Slush

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Breaking In as an Author/Illustrator

November 5, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 16 comments

This comment came in from Priscilla via the blog:

I have heard that an author/illustrator needs to first “prove herself” as an author or an illustrator before being published as an author/illustrator. Is this the case? What is your advice for an author/illustrator on submitting a picture book when the text and images are dependent upon one another for meaning? As the Andrea Brown Literary Agency does not accept attachments with queries, a mock-up or dummy would be out of the question. But would an agent be interested in receiving written illustration ideas alongside a text query, or should the illustrations come later, only after an agent expresses interest in the project?

This is a great question, and one that might have a controversial answer. I am in the school of thought that picture books sell a bit more successfully these days, at least in my experience, if they come from an author/illustrator: one person trained to do both text and illustration.

Furthermore, most of my author/illustrator clients are trained illustrators first, then writers. I’ve done a lot more work with them on improving storytelling, structure, and writing. Because if the illustration quality isn’t there to begin with, there’s not a lot that I’ll be able to do, since my expertise is primarily in text.

A lot of the editors I talk to express interest in author/illustrators simply because the whole package is there: the text, the art, the interplay of word and image, the design of it. Some agents and editors are more talented than others at imagining what kind of illustrations to marry to text and vice versa. Picture book texts that sell (and many text-only sales are still made, every day) and illustration portfolios that land on an editor’s desk are incomplete. They need their mate in order to become a book. It’s up to the right editor and to chance to make the match between an author and an illustrator. Sometimes this alchemy doesn’t work. Sometimes texts or art bought separately take longer to get into production. It can get complicated. So if an editor buys a project from an author/illustrator, they have a tantalizing snapshot of what the finished book will be — right there in the dummy — and they know they’ll only have to work with and juggle one creator for the project instead of two.

This simplicity is, frankly, why I love working with a talented author/illustrator. They also tend to have the best understanding of how text and image can combine to become greater than the sum of their parts, how word and illustration enhance each other. For me, opening a dummy from a fantastic author/illustrator is like diving into a miraculous treasure trove. And that’s how it should feel. I’m extremely picky about author/illustrators, and do prefer to work with them over just illustrators or just authors, though I have those clients on my roster as well. This, of course, is just my personal preference.

Does, however, an author/illustrator need to get their start as an author illustrator? That depends. If they have a fantastic author/illustrator project that is very commercial, it will probably sell, even though they are a debut talent. If they extend themselves to land a text or an illustration deal (the latter being more common) first, then they can enter the marketplace with some illustration credits, then move on to an author/illustration combo. But I don’t think prior illustration credits are necessary to land an author/illustrator book.

One of my clients, Bethanie Murguia, was an experienced illustrator but had no book credits to her name until she landed BUGLETTE, THE MESSY SLEEPER (out from Tricycle Press in May, 2011). That was her first book deal and her author/illustrator debut. As it happens, I have sold two more books for Bethanie, and both of them will be author/illustrator projects. One other client of mine is on the cusp of becoming an author/illustrator debut with a medium-sized publisher (more details after we finalize the deal!). He is an experienced illustrator, and we finessed the text and story.

Another client, Lindsay Ward, was a trained illustrator who got her start on her own by sending out postcards to editors and art directors. From there, she landed a cover and interior spot illustration project for Doubleday Canada, and two illustration projects: THE YELLOW BUTTERFLY from Bright Sky Press (2010) and A GARDEN FOR PIG from Kane/Miller (2010). I was on board at this point and we were able to work up to an author/illustrator project with a smaller house (PELLY AND MR. HARRISON VISIT THE MOON, out Spring 2011 from Kane/Miller), and then land her an author/illustrator deal with a larger house, the newly retitled WHEN BLUE MET EGG, out from Dutton/Penguin in Spring 2012.

So, you can break in to author/illustrator-hood either way. And I don’t think it’s out of the question to land an author/illustrator debut deal…at all.

Now, a lot of folks do have questions about our submission guidelines. We don’t accept attachments, so how do you send a dummy of your author/illustrator work? Simple. You copy and paste your query and the text of your picture book project (even if the text is dependent on illustration, we understand how that goes) and mention that you’re an author/illustrator. Then include a link to your online portfolio (every illustrator should have one, even those who are technically illiterate but could easily hire or ask someone, there’s really no excuse and you will get steamrolled by your competition if you don’t) where, ideally, we can see a few sample illustrations. If I like your art style, I will ask for the dummy, and then you can send the attachment!

