Week in Review 2/14/16

Welcome to the week that was!

In last week's review Craig said

On categories:
I consider the Christian tag to be a category along with MG, YA and the default Adult. They still need a genre to go with them. The category should only tell the perspective of the protagonist and direction to aim marketing. You can stay in one genre and write all four categories.

Christian isn't a category as much as a market. Books for "the Christian market" go to not just different editors at a publisher, but generally an entirely separate division. Much as we say "books for the general trade market" which encompasses everything from picture books to non-fiction, "books for the Christian market" are also picture books to non-fiction.

I don't know enough about the Christian market to go into further detail about how it's different from general trade publishing. It's enough that I know the two are separate and I'm not the right agent for Christian books in any category.



John Frain asked

Great stuff, Janet. But count me among the surprised that movies make good comp titles. Is it safe to assume that TV shows would also make good comps?

Prior to now, I thought it was sorta mandatory to stick with books for comp titles.

Movies, TV shows, sure. I like to use books if I want a comp for pitching to editors, but mostly I use comps for film pitches and for those, TV and film are MUCH better than books because (you guessed it) film people know more films than they do books.



kdjames said:

Those of you bemoaning the fate of unfinished or continuing work once a writer dies . . . you DO realize the writer can exert control over all that, right? You can, and should, make something called a Creative Property Trust and appoint a Trustee to control all your work after you die.

Make your intent clear and name someone you trust to respect your wishes, whether that's to continue work in your name or prohibit it.

I did this back in June last year when I made a new Will and wrote a post about it at the time (not going to link, but you can find it easily enough by clicking my name and looking at posts in June 2015, if you're interested). Not enough writers do this, IMO. Any decision in that regard is acceptable, provided it's what you want. Make plans as if you WILL leave behind a legacy.

[the Creative Trust part is after the pictures of the knee! (about 20 paragraphs down)]

I'm on a kick this year to get all my clients who have a substantial body of work (both pubbed and unpubbed) to get a will and make sure it addresses intellectual property.

One client actually met his lawyer here at my office to do the signing, and I gotta tell ya, it was emotional as hell. BUT, very much needed since in the absence of anything on paper, the law of the state of New York (or wherever you live) will tell us who's in charge. I'd really rather know who you WANT making decisions. And it's just a whole lot easier on your survivors to know what you want. So suck it up, know it's going to be one of those dreadful things you gotta do, and do it.



Angie Brooksby-Arcangioli asked:

As K.D. mentioned the Creative Property Trust we should create I wonder who gets the royalties and other earnings to the posthumous works of the authors who are dead and gone. Is the authors name traded, in some kind of agreement, to a third party.

All royalty payment is governed by the publishing contract. The author's estate owns the author's name as an asset. The publisher can't just pick a new writer and keep publishing Felix Buttonweezer books. They have to have permission from Betty Buttonweezer AND a publishing contract. I don't know a lot about these kinds of "ghost" writers; the few I do know are selected by the estate, not the publisher although my guess is that the publisher gets some say as well, in that they don't have to offer a contract to anyone they don't want to.

Thus if Felix Buttonweezer kicks the bucket, and Betty Buttonweezer decides she wants her daughter Kale Buttonweezer to keep writing the "Lettuce Now Murder" series, the publisher can say "sure" or "not so fast VegHeads, Kale is a terrible writer and we're not prepared to offer her a contract."



And I think Lochlan Sudarshan said something very interesting here:

As far as "why would you read Kafka aside from class," it kinda does function like any academic work. I reread "Metamorphosis" before submitting a short story whose prompt involved your protagonist transforming themselves. I found it let me be more aware of things that came from one of the transformation genre's most significant stories, what were entrenched in conventions, and which ones I thought would or wouldn't be useful for the project.

You always remind us to read widely within a category to learn what's current, what's old hat, etc. Kafka is definitely one of the guys to look at if you're thinking about magical realism, if only to learn what's been done before.

I was tempted to go read Metamorphosis again, but then I recovered myself and found a Jack Reacher novel to tide me over!



On Monday the first post was announcing the contest results weren't quite ready  many of you were kind enough to encourage me to take my time

and this one from wordwacker.me really cracked me up:

Janet, take your time. Sip your coffee, gently file your teeth, whatever you do on a lazy Monday morning. No hurry.

I don't exactly sip coffee. More like guzzle with animal noises enough to disturb the neighbors.


E.M.Goldsmith caught my eye with this:

When the mare died, I think more people showed up for that horse's funeral than most of my relatives funerals.

Wait. WAIT! I've been around horses almost all my life and I've never even heard of a horse funeral! What the hell do you do at a horse funeral?

And if y'all didn't stick around to see Craig's story on the panthers, well, go back and read it:
2:51pm and 2:52pm



The second post on Monday was the results


On Tuesday the topic was using blurbs from published writers in your query

Bethany Elizabeth said

I have this cynical mindset that if the book has an author blurb on the cover, it's because there wasn't a trusted reviewer willing to praise it. Irrational? Maybe.

Not irrational but not quite correct either. Book covers (particularly for hardcovers) are almost always printed (and certainly designed) long before books have been sent out for review (let alone gotten reviews!) It's more of a timing issue than anything else. That's why you'll see review blurbs more often on paperbacks than hardcovers (the review was for the hardcover) and on hardcovers you'll see blurbs about "works by Author" or the previous title.

When we solicit blurbs, it's six-eight months out but GETTING them is much closer to three months before pub. Books go to the trades for review 90-120 days before pub.


CarolynnWith2Ns said:

We could lie and say Mr/Ms famous author loves our novel, who would know?
Karma.

