What finally got me to articulate myself on the topic is a fantastic Salon article. This is the closest I’ve come to reading my own thoughts about self-publishing.

The average person has no idea what lurks in slush. The writers querying agents obviously think their stuff is up to snuff, or they wouldn’t be querying. Even so, most slush is not ready for human consumption. Why? Because writers are notoriously erroneous judges of their own work. A lot of them think they’re ready for “prime time,” and that is often not the case. It is my informed opinion — having read what most people call their polished work — that most self-published books, unless professionally edited beforehand, will read like my slush pile, not like the New American Literature.

Most of the time, when you get a rejection, it is really saying, “This isn’t ready for publication yet.” The questions going through my head when I evaluate submissions are: Is this saleable? Can I sell it? If the answer to one or both questions is “no,” I reject. If the answer to both is “yes,” I’ll pursue the project. It’s really no more complicated than that.

I do have to say one thing in defense of self-publishing: it is a very useful tool for people who have a niche audience or their own book sales channels. Ideally, both. Most traditional publishers may not do “niche” projects (not a large enough target market to justify general trade publication). If you have a book about a very specific subject, say, a kid with heart disease, and you also have access to the American Heart Association’s mailing list, for example…you might be successful at zeroing in on your target readers through direct sales.

But most people who self-publish don’t have a niche book or a good marketing strategy: they want to target the mass market. They have a project that would appeal, in their opinion, to everyone and anyone. And self-publishing a book intended for a trade audience is where these would-be authors get in trouble. Because reaching a mass audience — casual readers — with a self-published fiction project is nearly impossible.

From now on, I’ll be talking about these people self-publishing. The people who don’t believe what editors and agents keep telling them: their work isn’t ready. Just because a shortcut and a loophole exist, doesn’t mean you need to use them. And just because you use them, doesn’t mean you’ll get the same results as people who publish traditionally (your book distributed in stores…readers for your work…reviews…sales…any kind of profit).

The Internet disproves a simple, old-fashioned idea: “If you build it, (throw it up on Lulu or Amazon or any of these other websites) they will come.” Readers will not come. They have too much other stuff on their browser. It’s just like trying to get your band discovered by putting up an mp3 on MySpace. Every other band is putting up their mp3, too. (Not that MySpace is relevant anymore, of course.)

The Internet is flooded with content. As a reader, my time and psychic space are limited. I seek only the things I’m looking for or already know about. I don’t go trolling for complete unknowns just to check out a new ebook, and I certainly would never pay money to try random self-published wares.

But it’s not my job to sway anybody from wanting to self-publish. All the people who want to self-publish, should. We clearly disagree on a few key issues and I, as The Man, have better things to do than argue. When folks actually self-publish, they’ll figure out firsthand how difficult it is to get their books in the hands of readers. It’s also one thing to self-publish once you already have a reader base, like Kindle evangelist Joe Konrath, who now has Amazon releasing his books, but quite another to rustle up some hungry eyes as a rank debut.

The decision, in my opinion, is this: do you work through the rejection, finesse your writing craft, earn traditional publication and make the dream come true in a big way, or do you find a loophole and “publish” your work to a very limited audience? It all depends on what will make you really feel like you’ve accomplished your goal. I’m a writer in my spare (ha!) time. And I want to target the mass market. I would never, personally, self-publish. To me, a self-published version of my work wouldn’t be an achievement. It would just be a printout of my manuscript bound between two thicker pieces of cardboard, and about as fulfilling as my pile of scratch paper. Blogger Christoper Keelty goes as far as calling self-publishing, “selling your failures.” (Thanks to Colleen Lindsay for the link.) There are agents who will consider self-published projects, if they have gone on to sell big (like, thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies). But I’m not one of them. I prefer to focus on bringing something to market for the very first time.

The writers who self-publish because they’re sick of rejection aren’t writers I’d like to work with, anyway. I’m only interested in people who grow, learn, polish, adapt, and set their sights on the difficult goal of traditional publication. It’s hard for a reason. Not everybody gets to do it.

