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The Wisdom of John Cusick

April 18, 2011 in Events | 23 comments

This past weekend I spoke at the excellent and first ever YA A to Z conference. While the Writers’ League of Texas has been connecting writers to the publishing industry and helping them reach their goals for 30 years, this YA-centric conference is just beginning. If this first year is any indication, I know it will be around for a long time, and you should all look out for next year’s. It was really well-organized, had a great roster of faculty (if I don’t say so myself), and got some really fabulous writers to the show.

I did three panels, some consultations, and still had enough time to explore amazing Austin, see some bats, catch up with an old writing friend and meet some new buddies (including the fabulous ladies from PR By the Book and the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, who were in town on an agency retreat), explore the food scene, play some midnight piano, and get into a little worthwhile trouble. ;)

Speaking of worthwhile trouble, one of my esteemed agent colleagues and friends who I got to hang out with this weekend is John M. Cusick of the Scott Tremeil Agency (whatever bad joke you’re thinking about the name, he’s heard it before…I tried all of them, much to his fascination, I’m sure). He’s also the author of GIRL PARTS (an excellent book) and the upcoming CHERRY MONEY BABY, both from Candlewick Press.

Now, I know you come to my blog to hear me say brilliant things on a mostly regular basis. And I appreciate that. But I’m not the only one who says brilliant things (shocking, I know). On one of my panels on Saturday, this one about Agent Secrets (dun dun dun), my new BFF John said something wonderful and I wanted to share it with y’all (still getting the Texas out of my system). We were talking about character development and relatability, and John said:

Relatable doesn’t mean generic.

Wise words! Storytelling in the Middle Ages would’ve laughed Mr. Cusick out of Ye Olde Hyatt ballroom. A lot of their traditional “character development” included naming some poor shmo John Everyman and then getting all allegorical on his ass. The character was basically a cipher, a blank screen that readers could project themselves onto in the watching of his or her tale.

Now it’s the opposite. Or at least it should be, for the tastes of me and my fellow agents on the panel. Specificity is the key to good fiction, and generalization is where fiction goes to die. The best characters, the ones that stick with me, are the ones who have very specific quirks and characteristics. I am not going to relate to a character because they are very much like me. That’s boring. I know myself, spend all day in my own head, and sometimes just want to get out…that’s why I crack a book. I relate to a character when they are thoroughly fleshed-out and unique, just like I am thoroughly fleshed-out and unique as a person. When I feel like I know their quirks and their particular outlook on life because the author has made those elements really comprehensive. We don’t just love people who are like us: we love loud, larger-than-life, authentic characters. (At least I hope so, ‘cuz that’s what I’ve pretty much been basing my entire personality on for as long as I can remember.) Those are the ones we remember in books and movies, and the people who spark our imaginations when we meet them in real life.

So aim for a really complex character, someone who is exactly who they are. That will pull a reader in so much more than trying to reflect and please everyone with your literary cipher. An example is this: I was reading either a book or a manuscript a few years ago. In it, a character was cooking something while home alone. Some food dropped on the dirty counter and, even though the character knew she was home alone, she glanced over her shoulder before succumbing to the guilty (and, for many people, gross) temptation of picking the food up and slipping it into her mouth. This taught me so much about the character and was so specific that I remember it all these years later. I can’t relate to the shame of eating counter food — I don’t care about the 5 second rule — but it’s so dang human that I could really see a person doing it in real life. And that’s what grabs me in a good character. Well said, John!

Also, I am in love with Carrie Ryan, and with a dude name Jeremy, who chopped all my hair off on Saturday. You like?

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Writing Contest!

March 25, 2011 in Events | 7 comments

As many of you know, I did the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference in Utah last summer and had an absolutely amazing time. I’m back at it again this June, with an amazing faculty that includes Holly Black, Allie Condie, Kathleen Duey, Kevin Hawkes, Mike Knudson, and many more!

