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You Need a Complete Manuscript

April 13, 2011 in Agent, Publishing | 8 comments

I’m surprised by the number of times I’ve gotten this one recently. But everyone learns new things at different times and new readers are always showing up, so I am happy to repeat more basic information.

When you’re a debut writer looking to publish in children’s books, you will need a complete manuscript 99% of the time (especially in the case of my readers, who are primarily fiction writers). That means that you’ll need a complete manuscript for:

  • Board book
  • Fiction picture books
  • Non-fiction picture books
  • Fiction early readers and chapter books
  • Same for non-fiction (though there are fewer of these on non-fiction shelves)
  • Middle grade fiction and most MG non-fiction
  • YA fiction and most YA non-fiction

The only exception to this rule is if you’re writing older non-fiction, like something for the middle grade or teen age rage or a reference book/textbook. And picture books from author/illustrators will, of course, need to have a dummy attached with some art sketches.

(Picture book dummy: A sketch version of what the book might look like in real life, with the art and text blocked out on 17 spreads/32 pages. Two or three of the spreads should be rendered as if finished…this is called a “mock finish.” The dummy should convey quickly, with the sketches, and in more detail, with the mock finishes, what the book will ideally look like. If you’re curious about dummies, this explanation is a great resource.)

I bet you’ve heard about a lot of authors selling something “on proposal.” That’s a lot more common with adult non-fiction, a business or diet book, for example, or a cookbook, than it is with children’s books. And in fiction, writers only sell on proposal if:

  • They’re an established author
  • They’ve sold multiple books to this editor before
  • The agent decides the project is really, really strong and wants to entice an editor with a partial
  • You’re working with a book packager and have only developed a sample before going on submission

If none of this applies to you or you’re just starting out with some fiction ideas, I’d urge you to forget the word “proposal” and work on your full manuscript. A large part of the writing craft is reaching the end and starting the revision process. There’s nothing like it. You learn more from finish and revising than you did from just writing the thing out.

If you haven’t had this experience once or several times before trying to approach agents or editors, you most likely will not have all the skills necessary to get edited and published. So plug away and finish. Besides, a strong, complete manuscript is a much more convincing sales piece than just a partial that could potentially fall apart in the execution. Having a full manuscript works to your best advantage and is a huge learning experience.

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Mimetic Writing

March 21, 2011 in Publishing, Revision, Writing | 17 comments

This is a point that I tackled in slightly different terms in my Making Your Writing Exciting at the Sentence Level post from late 2009. It’s something I’ve been seeing a lot more recently, and so I wanted to delve into it again. Writing should strive to be mimetic of the action it’s describing. As with the example of a character being chased in the older post, the short burst sentences portray the feeling of being chased, even as the words describe a chase scene. In the language falling in love example, the long, flowing sentences portray the languor and lush feelings of infatuation, even as they describe it.

When you’re writing, not only should you strive to match your writing and syntax to what you’re describing, but you should also put yourself in the situation in a physical, emotional, and, above all, logical way. Doing all of this will not only work to make your readers feel like they’re part of the situation on a conscious level, but on a subconscious one as well. As always, you should strive to make writing work and blend, not stand out or pull the reader out of the story.

I’ve been reading a lot of scenes that just don’t make syntax sense or logic sense. For example, I find an action sequence unrealistic if your character stops to describe the scene, the characters, the mood, or any of the action in too much sensory detail. Why? Well, imagine fighting some baddies Matrix-style. As bullets zoom by you, are you really stopping to reflect on a character’s sleek black trench? Or describe the marble hall that’s currently getting blasted to hell? No. Action and danger spike adrenaline and tunnel your vision and senses. Or they make one persistent detail stand out. How many times have you heard grief-ridden or traumatized people/characters say, “And for some reason, I remember looking out the window and seeing this random kid crossing the street, and that’s all I remember from that time at the hospital when Dad passed.” You’re only paying attention to the things you need to survive, or sometimes your conscious mind isn’t working at all. So not only does superfluous description during an action sequence seem unnecessary and slow the pacing, I also just don’t buy it.