I went to one camp as a kid and, at the end of summer, the counselors held a lavish award ceremony for our families. Every camper got a ribbon for being special. Parents cried. Camcorders hummed. Kids tried not to embarrass themselves on stage. The counselors had to write something nice to everyone, so campers got contrived ribbons for “Best hair” and “Funniest laugh.” Anything, really, that the adults could think of at the last minute. Did that make everyone feel more special in the end? No. It cheapened something that is supposed to reward an extraordinary achievement. Call me a snob if you like. But I have read lots and lots of slush. And I wouldn’t wish most of it on the reading public. America has enough problems with declining literacy, as it is. We don’t want to scare people away from reading altogether by unleashing a tide of bad writing.

Sure, there are exceptions. Joe Konrath’s success with bringing his existing readers to a new format has been noteworthy. And there are self-published books for the mass market that have sold huge. Two things come to mind: the work of Christopher Paolini and an adult book called THE LACE READER. And you know what happened to them? Both moved on to traditional publication. You know why? Because that was probably the writers’ goal in the first place, and they took a circuitous route.

And you know why I know about these exceptions? Because they’re news. They’re rare. The other hundreds of thousands of self-published books? They’re unvisited websites and unopened boxes in somebody’s garage that I don’t really need to know about. I’d rather work with the writers who are approaching me to pursue traditional publishers, and focus my attentions there. There is a lot of talent in the world that’s worth being found and developed. I wouldn’t be an agent if I didn’t think so.

But like I said, I’m The Man. You’re either with me, or you wish you were with me. (And I’m a cheeky Man, at that.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, it really is this hard. Most newer agents have a day job, actually. For a period of time, before I saved up enough living expenses to see me through the next year or so, I worked full-time as the world’s worst (I’ll admit, since I was always reading manuscripts at the office) product manager at a lucrative dot com. Yes, while agenting, getting my MFA, going to conferences, making NYC trips, selling books, reading submissions, reading ARCs and keeping up with each new publishing season, blogging, the whole nine. No, I didn’t sleep much. Yes, this is about the amount of time and energy it takes to get started for some people, and the number of hats people usually end up wearing.

Aspiring agents can avoid the day job route if they work for a large NYC or LA agency where there is an office space and they can be paid salary to do office admin/assistant type duties in addition to their agenting. Another way to avoid this issue, obviously, is having someone who’s willing to support you and put up with your lean years in the hopes that you career will take off.

But most agencies, even those with offices, pay no salary and are commission only. And you don’t earn the full 15% as an up-and-coming agent. Sure, the agency commission is always 15%, as far as the author knows. But new agents pocket between 5% and 10% of the total sale, not the full 15%, and the rest goes to the agency as profit and to pay overhead. Overall, the money situation is pretty bleak at the beginning.

Andrea says it takes at least five years to start earning a decent living as an agent. I’ve heard another very successful agent say that his goal, when starting out, was: start making money two years in, start making a living five years in. Those numbers are very accurate and that’s because publishing takes so long. For example, I negotiated a book deal this week. This book will come out in 2012. The first payout is on contract signing. We probably won’t get the contract until July, the money for signing until August or (since publishing is on vacation, and therefore even slower, in August) September. Also, part of the payout for that book is, unfortunately, on publication. (More and more houses are breaking up the advance to be paid on contract signing, on delivery of final manuscript (or art, in the case of an illustrator), and on publication…traditionally, the advance is paid half on signing, have on d&a (delivery and acceptance).)

So this particular advance is split into thirds and will be stretched for two years, until the book hits shelves in 2012. Then, the book will try to earn out its advance, which usually takes one or two years, depending on a number of factors. Only then will the author (and therefore the agent) start making royalties twice a year on the project, provided it keeps selling. So, a year to two years for the project to come out, another two years to start getting some kind of additional money for it.

In five years, the logic goes, I will have sold enough books, enough of them will have come out and some of them will have started earning royalties to give me a somewhat steady paycheck.

The qualifications agencies look for in an aspiring agent are:

1. Willingness to work for free
2. Willingness to work, work, work, read, read, read, work, work, work
3. Willingness to be poor for years (unless you also have the bandwidth for a day job, too, or a really supportive partner) and sell, sell, sell

In my case, I read slush for an adult agency for a while, but my heart was always in children’s books. I asked one of my now-colleagues to let me read for ABLit. She didn’t put me on slush, though. She gave me full requests and client manuscripts to read. I quickly started giving notes and honing my editorial eye. Then all of the other agents started giving me their really tough projects — client manuscripts that, for whatever reason, hadn’t been selling. I started giving notes on those and, after a revision or two, some of those manuscripts found homes. When I did this for a manuscript of Andrea’s, she extended a hand and said, “Welcome aboard!” That process took, overall, about a year.