To spread the word about the conference, the organizers are having a first line writing contest for picture books, chapter books, MG or YA novels. That’s right…see if your killer first line stands up to the judges! One of the prizes is a query critique from me. The deadline is April 2nd. Check the contest out here, especially if you live in Utah and are planning or thinking about going to WIFYR! It’s one of my favorite conferences and I highly, highly recommend it.

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Teen Author Festival

March 23, 2011 in Events | 10 comments

It’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind, the frustrations, the stress, the meetings, the slush, the traveling, the constant flood of emails, the endless readings of my work sometimes. Especially on cloudy days like today when it seems like the future stretching out in front of me is one long To Do list. Moments of inspiration come in the form of a brilliant project from one of my clients or from a potential future client, good news about a book that’s been sold (like, yanno, Hollywood calling for my most recent sale, THROUGH TO YOU!), charming emails from my super-smart colleagues, moments with friends, really good books that I’m reading.

I’ll have to add to the list the Friday and Saturday symposium portion of the Teen Author Festival last week. I heard several dozen authors, many of who are friends, speak about various issues important to YA fiction today. From hard issues like abuse and family, to a showcase of debut authors, to the thrills and tensions of young romance, as you can see in the picture below (l-r: Sarah Mylnowski, E. Lockhart, Terra Elan McVoy)…

…to influences and one’s literary inspirations, as you can see in the picture below (l-r: Adrienne Marie Vrettos, Maryrose Wood, Libba Bray, Susane Colasanti, Lena Roy, Carolyn Mackler, Barry Lyga)…

…to the struggle against the dark side, the internal and external darkness in a character’s world (l-r: Robin Wasserman, Lisa McMann, Maggie Stiefvater, Kim Harrington, and David Levithan)…

…to a brilliant panel on LGBT literature of the past, present and future with very special guest Michael Cart (l-r: Nick Burd, Jacqueline Woodson, Patrick Ryan, Michael, David Levithan, and Jack Martin).

Not only is it inspiring to sit and hear writers talk about the craft, but Saturday afternoon especially, with a focus on LGBT YA, where it’s been, where it is now, and where it’s going, really helped me with some much-needed perspective after a stressful winter. The books that these authors (and many of you out there) are writing are essential. They’re very often a young adult’s fondest memory, their closest friend, their most trusted confidant, and, as I say every time I speak about YA, they really do have the power to change lives.

We can see this in most powerful YA books, especially those that take risks, feature characters who are marginalized, characters battling with some essential darkness, or otherwise being brave and strong and heroic in their lives, whether they’re in a contemporary school setting or aboard a spaceship and hurtling toward the unknown. In other words: characters who are being themselves.

The best YA books (and MG books, and picture books) are a lens through which writers focus their world…both for the sake of the artist’s creative journey, and for the sake of bringing clarity and understanding to readers’ lives.

My often-mentioned and very favorite quote about children’s books comes from Ursula Nordstrom:

The writer of books about the real world has to dig deep and tell the truth.

You can tell I love this quote because several of the posts I’m about to cite repeat it. Over my blogging “career,” I’ve gotten frustrated with questions like “Can I swear in YA?” or “Can we feature sex in YA?” or “How many words exactly, and in what order, make the perfect query letter?” (an exaggeration, obviously) and whatever else mundane things people obsess over.

I know I talk a lot about publishing rules and guidelines and that I answer a lot of questions on this blog along those lines, which I’m very happy to do, but it doesn’t hurt every once in a while to be reminded that we’re all here for the sake of art and for the sake of teen readers. And that creativity and truth are the highest pursuits served by any artist, especially one reaching out to kids and teens. (For some really great soundbites on creativity, check out this lecture by Lady Gaga, who visited the Google campus in Mountain View, CA yesterday.)

The Teen Author Festival panels really reminded me of our true purpose here, at the end of the day (you can see the full schedule for the festival here, and I urge you to come next year if you can), and I’m grateful to have been inspired!

