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Exclusive Submissions

January 6, 2010 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 36 comments

Pretty frequently, actually, I get a query that’s an exclusive submission. What this means: an author tells me that they’re only sending to me. Sometimes they specify a time period — “exclusive for three months,” for example — sometimes not. This is a situation where I haven’t requested the submission, I haven’t requested exclusivity… the writer just sends it to me and says, “Here, you’re the only one who gets this.” I have some issues with exclusivity and I’ll explain why. Keep in mind, these are my thoughts, and I might not share these opinions with other agents. I usually have a mixed response. I want the author to know that this is their choice, not mine, and that they shouldn’t expect any special treatment. I really appreciate their excitement about querying me, but it’s not really going to make a difference in the way I read their submission. The writing and the story idea are all that matter. Just like applying Early Decision to a college won’t get an unqualified student in any easier than applying the regular way, querying me exclusively won’t give you an advantage. Not to mention, seeing that a submission is exclusive causes me a little bit of guilt and anxiety… it makes me feel like I should rush and respond faster, like there’s pressure, which I don’t enjoy.

Now, after the query phase, there are some agents who request exclusive submissions if they’re interested in a manuscript. It makes sense: you love something, you want to be the only one considering it. However, there’s a huge disadvantage here for the writer. If you query people exclusively or if you accept too many requests for an exclusive read from agents, you will be on the agent search forever. Imagine that it will take 10 agents who read your full for you to finally find The One. Now imagine that each agent has asked for exclusivity for three months. That’s 30 months you’re waiting! If they all read it at the same time, you’d only be out the three months.

An agent seeks out properties to sell. As with any other job, there are times when we get what we want and there are times when we lose out. That’s the nature of the beast. I never expect a writer to submit — either a query or a full — to me exclusively. If I want it, I will make the time to read it and try to get back to that writer ASAP, just like everyone else. That’s the fair way to play the game. I’m not saying you should laugh in the face of any agent who requests exclusivity, of course. If you feel like granting exclusivity to an agent, do it. It’s always your choice whether to grant it or not. You can tell them “no” or that the manuscript is out with others so that you simply can’t grant exclusivity because you won’t withdraw it. They might still want to read your work if you can’t send it exclusively. It’s up to you.

There is one situation, however, where I would expect something special and potentially exclusive from a writer, and that’s if I’ve worked with them before. Maybe I did a critique at a conference or talked to them at length about their project. Or sometimes I request and love a full manuscript that might not be ready for prime time just yet. So I give the writer notes for revision. I take hours of my time with it, before the writer is even a client, and really invest a lot of thought. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes I will do this with a manuscript I adore but that’s deeply flawed. I usually tell them that they can consider my notes and, if they resonate with what I said and want to revise, I’d love to see it again. This is for more extensive notes, mind you, than a paragraph or two in my rejection letter; this is after I’ve talked to the writer at length and they’re well-aware of how much potential I see in their work.

Now, this next scenario hasn’t happened to me personally, but I hear about it happening frequently to colleagues. Most writers will send the manuscript back to the agent who gave them notes and invested the time. This is the decent thing to do. Other people take the feedback, revise, then send the manuscript all over Creation in its stronger, more saleable state, attract other agents and then choose to sign with them. This isn’t necessarily a good thing to do but, like I said, it happens all the time. In this unique situation, yes, I expect them to send it to me if and when they revise, but I wouldn’t outright demand it. At the end of the day, it’s the writer’s choice who they want to be represented by.

It seems like exclusivity as a trend might be declining among agents. It’s no longer as easy to demand it when there are lots of people out there who understand how impractical it can be for the writer. So consider this before locking up your work with someone. At the end of the day, it’s your time and it is precious, especially when you’ve got a career to get off the ground.

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Full Requests

January 4, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 40 comments

All right. We are back in the saddle with some regular thoughts I have. Here, I want to explain my philosophy on full requests. I only request full manuscripts, not partials. Part of it is the same rationale as why I say you should send 10 sample pages with every query, regardless of an agency’s submission guidelines: instant gratification.

Imagine if I followed the partial request plan of some agents:

  • Ask for the first 30 pages, evaluate
  • As for the next 50/70 pages, evaluate
  • Ask for the next 100/150 pages, evaluate
  • Ask for the full

This is a bit extreme, but I have seen all sorts of iterations of this. Why bother? Well, here’s the rationale. An agent who asks for a lot of partials ultimately ends up rejecting fewer fulls, because their decision process is long and fewer manuscripts get all the way to the full request. On the other hand, there are also agents who request a full after reading only the query. They probably reject the vast majority (~99%) of their fulls, since the first time they see a writing sample is when they get a full manuscript. I request a full after reading the query and the first 10 pages. I reject a vast majority of my full manuscripts, but not nearly as many as the person who reads only a query and asks for the full.