Lots of readers tell me that what I do sounds really glamorous and amazing. It is! I love books. I love writers. I love writing. I love publishing. I get to hang out and have drinks with some of the biggest creators in children’s books. I get to visit publishers and listen to editors talk about books they’re excited to be bringing into the world. I get to meet Bernadette Peters (this has nothing to do with anything, but boy, it’s cool!). I sit next to Newbery Medal winners at dinner. I love this life very, very much!

But the financial realities behind it are not so glamorous or fascinating at the end of the day. Still, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.

So, what’s the difference between a newer agent and a more established agent? Time and experience. As Ben Folds says, “time takes time,” so the only way a newer agent becomes a more established agent is through living and working in publishing every day. All agencies have rank. At my agency, we have Andrea, who is the President, then we have a Senior Agent. After that, we have five Agents and two Associate Agents (including myself). The “title” of each agent depends on the amount of time they’ve been with the agency and the number of books they’ve sold. That’s really all you need to know about rankings. (All the other concerns are internal and mean more to the agents themselves than to writers.)

Let’s talk about established agents first. These are the Presidents or Senior Agents, and sometimes the Agents, at an agency. They’ve been around for (usually, again, this is general) about three/five years or more and have amassed an impressive sales record. They have strong relationships with editors and their projects often get more careful consideration when they land in an editor’s inbox. They’ve proven themselves as people who have great projects. People editors want to work with again and tell their colleagues about.

So, the pros are clear:

• Great reputation
• Strong relationships and lots of trust
• Impressive sales and client lists
• Clout, clout, clout

But there are also cons that are sometimes associated with a more established agent:

• Very selective, so it’s sometimes hard for a debut author to be considered.
• Most established agents don’t get a lot of their clients from submissions — they weigh referrals much more heavily.
• The longer an agent works, the busier they are. They have bigger client lists and they’ve done more books. For every book you sell, there is work attached to it (contracts, paperback reissue, royalty statements twice a year, marketing, foreign and subrights sales, etc.). The more books an agent has sold, the more work they have to devote to their existing sales and clients, and the less time they sometimes have.
• Agenting is all about taking risks on writers and the possible return on that time and energy investment. More established agents might select writers who are very advanced already, and not take as many risks on debuts who have something special but need a lot of work.

So it’s a trade-off. An established agent has wonderful pros but they keep their clout by working hard and staying very busy. Smaller writers or debuts sometimes feel like they disappear on a bigger agent’s list. When you’re considering a more established agent, ask yourself what is more important to you: their clout when dealing with editors or feeling like a big fish in their small pond? You’ll always get the former with an established agent, but you may not get the latter.

Let’s switch gears to the newer agents. They’ve started as an intern or an assistant at an agency and worked their way up. They may have been agenting for a year or two or three. They’re building their relationships with editors and they don’t have as many sales under their belts. In a business that’s all about reputation and relationship, they’re still working on a lot of those factors.

This is often tempered, though, by the reputation of the newer agent’s agency. An agent who is hired by a very well-regarded agency has some clout already — great agencies keep their reputations by choosing great employees. And a newer agent’s senior colleagues are usually great resources, giving advice, reviewing submission lists, suggesting editors and otherwise speeding up the time/experience process. But the newer agent is still an unknown until they get more business. And their tastes and market knowledge are still evolving, so editors take that into consideration when they see a submission from most newer agents.

Here, then, are the cons of a newer agent:

• Less personal clout — though they might have agency clout and mentors within the agency
• Fewer big name clients and impressive sales
• Evolving taste and market knowledge
• Personal relationships with editors are still developing

But there are pros, too. And, again, I speak as a newer agent, so take this with a grain of salt. The pros:

• Newer agents are hungry for sales and to build their careers. (Most agencies pay commission only, so making those sales, building those relationships and getting off the ground are very high-stakes matters for newer agents.)
• Newer agents have more time to devote to existing clients and might be more willing to take on writers/projects that need a lot of work — they are sometimes more open to the risk of developing a writer.
• Most newer agents have something to prove and are the ambassadors of their agencies, going to all the conferences, making the rounds with editors, getting their name out there. They’re on the up and up and have unknown potential — the newer agent who plucks you from the slush might grow into that senior agent one day, and you could be one of their loyal, long-term clients as they gain prestige.