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High School Hierarchy in YA Fiction

March 9, 2011 in Events, Writing | 19 comments

A very interesting conversation happened in one of my workshop groups during this past weekend’s Big Sur conference. One participant had painted a character very vividly in his particular high school environment, to the point where everyone in the group knew exactly where this character belonged on the social ladder. But that wasn’t the unique part.

The refreshing thing was that this character never lamented his nerd status, he never described his clothes in a way that hinted to us that he was (let’s face it) a loser, he didn’t go into any detail about how out-of-reach the popular kids were. He just went about his business, thought his thoughts, and through the author’s scenework and his interactions with others, we got perfect context for where he lived in the high school hierarchy. But never once (in my recollection) did he come out and tell us exactly where he did or didn’t fit in.

Some of you reading are like: Yeah. We get it. Show, don’t tell. Right. But teenage social order  is a particular issue where “show, don’t tell” is even more relevant. The pecking order is present in every school, in every group of kids or teens, and, as one person from our group said quite well, everyone always knows, at a glance, what the deal is. Kids know their place and the place of everyone around them. It’s as innate to teens, as instant and unconscious as breathing. Now, this isn’t a blog post about whether that’s right or wrong or how damaging it is to the development of our social mores (for an example of how this reaches well into adulthood, check out one element of the whole #YAMafia kerfuffle (before anyone flames me for the joke, I am aware that this wasn’t the only issue at play)). The fact is: it’s true. So how do we reflect it in our YA fiction in a way that’s believable?

One thing I see in most manuscripts is a run-down of the social scene. This usually happens in the first chapter for stories set primarily in school and within the first 30 pages for stories that don’t immediately need to put us in a popularity context with the character’s peers. The character will be walking down the hall and commenting on

the Goths, with their black eyeliner, the emo kids sulking into their genderless thrift store cardigans, the cheerleaders puffing out their push-up bra-enhanced chests at the jocks, who are crushing soda cans on their foreheads and emitting caveman grunts…

Etc. Etc. Etc. I have read this list in probably every well-meaning YA manuscript and many published books. The thing is, most YA readers will know the high school archetypes. They don’t need some thirtysomething (and, lest anyone get offended, let me repeat, again, well-meaning) writer describing their daily reality in such detail. Most writers include this obligatory run-down for their own sake, to get the lay of their land and to put themselves back into the high school mindset as they write.

But how do we convey this atmosphere more organically? How do we sublimate it without the usual telling, without the list of the school’s cliques? I’d love to hear some examples in the comments of books that you think paint a social picture without being too obvious about it. One great exception to the tried-and-true high school hierarchy descriptions, fresh in my mind because I recently reread it, is BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver.

The main character, Sam Kingston, is a popular girl, and a bitchy one, at that, but Oliver describes Sam’s unique take on the social hierarchy in a fresh and very voice-driven way. There’s also a lot of tension inherent in the story premise, so whenever Sam describes her peer group, there’s something working beneath the surface, also. So Oliver doesn’t necessarily get away without any telling, but this is one instance where it worked for me.

However, I’m also looking for your thoughts on books that avoid talking about the social structure altogether and yet manage to convey the character’s rightful place and all the longing and disappointments and hopes that the high school caste system inevitably inspires. Any thoughts on the subject, readers? Bueller?

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Best. Quote. Ever.

March 7, 2011 in Etc., Events | 22 comments

From now until forever, I am going to refer writers who ask me query questions to this quote. It comes from Andrea Brown, my brilliant boss and mentor, and it’s about query letters:

A query letter is like the perfect skirt: long enough to cover everything but short enough to be exciting.

I have worked with the woman for about two and a half years now and have never heard this gem. Where has it been all my life?

This Big Sur, I think, was my absolute favorite. Sure, it was at the Embassy Suites in Monterey (as our March workshops are) instead of the gorgeous Big Sur Lodge in Big Sur proper (as our December workshops are), and the weather spoiled on Sunday, but I think this mix of writers, faculty, and agency clients along for the ride was one of the best I’ve experienced.