The one downside to asking for a full is that, to a writer, a full request is a Big Deal. It is More Serious and More Important than a partial request. I wish this wasn’t the case. I only request a full so that I can read through the first 30, 50, 70, 100, 150, etc. etc. etc. and keep reading until a) the quality of the writing takes a nosedive, b) the plot stops making sense, c) the story takes some kind of bizarre turn, d) the characters warp, e) I lose interest. All of these things, unfortunately, happen sometimes. However, sometimes they don’t!

There are a million reasons to stop reading a manuscript but there are also a million reasons to keep reading. With requesting a full and not a partial, I don’t have to stop, ask for more, stop, ask for more. I can read for as long as I’m riveted and, if that extends to the end of the manuscript, I’m a very happy agent. With a full at my disposal, I’m free to take my time, have my process, really dig in and mull things over without going back and forth with the writer.

I wouldn’t advocate sending a full when asked for a partial, like I’d suggest you send a writing sample anyway, but I just hope you understand a little bit more of what goes through my mind and exactly what a full request from me means.

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A Writer’s Worst Enemy

November 30, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Revision | 32 comments

Impatience is a writer’s worst enemy. To all those who are rushing rushing rushing to get your manuscript out the gate and into my hot little hands, think of it this way real quick: you’ve spent… what? A year of your life on this manuscript? Why not give it the best chance possible and spend as much hard work revising as it — honestly — needs?

There is a finite number of agents and editors. Once you query your project around to every agent who represents your genre or age group (or every smaller publisher that still accepts unsolicited submissions) and once they reject you, you can’t do anything else with that project other than a) self-publish it (a whole other bucket of fish, to be discussed later) or b) revise the hell out of it and submit again to people who might be open to seeing a drastically different version (your pool this time around will be much smaller). So… just take the time, revise the hell out of it from the get-go, and skip that whole nasty getting-rejected-first bit! In other words: be patient.

Sad truth alert! Not every manuscript you write will go somewhere, publication-wise. Far from it. Every manuscript you write is supremely useful, though. I think every time you sit down at the keys, you should be striving to improve. Everything you write this week should be better and more exciting to you than what you wrote last week. You hear people talking about starter cars and houses, maybe even starter spouses. Well, I think that almost every currently published writer has written at least one starter (or drawer) novel. MG and YA superstar Lauren Myracle wrote something like five books, she said once, before getting her first published. Some have many more than that. So will all the novels you write be published? Even eventually? Probably not. In fact, I think it should be a good and healthy thing to look at some of your starter novels and be horrified by the quality of the writing. That means you’ve come a long way since.

Everyone knows the story of the person who never once sat down at a computer before, wrote a first draft manuscript inspired by a dream they had, sold it for a million dollars and got six thousand movies made of their story, etc. etc. etc. You know why everyone knows the story of “the exception to the rule”? Because it’s news. It’s so rare that everyone talks about it and raises it to mythical status. The other 99.999999% of us mere mortals have to write plenty of dreary starter novels (and don’t forget about the Million Bad Words) before we can figure out how to draft a living character, create a compelling plot, achieve tension and humor and literary magic. That sort of stuff takes practice. And practice takes… patience.

For a lot of writers, or anyone working in the creative arts, our ego often compels us to think we’re “special.” What teen girl hasn’t heard stories of some chick at the mall getting discovered by a modeling scout and then immediately dressed up really cute and gone to the mall in hopes of scoring her one-in-a-million chance at stardom? It’s worse for writers, because they don’t actually have to get dressed and leave the house to indulge in such fantasies. Who among you hasn’t started in on a hot idea and thought, “This is a brilliant, undiscovered masterpiece that everyone will love the second they read it”? Who hasn’t let themselves boast, “Let all the other writers slog around in the trenches because I’m special“?

Well, talent is a huge piece of the puzzle, naturally. But hard work, I’ll argue, is a bigger piece. Because naturally talented people — especially the people who know they’re naturally talented — often get an entitled attitude and wait for the success to come to them. It’s the people who think “I might not be special enough yet but, damn it, I will be successful” who usually end up towering over their smug counterparts. Because the ordinary writers have to work for it and they know it. They have to put in the hours to see improvement, to witness the talent start to shine. They learn to work hard and never give up. And those are the people who make it, while some of the naturally talented people sit around on their couches, waiting for that model scout to come knocking.