Much like we’re taking a risk on you when we offer representation and start developing you as a writer, with a newer agent, you’re taking a risk on someone who is at the beginning of their career, too. If it works out, you could be in a great, prestigious relationship.

Take these things and what you want as a writer into consideration when you’re choosing. With newer agents, DO make sure that they have some sales under their belts and that they’re with a reputable agency. In this industry, it doesn’t really take much to hang out a shingle and call yourself a literary agent. If a newer agent is backed by a reputable agency, that’s a huge vote of confidence (as I’ve experienced firsthand, as a newer agent with a prestigious agency). If you’re getting ready to query, I’d suggest picking a list that has both newer and established agents and seeing where you get more responses.

ETA: As Bryan points out in the comments below…newer agents won’t take just anything. Newer agents have to build reputations and go out with great projects, so it isn’t necessarily easier to get past the threshold of a newer agent. And established agents will work with stellar debuts, too! Bottom line, as it is in any other post on my blog: write a great book!

While I don’t make it a habit to write thinly-veiled posts about clients or writers and I don’t think I’ve said anything that would greatly offend clients or writers on this blog, this little quirk does drive home a big point: writing is extremely personal.

A writer is putting their craft, their imagination, their hopes and their dreams on the line when they sit down at the keyboard. This is a deeply sacred and important thing. No matter how far along a writer is on his writing journey, no matter if she’s writing her first book or her tenth book, the act of writing and creating is absolutely essential. And every day that I sit down to read a submission from a writer, I honor the sacred bond and trust that writers expect from me when they reach out to share their creative work. Their creative passion — even if the writing isn’t agent- or editor-ready just yet — is what makes them tick. I would never do anything to break their trust and risk hurting their creativity.

At a conference one time (and yes, this is a specific example…I hope this writer would allow me to talk about this in the hopes of illustrating a very important point that could spare the next writer some heartache), a writer told me that a creative writing teacher of hers had once taken her story, held it up as an example in front of the entire class, and completely ripped it apart. It took this writer twelve years to bounce back and type another word after that day.

Sure, this writer could’ve been overly sensitive to her teacher’s comments or excessively shy or whatever, that’s true, but it only goes to show how much power a person-perceived-to-be-in-authority has over a person’s writerly self-esteem. This isn’t something anyone, whether a critique partner or a teacher or an editor or agent, should take lightly.

People have all different levels of sensitivity about all different sorts of things. But because writing is so personal, because it deals with hopes and dreams and deep, creative desires, it is all the more fragile. People tend to be all the more protective of their writing. And I am always sensitive to that fact.

I’ve said this in my disclosures on the About Me page, but I think it bears repeating here: I will never use a specific or identifiable example on the blog unless I have permission from the writer to do so (like with questions emailed to me, the workshops or contests, for example). Stuff asked and shared at conferences is fair game because conferences are a public setting and a lot of good stories come out of live events. If I want to illustrate a craft point, I will make something up (usually exaggerated) to suit my purposes. I will never cull directly from slush or from client manuscripts.

So where do I get my post ideas? From questions people ask at conferences, from questions people ask via email, from issues that come up in the comments. Between the publishing business end of things, the craft side and the agenting side, I don’t think I’ll end up running out of things to talk about anytime soon.

And if I do discuss a particular craft issue, it is never unique to any one writer. First of all, that would make the post a lot less universal! Second of all, there really is a list of common craft traps and pitfalls that most writers fall into, if they’re going to fall. Believe it or not, but I find myself giving many of the same notes over and over. I end up seeing many of the same writing issues in 10-page sample after 10-page sample. When you read as much unpublished writing as I do, a writer’s unique strengths and challenges often match up pretty well with other strengths and challenges that you’ve seen before. So if there’s something wonky with craft, it’s usually pretty universal.

The only things that really stick out, usually — and the ones that I will obviously not blog about because of that trust I mention — are zany story ideas. The plots and premises that NOBODY has ever come up with before (usually not a good thing because they’re too out there to be widely commercial). But these types of slush gems aren’t for Twitter or the blog or Facebook. They’re just between me and Sushi.