A special shout out to Jamie Harrington and Pat Netzley, and to my wonderful colleagues. We missed two of our Jennifers (Mattson and Laughran) at this Big Sur. Fabulous faculty members like Ellen Hopkins, Eric Elfman, Mary Colgan, Anica Rissi, and Deb Wayshak shared their writing expertise with our group of just under a hundred attendees.

My two workshop groups inspired several blog post ideas which you’ll read in the near future. For right now, though, I’m going to catch up on my sleep after this exhausting weekend and start chipping away at my pent-up email. Today is a very exciting day for me in San Francisco, Berkeley, and the Napa valley, which all ties in to my secret new blog/professional project. Soon, my pretties, soon all shall be revealed! For now, delight yourselves with Andrea’s fantastic quote.

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SCBWI NYC 2011 Wrap-Up

February 2, 2011 in Events | 20 comments

Thank you so much for all your comments and love for yesterday’s post. I think the worst thing now is that, with the weather, the building is shifting and I keep thinking about Sushi’s distinctive, heavy, ungraceful footsteps. A fat cat all her life, she plodded along more than walked, to the point where we had our own goofy sound effects to sing, lovingly, of course, as she made her way across a room. I kept expecting her to come back last night and crawl her way onto the bed in her usual spot. Sigh.

In other less depressing news, I wanted to do a quick wrap-up of the SCBWI NYC conference which happened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Grand Hyatt in Midtown. No SCBWI conference post can be complete without a link to Team Blog, which detailed the events of the show with pizazz. Led by Alice Pope, Team Blog features my two good friends Lee Wind and Suzanne Young (who did her own wrap-up with some pictures), and posts about every session of the conference. Since I missed some sessions, even I read it for recaps.

My big involvement in the conference was the Writer’s Intensive on Friday. We had two groups of writers, about 8 or 9 to a table, and 12 minutes each for everyone to read and critique a 500 word writing sample. This is the kind of hands-on workshopping that I love, and it’s what we do at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency’s Big Sur Writer’s Workshop (coming up in March, and I’ll be there, even if I’m not on the website, click here for more information). I feel like a big keynote session is great, but there’s nothing quite like getting to look at your own sample and other writing samples from real, live attendees.

I’d say my biggest note to all writers after those two sessions is: Where does your story start? Are you really starting it where it needs to begin? Across both sessions, I saw writers who started a story in one place and then, within 500 words, had either skipped over to another different part of the story or flashed back to the past. That’s not what I’d call grounding your reader. If you find yourself jumping around too much in the first 10 pages of your work, you haven’t chosen the right beginning yet.

After that, I was free to meet up with friends…

… like the lovely Tracy Clark (who is one of the first people I met at my first ever writer’s conference, when I went as an attendee!), Holly Thompson (SCBWI Regional Adviser for Japan, where I’m going in the fall, ABLA agency client, and author of the upcoming ORCHARDS, out from Delacorte/Random House), and frequent Big Sur attendee, Bret…

… or perhaps a lovely lady by the name of Ellen Hopkins? Ellen is an agency client, a bestselling author, and the dedicated RA for Nevada, where she runs an amazing mentor program. Not only did we hang out at the conference, but we caught a live taping of the Daily Show on Monday. That night’s guest? Bill freakin’ Gates. I feel so much smarter now that I’ve been in the same room as him…

… or maybe Sara Zarr and Sonia Gensler? Sara’s famous or something because I hear she wrote some books or whatever. :) She’s been a Big Sur guest and we spent a week in Utah together last year at the WIFYR conference, which I’m doing again this year. Sonia is an agency client and about to be published! Her book THE REVENANT comes out from Knopf/Random House in April.