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Picture Book Queries

September 27, 2010 in Advice, Queries | 18 comments

Hey all, sorry to be late with my post this morning. I’m trying to tie some last minute things up before I take off to Boston for a few days to visit publishers. Here’s a question that came up during my webinar and also from Melanie:

I am wondering about picture book queries in slush piles. Due to the extremely short nature of the manuscripts do you always read the entire manuscript for picture books or do you base it on the letter with them? It’s my impression that since whole manuscripts are sent for picture book queries the letter is more of a cover letter, rather than trying to hook interest with a bit of the plot because the entire thing is there with the letter.

Melanie is completely right. Since most agents ask that the picture book manuscript be included in the submission, writing a really meaty query for that short a manuscript seems a bit silly. When I see picture book queries — and when I write my own picture book pitches, in fact — I keep it very simple.

I’ve had a book by Katie Van Camp and illustrated by Lincoln Agnew called HARRY AND HORSIE in my sidebar for a while as an example of a great picture book with an outside-the-box friendship hook. If you haven’t picked it up yet, I’m sorry for you, because you’re missing out.

If I were writing a query for HARRY AND HORSIE, it would read something like this:

Harry and plush toy, Horsie, are the best of friends. One night, Harry is trying out his bubble-making machine when one of his bubbles swallows Horsie and hoists him into outer space! Harry has to rescue his best friend — and go on a wild space adventure — before returning safely home.

A quirky picture book with a great friendship hook, spare text and retro-style illustration, HARRY AND HORSIE is sure blast your imagination into the stratosphere! This is a simultaneous submission and you will find the full manuscript of XXX words pasted below. I look forward to hearing from you and can be found at the contact information listed below my signature.

Easy peasy. No need to write an elaborate letter. Just present the main characters, the main problem, and the resolution, then work in a hook (“great friendship hook,” above), and sign off like you normally would with a novel query.

After that, just paste the picture book manuscript. If you are an author/illustrator, include a link to an online portfolio where the agent or editor can browse your illustrations. Do not include attachments unless the agent requests to see more illustrations or to see a dummy.

I’ve had requests to write more about picture books, so I will try and fold more posts along these lines into the rotation.

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How I Evaluate Full Manuscripts

September 8, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 24 comments

This past year, I’ve built up a great client list and sold some great books. And I want nothing but more of the same for my next year, my next five years, my next ten years in the business. However, as I mentioned on Alice Pope’s blog a few weeks ago, I now have a great base of clients and don’t feel the same frenzy to grow my list as I did, say, this time last year, as I was signing up my first few clients (who are still my clients, by the way, and one of whom just had a great success story).

And as publishers have tightened lists and as my own experience with editors and published books and writing and marketing grows, my standards have risen even higher. It’s more difficult to catch my eye now, as I’ve seen more, and, more importantly, gotten sick everything that’s tired and flat and been done hundreds of times before. There’s still, of course, room on my list. Lots of it. But those slots are harder to grab, and those worthy writers are harder to win over, as they tend to have lots of offers. (I find that, if a project has me really excited, more often than not, a handful of other agents are also about to offer or already offering on it…more on that in a future post.)

So now that I’m entering my second year as an agent, I’m finding myself being more exclusive about what I want to take on, but I’m also finding myself in more competitive situations with bigger agents. It’s a tough position to be in, and it doesn’t always let me go through my entire manuscript consideration process (which was supposed to be the point of this post). Still, while this is happening more and more, I wanted to let you in to my regular manuscript consideration process, since my slush consideration process post seemed to get a good response. This is how it all goes down on my end.

First, a query letter catches my eye. Because I want to be completely sure of my judgment and rule out chances of slush psychosis, per the post linked above, I put it in my Maybe Pile. Since this is a fantasy scenario, let’s just say I dutifully return to my Maybe Pile the very next day (instead of a week later, after I realize that life has gotten away from me) and request those manuscripts that still sound good. For any batch of slush, I end up requesting one or two manuscripts at a time.

Once I get the manuscript from an author, I put it in my queue. At any point in time, I may have between two and ten full requests in line. And I get to them depending on how much time I have and in order of request date. It usually takes me two weeks to a month (this summer was slow because of the move) to respond to a full (unless, of course, the writer has other offers or I’m very interested in something, right after the query, and need to read immediately…and this doesn’t happen that often, even with full requests).