The inverse is true, too. If your character is paying really careful attention to someone or something, vague description just isn’t going to cut it. If she’s looking into his eyes (is there a bigger cliche?), she most likely wouldn’t find them just “beautiful” or simply “captivating,” but she’d go into detail. This is an easy consideration, and perfectly logical, but it’s just one more small thing for writers to keep in their heads when they’re writing and people do forget

Whenever we describe something, we draw the reader’s attention to it. This doesn’t just apply to how we describe something, it counts for what we describe, too. We are the story’s curator, using all the tools in our storytelling arsenal to guide the reader through the tale. Mimetic writing — imitating the action of what’s being described — is a subtle way to do just that. Description is another related skill. Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of description missteps. Next week, I think I’ll talk about overdescribing and underdescribing, the twin traps that some writers can fall into as they’re building their stories.

I’ve just come off a very invigorating weekend at the NYC Teen Author Festival — hanging out with friends and colleagues, listening to panels, soaking in the collective brilliance of this industry — and will also come up with a post to somehow distill the experience, though I’m having a hard time articulating exactly what about last week’s events impressed and inspired me so much. A thank you to all the authors, writers, librarians, booksellers involved…and to the achingly marvelous David Levithan for his tireless work and incredible insights, especially on Saturday’s LGBT panel!

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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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Digital Book World and the Future

February 14, 2011 in Publishing | 9 comments

This article first posted over at the DBW website. Thanks again to Guy! Even though this information is most relevant to agents, editors, publishers, marketers, and digital developers, writers should at least keep their rabbit ears up and tuned in to the digital discussion. It will keep on going and there’s no getting away from it anytime soon.

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It has taken me a few weeks to really sit with all that I learned at Digital Book World 2011. It was absolutely invigorating to see all those agents, developers, and publishers launching themselves into the digital landscape feet-first, arms pinwheeling. Since the first digital event I listened to in December (a PW webinar, “Children’s Books in the Digital Age“) and now DBW, I have heard executives from Scholastic, HarperCollins, Writers House, and many brand new companies (Nosy Crow, Loud Crow Interactive, Ruckus Mobile Media, etc.) talk about apps and digital opportunities for children’s books.

I’ve met with them, played their games, and seen the future.

Not since I came of age in the Silicon Valley did I see such innovative passion for something new and tech. Traditionally, print publishers have been cooler, slower, gentler. And high tech developers, programmers, and designers have been white hot, coding all night, pushing out releases, getting instant feedback, shooting across the world with their latest and greatest.

The two cultures could not be more different. But now they’ve collided, and that juncture, cold front meeting heat wave, is a storm of activity.

In my opinion, here’s what’s next.

DIGITAL RIGHTS

First of all, publishers will start keeping digital rights. Old contracts are being renegotiated to include ebook, enhanced ebook, digital, interactive multimedia, etc. Some publishers, like Bloomsbury UK, are already refusing to do business unless a deal includes digital. But do publishers want to become tech developers themselves (or keep a hefty contractor Rolodex)? And will all of these digital rights get exploited to their full potential? Or will they all get the standard ebook/app treatment? Most books currently in the marketplace can’t seem to be broken out in huge, unique ways by their own houses. Do publishers want to take on the burden of breaking out a book’s digital components, too?

And where does that leave agents?

We’ll have to determine the value of digital rights (and, ahem, valuations are tricky in the tech sector) and use that in negotiations, exploit the digital rights we do hold, and mine our backlist for properties. We’ll also have to nurture contacts with digital players who may become customers down the line, just like editors, audio publishers, film honchos, and foreign markets are today.

More importantly, we’ll need to leverage those creators on our lists who may have independent app ideas that could be a good fit to partner with either the client’s existing publisher or an independent developer. Take, for instance, the Sandra Boynton line launch with Loud Crow. It’s good for Boynton’s camp, readers, and existing houses, but it’s also a coup for Crow.

From speaking with several app execs, I know that a lot of their early business models depend on having big names that will draw the crowds through the unfamiliar noise of the iTunes App Store. Ruckus Mobile Media is partnering with celebrities like Meryl Streep and Robin Williams for voiceovers. Loud Crow has beloved creator Boynton on board. Not only do app developers want great projects to turn into products, but they need to attract buyers, and the celebrity angle is a tried-and-true magnet.

THE $100M QUESTION: MARKETING

Which brings me to the next challenge: How do we market these digital offerings?