Another cool thing I did is a blog reader meet-up with about a dozen of my readers who happened to be at the conference. (Need I mention they were all brilliant and incredibly good-looking? :P ) We didn’t have a cool Twitter hashtag like Team Blog did, but we did chat in the lobby for about an hour and a half on Saturday night. Thank you so much to all of you who came out:

Plus, I finally got to meet my smart, talented, gorgeous, and incredibly awesome client, Mandy Morgan!

I didn’t go to too many sessions this year because I was just so gosh darn busy socializing. I think expecting my cat to die at home really kept me out of the house this weekend, a good and bad thing. I did pop in to the workshop from Alessandra Balzer, from Balzer+Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins, and I made a childhood dream come true by seeing R.L. Stine’s lunch keynote on Saturday. As Stine is a horror writer, I truly intend to make a pun when I say that he killed it! He was so funny and warm and charming and he read some of his best “reviews” from kid readers who wrote him to say incredibly candid things. A wonderful keynote! Here’s my obligatory fan pic:

Other friends of note are Bryan Bliss and poor Mr. Jeff, who now knows never to meet me at an Irish pub, and the wonderful team from SCBWI Western Washington, who took me to a lovely lunch. A huge shout-out of thanks to Kimmy T. who invited me to the Writer’s Intensive in the first place!

Good thing the LA National SCBWI conference is coming up in August…I don’t think I can bear to be without all my wonderful kidlit friends for a whole other year! Any writers who are on the fence about going to either NYC or LA for one of the big SCBWIs, I think it’s something you should experience at least once in your writing life, if not once a year.

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Speaking of the SCBWI, registration for SCBWI Indiana, where I’ll be speaking at the end of April, is now open. Click here to register and I’ll see you there!

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Live from Digital Book World!

January 26, 2011 in Events, Publishing | 3 comments

This week has been a whirlwind so far. Digital Book World, which is where I’m sitting right now, listening to a talk on ISBNs, started for me on Monday afternoon and goes through the end of the day today. I’m here with my colleague, Andrea Brown agent Laura Rennert, and we’re soaking in all the latest news of the digital book landscape.

What’s the biggest takeaway so far?

Standardization. We needs it. I can haz mutual agreement? There are many, many platforms for users to consume ebooks and apps, from the iPad to the Android to the Kindle, etc. And each platform has related-but-different-enough standards and protocols for coding data. So a publisher is running the same book or app through the coding process several times through to fit with every available platform. This makes no sense. A publisher should be able to export in one standardized format. That’s where EPUB3 comes in, and it aims to make the digitization/export process more cohesive.

There are just so many things out there to take advantage of. Almost like all the sites we’re bombarded with these days…Twitter, MySpace, flickr, Facebook, WordPress, Blogspot, tumblr, aaaaaaaaaah! So many! What do we do? It seems to me that with a standard format, it’d be much easier to leverage the same content across multiple venues.

On the agent/rights front, we’re still standardizing which rights should be owned by who, what rights go into digital publishing, standard ebook royalty rates, etc. That landscape is going to shift rapidly, and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the turmoil on the rights front.

I’m going to be writing up a much more cohesive post when I’ve had some time to mull DBW over. Since I’m still in the middle of it, I feel like I’m just spewing ideas. These are my biggest impressions so far. You’ll have more from me on Friday!

For those of you who are on Twitter, you can get lots and lots of tech-savvy people live-Tweeting the event with a series of custom hash tags. A general one to follow is #dbw or #dbw11!

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New Writer’s Digest Webinar!

January 21, 2011 in Etc., Events | 7 comments

Hey all! My posts this week have been short on content and big on housekeeping and I apologize. But I have had a very busy week and next will be even more crazy. Oh well. It’s a great thing to be busy, but it does cut into the blogging time!

This post is to announce that I’m doing another Writer’s Digest webinar! If you took my webinar last time, know that the content for this one will be the same. You can take it again to hear different Q&A and get critique from me, but the meat of the presentation will be stuff you’ve already heard. After this one, I will probably work with WD to create a more specific talk, so stay tuned.