The other thing I do when I get a full request in is I send it to my readers. Yes, I have readers. ABLit agents work with qualified young publishing enthusiasts on full manuscripts and sometimes client manuscripts. Since we’re scattered all over the country, my colleagues and I have our own networks of readers, although there are some readers that everyone at the agency works with.

I currently have several readers and I also work with one of our agency readers. I have a very rigorous reader screening process and choose my readers very carefully. I don’t always agree with them, but value their feedback. They provide a valuable service to me, as they fill in my blind spots and make sure I’m not missing anything — good or bad — about a manuscript. (I started out as a reader for ABLit, so I love teaching and working with my readers, it’s a great learning experience for both of us.)

So anyway. I send the full request to all my readers and read it myself, as well. If the manuscript really catches my eye on a read, or if a reader highly recommends something that I haven’t gotten to yet, I kick the submission into high gear. When I’m interested, I read quickly.

Most submissions, unfortunately, tend to fall apart by page 50 — the first benchmark, when I tell my readers to check their guts and see if they still want to keep reading. If I can put a full request down by page 50, I will not pick it back up again. The issue is usually voice, character, pacing, or plotting. (The voice is flat, the character is one-dimensional, the story crawls along, and we haven’t gotten into the main plot/action of the manuscript yet.) If my readers chime in and say that they put it down as well, it’s a decline. (My readers don’t talk to each other about submissions, nor do I let my readers decide for me…it’s not rejection or offer by consensus…but because I have such good readers, I tend to agree on manuscripts with at least one of them and really do take their feedback into consideration. Still, the final decision is mine.)

If a submission is really good, a “kick it into high gear” submission, a “finished it in one sitting submission,” and I think it is especially commercial or might attract other agent attention, I will ask that all my readers finish it and send me a reader’s report. I will also take notes on the manuscript and pick out the most choice editorial ideas to share with the author. If I finish a manuscript and can’t stop thinking about it, if I bolt awake in the middle of the night with editorial ideas for it, if I start checking my calendar for a time to get the writer on the phone, I know I have a very strong candidate for an offer of representation. I usually give myself a few days to make sure the project is still an I-can’t-live-without-it submission. If I’m still obsessed with it, I let the writer know and then we schedule a call.

Still, not all of my offers end in the writer signing up (more on this, as promised, later). And all of the manuscripts I take on do go through revision, based on my editorial notes from my first read and from the repeat read that I always do after I take someone on. And yes, I have read good manuscripts that were getting lots of offers but that I thought needed work, and I’ve passed on them rather than competing for them.

But high as my standards are and tough as my editorial vision is, I do love the whole process of reading a potential client’s manuscript — from the exciting request to the potential treasure trove of the full to the rare manuscripts that sparks my imagination. And I’m definitely looking for more of this magic, and more successful offers. Keep those submissions coming!

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Slush Behind the Scenes

August 25, 2010 in Agent | 23 comments

Heidi recently wrote in to ask about the complexities of reading slush:

Before I started my YA novel, I learned about publishing, editing, agenting, etc., and was amazed at the examples of poorly written query letters making the rounds on the internet.Reading the examples of slush gave me hope – sort of a “what not to do” lesson in query writing, and I believed if I submitted a well crafted query it would naturally stand out among the rest. I imagined my letter receiving attention it might not have, if it weren’t for the dreck surrounding it.

But what if my query letter, well crafted or not, took on the qualities of the slush simply because it was part of it? Do agents find it easier to remember the delicious breadsticks they were served with dinner, despite the fact the rest of the meal was a disaster? Or because of it? I am sincerely not trying to trivialize agenting, I am just fascinated with how complex the process for selecting appropriate material is.

This is a really good question, and something I think about all the time. Literally, all the time. Writing and publishing are such human endeavors. There’s no way you can make a robot that creates great writing. In the same vein, you can’t really automate the process of submissions that feeds projects into traditional publishing. For everyone who writes, there are many readers who evaluate that piece of writing before it gets made into a published book.

As one of these people, I have to always keep my wits about me when I approach the slush. The slush is, indeed, a very peculiar thing to have in your inbox. It is made up of, alternately, people who’ve been querying for years, people who’ve been querying for minutes, published authors, unpublished writers, people who have no clue what they’re doing, experts, people who have never written before, people who can’t stop writing, really fantastic ideas, ideas I’d imagine were caused by some epic acid trip, future rejections, and future clients.