In the writing game — and I’ll say it is one, on many levels — the qualities of patience, hard-work, humility and the eagerness to learn will get you much farther than striving to be the exception to the rule. The former you can control, the latter you can’t. Wouldn’t you rather be in control of your success and your career?

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Now that I’ve beaten the benefits of patience and hard work into you with my blog-stick, let’s talk about everyone’s favorite topic (just in time to fete the end of NaNoWriMo): revision! Joy! On Wednesday, I will kick off December’s posts, also known as Revision-o-Rama! Post all your revision-related questions here, or email me. I’m excited!

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The Best Time of Year to Query?

November 25, 2009 in Agent, Publishing, Queries | 19 comments

Erinn wrote in to me a little while ago to ask:

What’s a good time of year to query? I know the week between Christmas and New Years is terrible, since agents across the country are enjoying time with their families and avoiding their computers at all costs. Besides the holidays, is there a time that you get very busy? Is it a few months after NANOWRIMO? Or at 12:02 am on December 1st does your inbox get flooded? Should writers avoid flu season in case you get sick and you’re in “I hate life and everything about it” sort of mood? Are there any major holidays that fill you with joy, like Arbor Day, that someone might be more likely to get past the Publishing Gate Keeper?

Erinn’s is a charmingly-put question but one I think a lot of writers wonder about. There are two times of the year when I’d avoid sending queries if I was on the agent search. The first, as Erinn mentions, is the holiday season. Publishing mostly slumbers from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, so a lot of agents are using this time to catch up with work, read manuscripts and get all of our affairs for the upcoming year in order.

Plus, you know, we have to pop in at Mom and Dad’s, shovel some turkey in our gullets and figure out how to keep reading manuscripts over pumpkin pie. Queries tend to fall by the wayside during this time. As Erinn so astutely guesses, a lot of the queries coming in after 12:01 a.m. on December 1st will also be for NaNo novels. As I mentioned in my NaNoWriMo post earlier this month, a lot of NaNo novels are not finished come November 30th. They haven’t been revised yet. So the people who query them around anyway are most likely going to get rejected. NaNoWriMo queries are usually the slushiest slush in the slush, so we tend to not prioritize those as highly on our holiday To Do list.

I’d add that you probably don’t want to query the first few weeks of January either. People are just getting into the swing of things. Agents are pitching a lot of projects that they maybe held off on pitching during the holidays. We’re doing lots of business. Queries usually drop off the To Do list here as well. Finally, there’s a partially-true myth about publishing shutting down in the month of August. While some editors report working just as hard as ever in the late summer, it is usually true that not a lot of business gets done around that time. Agents are also using this lull to catch up and read manuscripts and get affairs in order, so queries are usually put off.

As for the rest of Erinn’s question… like whether you should take flu season into consideration or if there is a scientific formula for a good time to query, I say: don’t worry about it. You’ll query when you query and then it’s out of your hands. The person you queried could break their arm the next day, or drink 15 shots of espresso and race through the slush immediately. There’s really no way to control a submission’s fate once you release it into the world. The best thing you can do for your query letter, is to polish, perfect and truly revise the hell out of the manuscript it’s pitching.

With that, I take my gracious leave of you all for a few days. Happy Thanksgiving, safe travels for those going out of town and a blissful food coma to all! My family is around here, so I’ll be hanging out, reading manuscripts and, yes, generally ignoring queries. I’ll be back with another post on Monday, November 30th and then… (drumroll please)… December will be reserved for Revision-o-Rama: Revision Advice and Exercises to Massage the Mess Out of Your NaNo Novel. (That may not stay the official title because, let’s face it, it’s clunky, but I feel it gives the whole affair some gravitas.)

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Rejection Follow-up Part 2

November 20, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 7 comments

Here’s another question about rejection follow-up, this time from Kim:

When an agent has rejected a requested full or partial is it ok to send a thank you email or letter? Especially if they give personal feedback? I’m reading that some agents say not to do this. What do you suggest?

In my earlier blog post about rejection follow-up, I covered two responses I frequently get to just your run-of-the-mill rejection. But, as I said a little bit earlier, there are many different types of rejection. So what do you do when the agent has sent you a more detailed rejection, like a Revision Rejection?