Whether you’re a publisher or a developer or an agent with a digital-ready client, it’s not enough to just thrust something out into the app space. As we know with the Internet, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. Remember all those bands who threw their mp3s up on MySpace? (Come to think of it, remember MySpace?) How many aspiring musicians actually got a decent playcount out of the bargain, let alone a record deal?

The celebrity angle is one way to gain market traction. A Facebook funnel page and other social media efforts make for another strategy. Getting to the top of the downloads list or becoming recommended through the App Store is a great way, but that’s chancey, like depending on a Newbery Award that may or may not come. The issue here is the same that picture books have experienced for years: the buying audience is not the same as the reading audience. Sure, there are apps for teens, which hope to sell directly to the plugged-in buyer/reader. But most children’s apps, those for younger readers, rely on courting the parent gatekeeper (and gadgetkeeper). So the robust YA online community is out as a promotion vehicle. As are most booksellers and librarians, even the plugged-in ones who recommend ebooks over apps these days. What will rise up as the best tool to reach savvy, kidlit-loving parents?

The best asset in this upcoming product rush will be app quality.

COMPETING ON THE CUTTING EDGE

A lot of developers and publishers are putting their first offerings on the table right now. As mentioned at DBW, most app companies are two years old or less. Some just want to have something out there so they put out buggy wrecks. It’s surprising how many live demos at the expo showcased problematic functionality instead of the app itself. Other developers are giving it their best shot but failing to rise above the familiar hot spot/page turn/animation/voiceover effect that has already become industry standard.

Which is why I wonder about publishers keeping digital rights. Are they going to innovate with each release? Are those properties going to get the creative and back-end tech treatment they deserve?

A smaller number of developers are breaking new ground. We’ll have a new wave of available technologies, ideas, and developers in the next two years. We’ll also see publishers adopting a more focused strategy and releasing innovative apps for key players on their lists instead of creating apps for apps’ sake. Some developers will fade, as start-ups often do. A rock star or two will come to the forefront and wow us all.

Here’s where the tech game is frustrating and yet exciting. Revolutionary technologies, once played, seem old hat. Tech innovation has taught consumers to always quest for the newest gadget, the best UI, the biggest wow factor. Everyone is always asking for what’s new, then immediately for what’s next. That’s what happens when you climb up to the cutting tech edge. It sure is sharp and fun up there, but it’s easy to lose one’s footing.

Some will be ready. Others won’t.

One thing will not change, though. All these apps, no matter what technology is behind them, no matter who is coding and marketing and innovating, will need content. And that’s where writers, agents, editors, and publishers will continue to thrive. The human connection of reader to story will not change, even as kids start reading with their fingertips as much as with their eyes and hearts.

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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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Trendwatch 2011

February 4, 2011 in Publishing | 32 comments

So, this post comes with the caveat to NEVER bank on a trend when you’re writing. There are people in my submissions pile still writing vampire paranormal romance, fallen angels, and dystopian. The vampires, I’d say, are very much over and there’s no way for me to convey that nicely. The angels and dystopian will stick around for a while but, by now, with editors’ inboxes so saturated, your premise and writing quality better be unbelievably good in order to stand out. Steampunk and mermaids seem like false trends, unless that rumor about Stephenie Meyer’s next series being mermaid-related is true. But a lot of mermaid books are coming out now and not really hitting as well as I think a lot of publishers have hoped.

Publishers create books two years in advance, usually. With picture books it can take longer. With really hot ticket books that are sold in great shape, it can take a year or so. Still, the average is about two years. This means that if you’re just hearing about a trend or some books coming to market that seem to have a common theme, you’re about a year to two too late (Holy Homophone, Batman!). Don’t start writing to trend when you hear about it. Just don’t do it.

With that caveat, I do have an advance eye on these things, as I see manuscripts before most editors see them. I’ve been catching up on submissions lately and can spot something shimmering in the distance. Dreams. Not only have I seen some dream manuscripts for critique (for example, a manuscript that came in for my Do the Write Thing for Nashville auction) this fall, but now I’m seeing dream-related queries by the truckload.