The nature of the slush is constantly shifting. One day, I can sit down and go through a skid of really great queries. The next, there’s a grouping of not-so-great ones. There’s no logic, rhyme, or reason to any of it. Rest assured, though, that good queries stand out. Even this, though, is problematic. And not in the way that Heidi is imagining.

There is one phenomenon that happens to anyone who reads slush. I call it, in jest, “slush psychosis.” After reading a lot of slush — and let’s face it, most slush tends to be pretty hard to read and pretty undesirable — I tend to latch on to the few queries that are actually well-written, that pitch projects with a clear premise, that, well, stick out from the rest.

And stick out they do, no worries there. But the “slush psychosis” part of it is…are these particular queries sticking out because they’re really good, like, going-to-be-a-book good, or just because they’re made better by the bad stuff around them? Well, I can’t always answer that question.

To avoid “slush psychosis” and to always be as keen and receptive as possible when I read slush, I try to stick to the following rules:

1. You gotta be in the mood. If I’m in a bad, bitchy, tired, or impatient place, I do not read submissions. The slush tends to magnify feelings like this, and it’s hard to give all of my submissions a fair look when I’m not feeling open. So I have to check in with myself before I sit down to slush.
2. Limit your slush time. After an hour, I pretty much lose my judgment, good or bad. Again, it’s not fair to the writers who query me if I’m not as receptive as possible, so I keep my slush runs short.
3. Put things in the Maybe Pile. If something catches my eye, rather than requesting it immediately (okay, so I’ve been known to request things immediately from time to time, but it’s rare), I flag it in my inbox as something for the Maybe Pile. This means I want to give it a second look. The Maybe Pile look doesn’t happen after I’ve spent my hour in the slush, though, because:
4. Come to the Maybe Pile with fresh eyes. If I’ve flagged submissions for a second look, I want to consider them carefully before requesting the full manuscript. This means I need to be sharp. I try to do a round of slush, then come back to the Maybe Pile from that round the next day. From there, I turn the Maybe Pile into rejections or requests.

As you can tell, I am pretty strict about how I handle my slush. I don’t want to miss out on anything awesome or be unfair to the writers who trust me and are putting their creative work in my hands. Looking through submissions is a very human business…and human often means flawed. And you can’t control it from your end, at the end of the day. So I try my best to control it from my end and make sure you’re getting the best read possible.

The other thing I do, religiously, if I find that I’ve been reading lots and lots of submissions in a row, is I “cleanse my palate” by reading published books. If I read too many submissions or too much slush, I find that my standards tend to dip a little and meet what’s in slush. To keep myself razor sharp, I recalibrate with published fiction and by rereading my favorite books.

Have I missed out on projects that went on to sell because I haven’t been in the mood to read slush that day and was quick to reject? Yes. We all have. Some days, my imagination stretches more than others. Have I requested projects because of “slush psychosis”? Sure. Again, we all have. And I don’t know if these are two situations that will ever go away. But this is a really good question, and I wanted to give you a peek into slush and its unique challenges here.

(Also, as much as I admit that this is an imperfect process, this isn’t an open invitation to requery me, just so see if perhaps I was having a bad day when I passed on your project. It’s the best system I have, I stand by my decisions, and it works for me.)

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Referrals vs. Cold Querying

August 13, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 4 comments

Here’s a question from a reader that I got a few weeks ago:

I shared my manuscript with two published authors who write in the same genre as me (upper MG). One of them loved it and offered to refer me to her New York agent, who has placed books with all the major houses. The woman who read my book seems happy with this agent; however, they would not have been on my “top ten” list.

This seems like a great opportunity and I don’t want to screw it up. My question: Do I send her the polished manuscript to refer to her agent at the same time I query my top picks? Do I still query my top picks or wait to hear back on the referral? Or do I strategically time my queries between the referral and the “cold calls”? Does it even matter or am I overthinking this?

First of all, “am I overthinking this?” is my favorite question ever because it’s almost always self-answering. Yes. You are overthinking this. But I do understand that it’s not a no-brainer and that most writers who have an opportunity are fanatically afraid of screwing things up.

Luckily, there’s a very simple answer to this question. If you have a lead with any agent, take it, but don’t let it be your only lead. In other words, do take the referral, but don’t waste any time. Query other agents, also. You don’t need to mention anything to anyone except the usual, “This is a multiple submission.”