If you haven’t taken my webinar yet, this is the perfect time to do so! It’s February 3rd at 1 p.m. Eastern but you don’t have to listen to it live to benefit from it. If you’re not available at that time, just register anyway and then you’ll get a recording of the event to listen to for up to a year after.

My webinar last time was packed with a great audience and a lot of fun. I can’t wait to do it again! You can find out more about it and, more importantly, register by clicking here.

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Upcoming Events

January 17, 2011 in Events | 11 comments

There is lots and lots on my plate for these next few weeks, but it will include some opportunities to meet up with writers! The first chance for NYC locals is tonight. I’m teaching my final class for the Learning Annex in midtown Manhattan, starting at 6:45 p.m. You can get more information and register for the class here. It’s the same class I’ve taught several times already, so the content won’t be different, but it is my last one for them, so do come on down if you haven’t had the chance to attend before.

This weekend I’ll be at the Pitch Slam for the Writer’s Digest Conference. If you are in New York or have flexible travel plans, I would suggest you register for this one. I can’t wait!

Next week, I’ll be at Digital Book World, and I can’t wait to find out more about all the opportunities that exist for digital books, games, and apps, per last week’s article, which you can find here.

Next weekend, I’ll be at the SCBWI NYC national conference! I’ll be doing the Writer’s Intensive roundtable workshop critiques on Friday, January 28th. As far as I know, those sessions have sold out, and you can’t pick your preferred critique leader, either way. However, I know a lot of my blog readers will be at the conference, so I wanted to open myself up to meeting people who are in town.

I’ll post more information next Friday, but I’m thinking of parking myself at the Grand Hyatt, or choosing another location nearby, and holding a meet and greet salon type of thing for anyone who wants to come by and chat, maybe on Saturday the 29th at 5 p.m., after the day’s last keynote. I don’t really want to hear pitches at this time. That would be dreary after a long day, when I’m trying to meet and be social. Plus, I prefer written pitches and a writing sample anyway, because I can’t tell about your writing from your verbal pitch. With that in mind, if you want to come by and meet me and chat and share your impressions of the conference, I will be happy to see you!

These opportunities are all NYC-based, I know. I’m still firming up my travel schedule for the year. My next few events are the Big Sur Conference in Monterey, CA in March, then SCBWI Indiana, in Indianapolis, in late April. Check my Events and Conferences page for more details. I’m still getting conference invitations for 2011 (and would love some more, if you’re a SCBWI RA or a conference organizer), though, so you never know where I’ll pop up next!

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The Agent’s Role in Today’s Digital Book World

January 14, 2011 in Events, Publishing | 16 comments

It’s a flummoxing time in publishing right now. Most publishers, editors, developers, marketers, and creators freely admit that the digital book world is the Wild West. We don’t quite know what to expect, but most of us are hitching up and riding for the horizon.

Literary agents are among those forging new trails. Some spectators (and even some colleagues) are now wondering whether there is a place or even a need for these middlemen of publishing in the digital future. As an agent, I want to say yes, of course, and, self-interest aside, I do think there are new and exciting opportunities for both authors and agents in this changing landscape.

At the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, we’re working on concrete strategies for apps and ebooks every day. Since we’re a sales leader dealing almost exclusively in children’s books—a sector where app and game opportunities are growing rapidly—we’re seeing a lot of the changes firsthand.

My thought is this: There will always be people who want to produce writing or art and see it be made available to readers/viewers/players. There are creators and their content, and then there are the people bringing that content to market. The agent’s role will still be necessary to act as intermediary between the two parties, whether working to create an app, a film, a licensed t-shirt, or a printed book.

In fact, I’ll argue that, as publishers embrace different content delivery systems and processes, agents will take on more packaging responsibilities: editorial work, marketing consultation, design, etc. Whether we’re presenting a book to editors or an app proposal to a digital publisher, we will have had a more active hand in its reaching “market ready” status.