What do I mean by “dreams”? I’m mostly seeing messed up dreams where people are screwing around with other people’s psyches. Is this a direct result of Inception? Probably. But that’s problematic because Inception is a movie and lives by cinematic rules, and books are fiction, with their own related-yet-different workings. Anyway, I feel like your dream manuscript, if you’re cooking one up, has to be really intelligently done. Inception was mind-boggling and very sophisticated. Dream manuscripts, since you’re dealing in a very freewheeling fantasy, are going to be difficult to believe and even more difficult in terms of world-building, right off the bat. Plus there’s the challenge of something happening entirely in the psychic sphere: it’s all mental. What is your real world, external conflict going to be? You still need one. Anyway. I don’t really envy those with this challenge. It seems tough, and I’m already skeptical. All ye dreamers, beware!

What other trends are you all seeing in your literary travels?

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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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A Crisis of Self-Confidence

January 19, 2011 in Advice, Publishing, Writing | 32 comments

Here’s a rather entertaining question that Jeff asked back in November, but one the deals with an all-too-common evergreen creative ailment:

Recently I was infected with what I call “the demon of self-doubt” and I couldn’t work on my WIP for a month. A snarky comment in my crit group triggered an intense period of insecurity for me, and destructive thoughts like “I’m just not a good enough writer” and “my voice is too bland” kept buzzing around my brain. These thoughts kept looping back and getting stronger, like a bad song you can’t get out of you head (for example, “skyrockets in flight, whoosh, afternoon delight”).

I wrote in my journal, and I started some new material, but every time I went back to my WIP, I threw my hands up in air and wailed, “I’m not worthy!” I wouldn’t call this a writer’s block; it was instead a crisis of confidence.

Eventually I forced myself to forge ahead and I got over it. Now I’m writing my WIP again, but what can I do to avoid this if it happens in the future? Does this happen to other writers, or is it just me and my incredibly thin skin? What if the demon of self doubt is right, and in the end, I’m not a good writer and all my effort and hard work will be for nothing? Or is that the chance we all take?

I like this question, and I’m pretty sure a lot of blog readers will recognize themselves in these sentences. Motivation and confidence come and go. The more motivated and confident you feel, the more you write. But if a seed is planted and you just can’t seem to get past a comment or a rejection (see my post on dealing with rejection), you tend to just cycle down and down and the doubt perpetuates even more doubt.

As Jeff says in his question, creativity is a chance we all take. So is any endeavor. You do it and then hope for the best. If the best doesn’t happen, you keep on doing it until you either reach your goal or you stop altogether. For some, rejection or creative block is cause enough to throw in the towel, but the urge to create and be creative will almost always remain.

I don’t have the magic words to help a writer out of a tough creative situation. Not only have I stopped writing because of time constraints, but I have my share of moments where I feel doubt and a lack of self-confidence. The thing I can say, though, is that those people who persevere through the “demon of self-doubt,” as Jeff calls it, are the only ones who will reach their creative goals. It’s a very obvious thought, but one that bears repeating.

Also, sometimes the pressure of wanting to achieve a goal a certain way or having an unrealistic time frame is enough to kill your creative spark. A lot of writers get despondent because an agent or publication hasn’t happened yet. They write and they write and they write and yet the professional world doesn’t seem to be recognizing (or appreciating) their efforts.

Well, life rarely happens exactly as you plan. And publishing is unpredictable, not to mention slow (like, really slow). If you set your hopes on getting published or agented in a certain way, you will tend to give yourself not only a crisis of self-confidence, but an unrealistic goal, since most outsiders are not intimately familiar with the industry and how it works and what it really takes to succeed.

So if you’re feeling really frustrated, about to give up, or that your work is not good enough, turn down the heat on chasing publication. What you write when you’re blocked and angry and doubtful will most likely not be a joy for others to read, and you’ll just be getting yourself further away from your goals instead of closer when you are in that mindset.

Sometimes frustration is a good thing — it spurns you on when you might otherwise quit — but I find that the specific frustration of not being published yet has one common cure: stop submitting and start nursing the writing.

Maybe it’s not time to submit yet. Maybe your writing craft or a particular project isn’t ready to go out into the world yet. Maybe you’ve recently gone on submission with something and it’s better to stop and see what you learned from that round instead of jumping right back into the ring.

Whatever the case, self-doubt tends to grow under scrutiny. If this is what you’re experiencing, it’s totally okay to pull back, rehabilitate your confidence and your creativity, and try to get published down the line. Publishers and agents will always be there (even in the digital future). Your excitement, positivity, and motivation may not, especially if you force it to take too many blows when it’s still growing. So focus on your inner creative assets when you’re feeling down, and the rest will come in time.

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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.

***

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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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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