Any time an agent goes above and beyond the form letter to give advice, to give you notes or to ask to see more work or a revision of the current manuscript, we are opening a door. We like what we see. There is potential, talent, a certain je ne sais quoi to you and your work. While this particular version of your project — or this particular project — might not work for us for any number of reasons, we’d like to see more down the line. Note that last part. The learning curve to learning the craft of writing is a long and brutal one, full of slow going and road blocks.

If an agent sends notes or feedback with their rejection, make sure to a) thank them and b) keep them in mind for later. In my first rejection follow-up post, I warned against sending everything else under the sun right away. This still holds true for a nicer or more detailed rejection. Unless the agent says “Do you have anything else right now?” I’d hold off on unleashing your entire back catalog.

When we give notes, we’re saying: you’re not right for us right now, but we see potential. So give yourself some time to revise, to cook up something new, to improve your craft, and then reach out to the agents who have been helpful to you in the past or who have left doors open or encouraged you. I remember the projects I reject but like and, if that writer approaches me again with something that’s really gone to the next level, you better believe I’ll be excited to read it.

So yes, a “thank you” email is probably best for all kinds of rejections, especially for the more personal or involved ones. If an agent reads a full and you really can’t stop yourself from sending a card in the mail, there’s really no harm. I remember that urge and, yes, the first time I queried agents, there were a few Crane & Co. casualties. As for sending correspondence in the mail to an e-jection, I’d hold off. That’s a little much. Stick to the same medium that you’ve been interacting in, whether it’s mail or email.

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When is a Manuscript Finished? When to Query?

November 18, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Publishing, Queries, Writing | 27 comments

Here’s an email question I got a few weeks ago from Maria, who is writing about her daughter:

My 13 year old has just finished writing the rough draft of her fist novel and is in the process of editing. Do we wait until she feels “finished” to send out query letters or should we do that now?

This question touches on three points, but the three points are related. The first point is knowing when the manuscript is ready to go out for agent consideration. I’m sure I’ll post more about this issue in many different contexts later, since “How do I know when this bloody thing is finally done?” is one of the biggest questions writers have. The second point is when to query an agent. The third point is teenage authors.

Point one: When is a manuscript ready? Think about getting to a point when you’ve worked it so long and so much that you’re frustrated with it and never want to see it again. Then tack a couple more revisions on there. Then you might actually be ready. A manuscript is ready when other people (who know what they’re talking about) have read it and ripped it apart and you’ve put it back together. At least twice. In my previous life as an aspiring author, I sent out manuscripts that I thought were ready. They weren’t and I collected a nice bouquet of rejections. You never truly know until you try, that’s true. But if you’re sending out of frustrations or out of a lack of ideas for what more you could possibly do to make it better, that’s when you should ask trusted readers for feedback and revise again. Speed benefits nobody in publishing, which is a notoriously slow business. You might as well take that time to really, really, really polish and perfect your submission.

Point two: When should you query agents? Simple. If you’re working in fiction, you should query when everything is absolutely, positively done. Don’t query something that’s half finished. If an agent wants to see it, a) you’ll have to get back to them and say “Uh, it’s not done yet” and b) it’ll force you, psychologically, to rush when you do try and finish, which is the worst possible thing you can do. Don’t query something that’s close to finished and then have an idea for a revision a minute after you send the manuscript to someone who requests it. Then you’ll a) have to send the agent an email asking if you can send a different version, which may or may not be awkward, and b) it’ll force you, psychologically, to rush, which etc. etc. etc. Send queries only when it’s ready and never resort to the Reassurance Query. Trusted readers (and NOT agents and editors) like a critique group or published, experienced writers should be your sounding board for all manuscript-related questions.

Part three: Teenage authors. It’s a tough call. Some agents will flat-out refuse to work with teenage authors because that means working with their parents also and all the different legalities involved. A teen author publishing an opus book is rare but it has happened. The biggest issue with teen authors, in my opinion, is something that totally can’t be helped. It takes a whole lot of time and practice to become a good writer. Time is something teens haven’t had a whole lot of yet. So when you and your daughter send queries around, Maria, do understand that some agents will have prejudices against you automatically, if you choose to mention her age. If she’s a crazy prodigy, mentioning her age might be an asset. Otherwise, it probably isn’t the boasting-point you’re imagining. I’ve been shocked by the maturity and quality of exactly two teen’s submissions in my career. One mentioned her age in the query, the other didn’t. He only mentioned it later, when I happened to say, ironically, that his writing read like it was for an audience slightly older than YA. But that’s the exception, not the rule.