That’s not to say that editors, marketing staff, sales teams, and all the other hardworking people of traditional publishing will be obsolete. But already, as we saw from James Frey’s latest venture, publishers are relying more heavily on “camera ready” packaged work. It makes good business sense (as long as you don’t use Frey’s contract) to invest in a developed product ready to go to market.

My colleague Laura Rennert has recently been exploring digital options for her clients, some of whom include high-profile children’s bestsellers like Ellen Hopkins, Maggie Stiefvater, and Jay Asher. “We have to figure out digital parameters as we did with book rights parameters,” she says. “What rights we hold, what rights we cede; what royalties, revenue share, and subrights splits should be. This is the time of start-ups. We have to figure out what media or dimension a book’s content should occupy.”

Jim McCarthy of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management agrees: “The role of the agent, fundamentally, is to act as an author’s advocate and to serve as a bit of a sieve between aspiring writers and content producers. People will still be writing. And they will still want to connect with readers and make money off of what they write.” Traditional roles, in other words, are relevant no matter the medium.

Blogosphere favorite, former agent, CNET staffer, and author Nathan Bransford sees a segmented agenting community in his digital crystal ball. Agents, he thinks, will be broken up into those that have blockbuster clients and those who don’t. Agents-to-the-stars will deal primarily with major publishers and do business as usual, while others will act more like managers, consultants, and publicists to help smaller authors navigate small presses and self-publishing.

“As long as the polarization between blockbusters and everyone else continues,” Bransford says, “it’s going to be hard for agents to make money unless one of their clients should take off. There’s still a need for authors to be able to draw upon experts who can help them get a leg up and reach their readers, and smaller agents may fill that niche.” In Bransford’s view, then, it’s possible for agents to exist, but they’ll work and earn their keep in new ways. “It seems like it’s a time ripe for experimentation with new agenting models,” he concludes.

For now, I say we delve into new venues for our existing properties and experiment. We should negotiate contracts with the shifting new digital parameters in mind, hold digital rights, insert renegotiation clauses for digital deal points, monitor ebook sales, and collaborate with print publishers as they devise digital strategies for our clients’ existing books. Several of my colleagues are now developing standalone digital book or app ideas and approaching the new crop of digital publishers and developers.

In fact, I’ll argue that agents should start treating their clients’ business like a tech start-up. As a Silicon Valley ex-pat (and a former product manager for a Facebook app development venture that recently sold to Google), I feel lucky to know the ins and outs of the dot com sector from experience. The key there is relentless development, speed, novelty (Twitter, anyone?), and the willingness (and often capital) to delve into new ideas.

For clients rapidly expanding into digital, I predict that no-advance/higher-royalty sales and experiments that require start-up costs will be much more prevalent in the next two years. Agents will also have to keep a hard eye on tech and industry developments, learn the basics of the gadgets, understand tech and programming capabilities, explore what makes a good app (a good starting place is School Library Journal’s “Planet App: Kids’ book apps are everywhere.”), and be at the forefront of brainstorming digital strategy with clients who want to play in the app arena, including developing new properties to pursue. The revenue-sharing model for the agent/client relationship might also change, especially on the digital front and for properties developed mutually.

I’ll be the first to admit that seeing digital topics on our agency meeting agenda always seem to coincide with the flare of a tension headache. Just like the original frontier cowboys, though, we’ll all have to strap on our six-shooters and figure out just what kind of terrain lies over the western ridge of the great Print-Digital Divide.

The one thing we can’t do is pretend that things aren’t changing or that apps don’t exist. Things are and apps do, and that’s why I’ll be at Digital Book World 2011 in two weeks, to see what all this change means for this year and beyond.

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This article originally appeared on the Digital Book World website, and I will be doing a more extensive write-up of my thoughts after I attend the conference, which is January 24th through 26th. Thanks to Guy, Chuck, and the Writer’s Digest team for the opportunity!

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