I have a query regarding the never ending circular line I seem to have stepped on to! I have written several short stories (children’s picture book types) and just finished penning a child novel and I am stuck because if I write to a publisher they won’t read my manuscripts unless I have an agent and almost all of the agents will not read my manuscripts because I have not yet had anything published. Could you offer me any advice on securing a read by one or the other?

This is a perceived problem that some writers have. Let me explain why I say “perceived.” It’s understandable thinking but I’d love to put this “I can’t get published unless I’m published” thing to rest for good.

First things first: we need writers to do our jobs. Most agents, at my agency and at others, are constantly on the lookout for new talent. We read unsolicited submissions from rank amateurs, we go to conferences, we blog, we reach out, all in the hopes of getting quality material sent our way. There are agents who are not accepting submissions or only working with referrals, sure, but they are in the minority. My inbox is full of mail from writers at all stages of their journeys. I don’t really care if they’re unpublished or published in the Podunk Literary Journal that I’ve never heard of. I’ll maybe take notice if they’ve had previous books published by a traditional publisher (not self-published or published with a vanity press) but I’m really evaluating the submission, first and foremost. The writing and story premise are all that matter, and I think that the vast majority of agents will agree with me on that point.

In terms of publishers, most major houses will not accept unagented submissions, that’s true. There are, however, houses that still take submissions directly from writers. Each of these houses has bought at least one manuscript that came from the slush, guaranteed, just like every agent has taken on a successful client from the slush. Houses that accept unagented children’s books are easy to find online. In terms of agents, I vehemently disagree with the statement “almost all of the agents will not read my manuscripts because I have not yet had anything published.” It’s just not true.

Don’t believe me and want to see for yourself? There are many, many of ways to find agents online. My favorite is Agent Query (I still need to fill out my form to be listed, gah!). Head over to the site. Click “Full Search” in the left-hand toolbar. Check the genres you want to write in. When you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see one additional dropbox: “Are you looking for an agent who is actively seeking new clients?” Click the dropbox and select “Yes.” Click “Search.”

When I did this search for you just now, I checked the “Children’s” and “Middle Grade” boxes under the Fiction category. (I’m assuming middle grade is what you mean when you say “child novel.” You might want to find out what category you’re writing in, as “child novel” is not a widely-used term.) With those three criteria (1- Children’s fiction, 2-Middle Grade, 3-Yes, looking for new clients), I returned over ten pages of agents. That’s about a hundred agents who you can query and who will read your submission.

Now, that doesn’t mean they’ll automatically offer representation, of course. The submission has to be excellent. If you’re reaching out to agents who are accepting new clients (most of us) and still getting form rejections or no responses at all, it isn’t your “unpublished” status that’s hurting you…it’s the quality of the submission. But keep trying. Every published author was unpublished at one point. Everyone has to start somewhere.

I’d love to stick a stake in this publishing myth and call it a day but writers are going to keep believing this anyway. Oh well. I just hope they stumble across this post at some point.

For all the Sushi fans out there: We have progress, but I’m still very cautious. I’m now giving her IV fluids under the skin to see if I can’t get her a little more hydrated (this involves sticking a huge needle into a beloved pet…yikes). Last week, I was feeding her with a dropper. This week, she’s eating both dry and wet food, though I will still bring food over to her as a constant reminder. Food is moving in and, ahem, out again, which is a huge improvement. She’s also starting to walk around, sit up and purr. After two weeks spend lying down, I’ve noticed some of her muscles have weakened and she can’t quite support her weight. Still, she seems very intent on working herself back into the world!

Tennessee auction update: Today my first item, a query critique, went up for bidding. You can bid on it at the Do the Write Thing for Nashville website. You have three days to bid, so head on over! Some readers asked, in yesterday’s post about the auction, whether or not the critique happened immediately or if the winner could redeem the critique later (say, for a manuscript they haven’t finished). If you are generous enough to win the auction, I will happily wait and do your critique when the time is right for you. Don’t stop yourself just because you haven’t gotten your query or manuscript perfect yet!

A writer very carefully searches out and queries agents he/she believes to be a good fit for their manuscript, but is personally rejected or receives no response. The writer then manages to interest a publishing house on their own, but would still prefer to have representation. How would you suggest they proceed? Do they return to the agents that rejected them in the first place (they ones they thought a good fit)? Or search out others that didn’t feel like the right person from the beginning?

