was the last time one of us saw it (be honest).

“Do you share projects of merit with your colleagues if the project doesn’t happen to be right for you?”

Yes. If I get a submission of very high caliber but it happens to be not quite right for me, I often pass it off to my colleagues for an additional read. We all do this. If someone else is interested, we connect the author to the agent and let the new agent take over the submission, if the author likes the idea.

If we do share your work, whether it ends up a pass or an offer of representation, you will most likely know that this level of enthusiasm exists. The agent who passes it around or the agent who ends up liking it will usually fill you in on the situation.

“Does no response after 6 to 8 weeks really mean rejection? Do you write personalized rejections?”

Our official agency policy is that we do not respond to queries unless interested and that no word after 6 to 8 weeks means, unfortunately, a rejection. The only email you should expect to receive from some of us is an automatic auto-response to confirm receipt of your query, and then an email expressing enthusiasm if we think your project is a good fit. Some of my colleagues do stick by the above guidelines. At this time, several of us, myself included, do still respond personally to every submission that follows our guidelines.

“Does my submission have to follow guidelines?”

When a submission doesn’t follow guidelines (is sent to every agent at the agency, has no sample pages, has an attachment, etc.), we delete them and don’t respond.

There are lots of other questions that querying writers ask — “Will you give me feedback?” or “Will you refer me to another agency that might be a better fit?” (my answer, here) — but the above are the more ABLA-specific and seem to come up the most. If you have any ABLA submission questions, in particular, now is the time to ask!

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Putting Feelers Out Before Leaving Your Agent

December 1, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 7 comments

Here’s a question from an anonymous reader:

I have an agent but I am not sure if we’re the best fit. I would like to think about changing agents, but I don’t know if it’s kosher to put my feelers out while I still have one (is that like looking for a new husband while I have one?). I’m planning to go to a conference soon, so I thought that might be a good opportunity to meet agents, but what if I wanted to put out some casual feelers to a few friends of friends or something? What’s your take on that?

The husband analogy this reader uses is apt. While some people do look around while they’re still attached, and while more than one relationship has been forged that way, it’s not something I would do or recommend. Sure, we all want to leap out of an iffy or bad situation and know that there’s something better (we hope) waiting for us, but that’s not how it works.

If you make the decision to break with your spouse or your representation, you do have to get it over with, and only then can you go out into the uncertain world and hope to get someone else lined up. You may have contacts from when you were first querying, you may have contacts from conferences you’ve attended or people who you do want to reach out to, but the time for that is after you part ways. I don’t know of a lot of agents who will be enthusiastic to talk to you while you still have representation. It may make them think…hey, would this writer go behind OUR backs in times of trouble, if they’re going behind their current agent’s back?

It would be nice, of course, to have the safety net of other interest, but it is a bit sneaky and underhanded to put feelers out before you terminate your relationship. That’s life, though. You have to make the hard decision and do the right thing before moving on to the better situation that you want.

Sure, you can read blogs, follow Publisher’s Marketplace, and do research while you are still represented. You’ll want to be prepared once you’re free from your existing agent, and I understand that. But I wouldn’t make contact, nor would I start combing your network or discussing this with writer or Internet friends. Keep your situation on the down-low until you have a chance to end things in a professional way with your current representation. Keep your integrity and be honest throughout the process. Not only is it good karma (for those of us who believe in that sort of thing), but it will make you feel good about the whole situation and keep any possible guilt at bay.

This is always a tough process. Still, you’ll want to do this the right way, or it could end up being even more difficult than it has to be.

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