The great thing about being a 13 year-old who has finished a complete novel manuscript is, of course, that with that kind of dedication — even if this first project doesn’t find a foothold in publishing, and it might not — she’s got nothing but time to keep writing and honing her craft. We should all be so lucky. :)

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Comparing Yourself to Other Writers in a Query

November 16, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 11 comments

Kristen asked the following a few weeks ago about a post I did on how to write a simple, compelling query. Here goes:

What about jumping straight into the query synopsis after the “Dear (Agent)” salutation, and sticking the “I am seeking representation for X” at the end? Also, I’ve been adding a sentence that goes something like this: “(Book title) will appeal to fans of (author) and (author)” — is this a pro or con?

Let’s get the easy answer out of the way first. This is your query. The order of the sentences that comprise it is completely up to you. Personally, I like to know genre/word count/basic stats on the manuscript up front, that way I don’t read a query out of context and then get surprised that the author was actually describing a 100,000 metafictional picturebook (hyperbolic on purpose) when I thought they were talking about a YA fantasy. It just helps me get my marbles all in order as I’m reading.

Now, on to the stickier part. As for drawing comparisons to other authors, you can do that all you want, but make sure it’s true. :)

Someone can say they’re J.K. Rowling crossed with Sarah Dessen until the cows come home, but I’ll be the judge of that. Rarely are people ever truly excellent at objective self-evaluation. Most people want to write like a Sara Zarr or a John Green or a Holly Black or a Neil Gaiman or a whoever, precious few actually do. In fact, drawing these kinds of comparisons is something I might do when I’m pitching your work to an editor. If you compare yourself to someone, your writing is excellent and I completely agree with you, you’ll make that part of my pitch easier!

So yes, theoretically, an author can take a looong step back, figure out exactly who their comp titles are and where they’ll fit in the market, let me know, and then we’ll dance into the sunset of publication hand in hand. More often than not, however, the kind of writers who draw comparisons between themselves and others (namely Rowling, Meyer, Brown and Patterson) are self-aggrandizing and delusional and don’t stand a chance of finding an analogous author because their writing is only comparable to one thing: drivel.

As with most things to do with publishing and the craft of writing, if you’re going to do it, make sure you do it well. That’s good advice for pretty much anything, I think.

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A Million Bad Words

November 2, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Writing | 23 comments

There are so many different iterations of this advice that I don’t quite know which genius began it all. I’ve heard it personally from Scott Westerfeld and Barry Lyga and Ally Carter and, hell, pretty much everyone. But the brunt of it is this: in order to get published or anywhere near publishable, you’ve got to write about a million bad words.

That’s right. A million of ‘em. Only after you write a whole bargeload of BS will you a) start to recognize what’s good and b) start getting a handle on the craft. Yes. Start. Don’t open a Word doc, type until the word count reaches 1,000,000 and expect words 1,000,001+ to magically be Nobel Prize-worthy prose. After a million bad words, Young Grasshopper, you will truly be ready to begin.

Hey, no grumbling! No “but I’m special and the exception to the rule” allowed! If you’re not published yet, you’ve still got work to do, my friend. If getting a novel published by a major house was an easy task, nobody would be pining away in offices or waiting tables. They’d all be sitting around in coffee shops, bent over their laptops. Getting published is not for everyone, not everyone will attain that goal, and it really has to be earned.

Ally Carter has a great analogy: a garden hose that hasn’t been used in a while. Think about your own backyard. If you’ve got a pretty old hose there that’s been sitting through the fall and the winter, you’ve got to flush out all the leaves and gunk and spider webs first. When you turn on the water, it’ll be full of dirt. You have to get all of that out before the water can run clear.

That’s just what you’re doing when you begin your writing practice. By writing a million bad words, by turning on that garden hose and waiting for the pristine water, you’re getting all the bad story ideas, the flat characters, the predictable plot arcs, the cliches, the boring descriptions, the bad jokes, the overblown hyperbole, the bombastic scenery, basically, the crap, out of your writing system.

Once you’ve drained it all away, you’re left with a more agile and intelligent writing brain that can get cracking on the good stuff. Writing is a thing to be practiced, just like everything else. Write every day. Do it diligently and without ego until those million bad words are behind you. Then write every day, diligently and without ego some more. And, you know, if you’re feeling sympathetic to the Plight of the Slush, please don’t send me a sampling from that first million. I’m much more interested in words 1,000,001+. :)

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Types of Rejection

October 30, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Revision | 18 comments

Rejection is rejection but, if you stick to writing for any length of time, you’ll soon begin to see that there are some nuances to getting turned down by an agent or editor. There are entire gradients of rejection and, the better your work, the higher you climb up the ladder toward that “yes” that you’ve been chasing.