Why? Well, sure, the referral is great. Agents always take referrals from clients more seriously than straight slush. At the same time, though, while we’ll linger on the submission longer than we usually would and while we’ll probably look at it more quickly since it has a client’s name attached, we still have to evaluate the writing and the story and whether it’s a fit for us, as if it was any other submission. And it might not be a fit, even if a client vouches for it.

So, submit to other agents at the same time. You can always entertain interest from more than one agent at once. And be sure to thank your friend for the referral, even if the agent might reject you or if they’re not really on your radar. At the end of the day, you never know what might happen.

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Should You Send a Slew?

August 11, 2010 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 14 comments

There is lots of good stuff happening over at WriteOnCon.com…lots of fantastic articles and chats and vlogs from editors and agents. (Seems like there were issues with the site yesterday, and now it’s back up, at least for me. I don’t know what that was about.) As a result of all the great content going up online, I’m feeling a little less-than-inspired about my own blog topic today. Ho hum.

Well, since you’re all probably learning about new agents and editors who you’d like to submit to at WriteOnCon, I wanted to tackle a submission question that came in from reader Siski a long time ago:

Is it worth providing an agent with a synopsis of several manuscripts so they can assess you as an author, rather than assess you in terms of one manuscript? Would that make rejection less likely? Or will an agent be able to see what you’re capable of from just one MS and therefore wouldn’t want to know of others?

I get this question a lot at conferences and through the blog. Should you send a slew of your stuff or charge into the great query yonder with just one project at a time?

I’m very adamant about my answer: send only your absolute strongest project out. No ifs ands or buts. I don’t care if it’s a ten word picture book. If it’s your strongest work, that’s what you should show the world. In most cases — especially with picture book manuscripts, but this could apply to novels, too — having a really great, strong submission will either get you an offer or at least get your foot in the door.

After the communication lines between you and the editor/agent are open, you can broach other projects. Or the agent/editor may ask to see what else you have. But the time for that is AFTER they show interest in your initial blow-the-door-off-its-hinges submission.

When we get a slew of submissions from a writer, either in one email or in twenty, we’re overwhelmed. We’re annoyed. We wonder why you have those twenty manuscripts sitting around on your hard drive and, yes, why you decided to unleash them on the world in one big deluge. It also makes us panicky. Do you want us to sell all twenty of those for you right off the bat? Are your expectations completely unrealistic?

So be patient. Really take a long, hard look at all the projects you have to potentially offer an agent/editor. Choose your favorite, the one you feel is most marketable or the one you’re most passionate about (ideally, it will have both of those qualities!). And send that one as a way to engage the editor/agent into asking for more. That’s the right way to do it. Sending your entire slew will have the opposite effect — you’ll get that agent/editor shutting the door of opportunity in your face instead of opening it wider

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Self-Publishing, Finally

June 30, 2010 in Publishing | 68 comments

ETA 10/9/2011: Welcome to all who are here for the “hysterial diatribe!” As you read, please remember that this article was written over a year ago. Not sure why a blogger decided to dig deep into the archives and cite this one now. As the publishing industry has evolved, so have many opinions on digital and self-publishing, including my own. For more of my thoughts on electronic and independent publishing, check out KidlitApps.com. Thanks!

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I have never talked about self-publishing on this blog. Why? Because some people who self-publish usually use gatekeepers like agents and editors as an excuse, like we’ve literally driven them to Lulu.com with our cruelty. We are The Man. We keep literary geniuses down. So they circumvent The Man and self-publish. Since I’m The Man, what do you really expect me to say?

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.)

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Prequerying

June 16, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 23 comments

Some writers send me (and other agents) messages I like to call “prequeries.” They go something like this:

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!

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Copyrighting Submissions and Agent Plagiarism

June 9, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 39 comments

Neveah asked in the comments:

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.

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On Becoming an Agent

June 4, 2010 in Agent | 33 comments

This is a question I get a lot, from both hopeful college kids and from people who see what I do, think it looks like great fun and want to make a career change. Well, dear readers, you’re about to get a much more honest and depressing answer than I think you want. Most agents start out by reading slush or acting as an agent’s assistant (which I have done). However, publishing is an old industry so there are a lot of apprentice-type relationships at the very beginning, where people learn and work for free. Nathan Bransford has a great take on this subject, so you should read his post, too.

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.

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