I’ve written about the exciting possibility of interesting a publisher on your own and then trying to get an agent several times before. My big advice is that, if you are interested in being agented at some point, you should probably look for an agent first and go through all the ups-and-downs and rejections there instead of submitting directly to publishers. 99% of work that writers think is ready, isn’t. An agent will be a better sounding board for you than a publisher.

However, lots of people do go on to submit directly to editors and they land offers on their work. Shows you what I know! In that situation, if you still want an agent, the playing field changes a little bit. If you sign an agent up at this stage and bring them into negotiations with a publisher, they will take a 15% commission from you for stepping in. They will also give you better money and terms and will translate the contract into English for you, and otherwise be very valuable assets, but be aware that you are, pretty much, waving a flag that says “Hey agent! Free money!” when you write agents to say you have an offer. Some will definitely bite. Some still won’t.

The same goes for agents who have rejected you before, and this is what I told Deni. You can always ask. Try going back to the agents who rejected you and say you’ve received an offer. Just know that, even though there’s an offer on the table, that might not change their minds.

If I don’t like a writer’s style or voice, I wouldn’t sign them on as a client just to make a few quick bucks on a sale that’s already in progress. I sign people on for the long term. If I didn’t want to read a submission from the person once, I definitely wouldn’t want to read a career’s worth of submissions from them as their agent. I’d rather work toward getting offers for my existing clients or finding new clients whose style is a better fit for me.

But for Deni and any readers who might one day find themselves in this situation, and if their offer comes from a well-paying and reputable publisher, I hope they can use this new leverage to get noticed by their list of dream agents. There are a lot of variables at play here, of course, but I can’t think of a better “Get Out of Slush Free!” card.

I should hope that, if you’ve decided to write an entire manuscript, you’ve got better things to talk about than the weather and you’re not feeling too awkward to say them.

Think about it. (Yes, I am reading contest submissions right now. Yes, every other entry for the last 50 or so has mentioned some kind of weather in the first paragraph. No, I am not automatically dismissing these entries, though the author is putting themselves at a bit of a disadvantage. No, this isn’t unusual compared to the slush I usually get. No, you probably shouldn’t start a manuscript like this.)

The problem is, if they are beginning writers, those 20 manuscripts likely have some of the same issues. If I look at a manuscript that someone has queried me with and it lacks a strong character, for example, or a strong plot, or the voice is wrong, or there’s a lack of active language, or there’s no scene setting, seeing that the author has 19 more, hot off the press and ready to go, isn’t going to be a draw for me. If they were all written around the same time, or even before the one I’m looking at currently, they’re likely suffering from the same issues as the first manuscript.

Every time you sit down to write, you are getting better. You’re learning. Sometimes it takes writing an entire novel-length manuscript to teach you a valuable lesson about your own craft. And sometimes, that lesson won’t get published. Sometimes, in fact, it takes five manuscripts, ten manuscripts, twenty, for you to feel your way around the novel form. The same is true for picture books. In fact, it’s even more true. Picture books are deceptively simple and it is awfully hard to make a great one. Lots of people think otherwise, and happily churn out an entire slew of drafts. I think it’s more reasonable to see your early work and your early, prolific output as more of an exercise rather than a finished product. As such, I don’t want to see all of your exercises in my inbox. Some practice is better left for your eyes only.

If you get the itch to query and you’ve got multiple projects, query  with your absolutely strongest one. I read thousands and thousands and thousands of queries and manuscripts. I can tell where an author is from looking at their work. Not every project — especially not the ones you wrote when you were still beginning and figuring things out — will sell. Show me only your strongest work. If I’m considering taking you on, I’ll be asking about your future projects and what else you have in mind, since those will more likely be even better. I will very rarely say, “Hey, do you have any problematic drawer novels I can sell?” unless you are a 12 out of 10 genius.

Agents really dislike it, actually, when people send a stable of their work on first contact. Pick the best one. If I want to see more, I’ll ask. This is especially pertinent to picture book authors. If I like the project they query with, I always want to make sure they have at least two more that I love before I take them on.

Bonus Tip: If you query an agent and get rejected, wait at least 6 months before querying them — of anyone — with a different project. Per my thinking above, the new thing you send me is most likely going to have the same issues that I noticed when I just rejected your first project. If you send out a project and it garners lots of rejections and little personalized or positive feedback, the cure isn’t jumping back into querying with a different project. The smarter thing to do would be to go back to the drawing board for a while and work on craft.