Here are the basic kinds of rejection I give:

Form Rejection: I reject the project but don’t give any feedback or thoughts. I will always personalize with your name and the name of your project but I don’t say anything specific about it. This is usually what I send when the writing isn’t solid enough, the voice doesn’t grab me, the idea doesn’t resonate… if it’s obviously not a fit for me. I can tell almost immediately if I’ll end up sending one of these, and I only send them in response to queries (and the first 10 pages, per our submission guidelines).

Personal Rejection: I still pass on the submission but provide general feedback. I will use this one either for a query that I thought had promise or an easily articulated flaw or sometimes for a full manuscript that falls short of what I was hoping for. Maybe the project shows potential but isn’t right for my list—which isn’t something the writer can help—or maybe I have thoughts on how it could be improved before I’d consider representing it—which the writer can take into account if they wish. I don’t give detailed editorial notes, however, because I think the project shows promise but might be a little too much work to get into.

Revision Rejection: This is only for cases where I’ve read the full manuscript. In this situation, I’ve spent some time with the project and give the writer specific notes for revision. If they were to revise, I say, I’d love to see it again.

As you can see, there are several types of rejection. The rule of thumb is, the more personal the rejection, the more time the agent or editor spent with your work and the more potential and talent they see. A Personal Rejection and a Revision Rejection are like doors that are half-open to you. You can turn these into opportunities. An agent who sends you a Personal Rejection would probably be up for seeing your next project. An agent who sends you a Revision Rejection would probably be enthusiastic to see another version of your current one.

So keep querying and keep racking up those rejections. If you find yourself getting mostly Personal or Revision Rejections, that hard-won “yes” might not be too far behind.

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It’s Easy to Get Published

October 26, 2009 in Advice, Publishing, Writing | 26 comments

Here’s one thing I want to get out of the way for all my readers, here and now: it’s easy to get published.

Commence wailing and gnashing of teeth from all the many lovely folks out there who have been chasing publication for years and years without The Big Success they’re dreaming of. Yes, let it out. I’ll wait. Done? Listen: it’s easy to get published when you have an amazing project. It’s not the agents or the editors or the literary magazines or the critique groups or the writing programs keeping you back from publication. It’s all about the strength of your project and nothing more.

I mean no disrespect to all the writers who are struggling and discouraged and beaten down on their search for representation or publication. In fact, I salute you all. It’s not an easy road you’ve chosen but I understand the compulsion to keep slogging down it. What concerns me, though, is the tendency for writers to immerse themselves in the publishing end of things and jump into the search when their time might be better spent really solidifying their craft. Publishing will be here (for the foreseeable future, anyway, *gulp*) while you work on your writing. Focus on that and we’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready.

Agents want amazing books. Editors are salivating to buy and publish amazing stories. If your writing is brilliant, your idea is unique, your hook a mix of the literary and the commercial, your character alive, your plot compelling — in other words, if your manuscript is like a lot of the published books out on shelves now — you will have no problem landing an agent and selling your work.

But it really has to be that good. And it takes nothing less.

So, it’s easy to get published once you and your work are ready. It’s the getting ready that’s hard and dreary and time-consuming. It’s the getting ready part that makes people quit. But if your goal is publication through a traditional channel (and that’s not the case for every writer, some people write for themselves and that’s perfectly fine) and you pursue it doggedly and relentlessly, you’ll get closer and closer to being ready. When you finally are, the things that seemed hard before — getting an offer of representation, getting a book deal — will slide into place. Because you’ve done all the hard work and you’ve persevered and it’s finally your time. For some, of course, that time is years and years and years and years in the making. But every day that passes and you sit down at the computer, your writing grows stronger. And you get closer to being ready. If you’re not published yet, that means you’re not quite ready for “prime time.”

I also want to address something a few readers have asked about on the blog. I use this space to highlight pet peeves of mine and common mistakes I see as an agent. Most of the statements I make are rather general. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. I could read a 2nd person rhetorical question query — something I normally hate — but if the project completely blows me away, any momentary annoyance will be completely forgotten. A writer in my slush could make every mistake in the book, break every rule, but the manuscript is all that matters.

And if it’s ready, you bet I’ll be taking it on.

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