Picture the scene when I've loved the novel, signed the novel, sold the novel and we want to use Mr/Ms Famous Author's "I love this novel" on the cover. Carkoon isn't far enough for that exile.



nightsmusic sent me to the Google machine for this

Pancakes? Pancakes??

PACZKIS!!

Hey, I'm less than 30 miles from Hamtramck. Anything other than Packis is blasphemous.

The comments spilled over to the following day when Wednesday's blog post didn't go up at what we've all come to expect as the regular time. (I apparently scheduled it incorrectly. Those days of the week--so confusing)

However I did manage to get the post posted and the topic was waiting time (again)


Thanks to Sara Halle I learned that telenovela has two l's not three. Just a reminder that I am always glad to hear about typos, missing words etc in blog posts. I'd MUCH rather find and fix 'em than have them make me look like an idiot for years to come. (And of course, that's only for me, no correcting other commenters grammar or syntax.)

Alerting me to typos can be either by email or in the comment trail on the post. If you put it in the comments, you should limit the comment only to the correction. That way when I fix the typo, I can delete the comment. If I fix the typo, and your comment mentioning it is still there because it has other content, it's confusing. And don't worry when I delete the comment. I'm not mad or offended, I'm just tidying up.

nightsmusic said

Interesting because I've read other agents who mention they don't want to be nudged at all

Really? That's very illuminating about that agent's mindset. As in who the hell do they think they are? I've railed about that kind of thinking before. It makes me wild to see agents behaving as though they are the most important person in the relationship, and can't be bothered with basic business etiquette.

It's one thing to not reply to queries but to say "send me your work and just wait around till I get around to it, and don't even think about checking in!" ZOINKS! I mean it's bad enough that we do make you wait, but to say you have to just sit there in obedient silence? Well, FUCK THAT.

Gosh, I feel better now.



E.M. Goldsmith asked:

Now back to fretting over other minutia that makes up the writer's life. So additional question, on a full, the long period makes sense. What about partial requests? Are they similar? Is there a variance agent to agent? Also, I have made significant improvements to my manuscript since October as I have worked through this R&R. Should I send the revised manuscript to agents who have the earlier fulls? Or is that suicide? I think I read here that it is ok to withdrawal a submission. How do I do that? Should I write them when I am done with my latest revision to see if they would prefer to read my revision? I would hope that they would, but I am a little scared that this will make me look even more flakey than I actually am.

1. Partials are treated like fulls. Wait 90 days. Do agents still request partials? That seems so nuts to me. It's as easy to send a full as a partial, and that way when I'm reading, I have the whole thing.

2. Yes agents vary on this.

3. Yes, if you have significant revisions you should send the revised ms. I always want to read your best work.

4. You withdraw a submission by emailing "thanks for requesting my ms TITLE on DATE. I need to withdraw it from consideration." It really helps if you let me know why.

5. You won't look flaky. I know what flaky looks like and this isn't it.



Ellen said:

I have a nudging tip that I use frequently with my agent and editor. Instead of asking if they read my material and when they will get back to me, I say something like, "Hi. I just wanted to check in. I hope you're enjoying the book, and I look forward to hearing from you when you get a chance." That way I'm not being a pest, but reminding them that I'm here, and leaving the door open for them to respond. It's a little gentler than an overt nudge.

I use that with editors too. Just a reminder that I'm here, that they've got the book. Those conversations can yield some very interesting information as well (who's moving apartments, who's getting a puppy, who's going on vacation to someplace interesting.) Generally that's not stuff a nudging author will find out of course, but on this end with editors, it's actually one of my favorite parts of the job.



Patti Phillips gave me the vapors with this one:

Once upon a time, I received a request for a full from a top NY agent. I was so excited that I agreed to an exclusive. After six months of silence, the excitement had worn off, so I nudged oh, so gently. The polite response was, "It's on my nightstand." Excitement bubbled up and I waited another two months. By this time, I had begun to wonder if perhaps his nightstand had a pile of other MS covering mine or if he had spilled an evening beverage all over it, thereby ruining my chances at the NYT bestseller list for all time. (Logic had left the building)

After reading the blog today, I realize that what I did next may seem crazy. I withdrew the exclusive and thanked him for his time. He was incredulous and wondered why I would do such a thing, giving his standing in the biz and the fact that he had started to read it. My thinking was that if he had not finished reading it in eight months and wasn't raving about how fabulous it was, then either the book needed work or we weren't a good fit.

Never give exclusives. If you can't resist, an exclusive should be SHORT. NEVER OPEN ENDED.

I may have ranted on this topic before. It bears repeating.

1. Exclusives stink
2. Exclusives are not in your best interest.




On Thursday I was asked about the questions an agent might ask an author during a phone call to discuss representation.


A lot of you were perplexed by the idea that an author might object to an active social media presence. Unfortunately it's true. More than once I've heard "well, you've clearly got enough time to do the blog." And while I understand that this comes from frustration that reading takes a LONG time, I do like to remind everyone that what I do in my spare time is this blog, and thus highly visible whereas other agents do things like parenting that no one ever sees.



AJ Blythe asked

And at what point in the querying process do I contact your clients? And are they aware we will be contacting them? Gary Corby mightn't be happy if he wakes up tomorrow morning with 96 emails asking if the water's safe to swim in.

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be happy at all. While Gary is a very nice guy, he doesn't need a bunch of random queriers pestering him, you're quite right.

You inquire with current clients when an agent has scheduled a call to discuss representation with you. In other words, when you're not a random querier, you're a prospective client.

You'd email the current client to say you're in discussion about representation and want to ask what being a client is like. Don't ask more than about three questions, and they should be short. You're asking someone you don't know for a favor.

Of course, social media is different. Following my clients and talking to them generally is fine at any point in the process. Asking them about me on Twitter in public is NOT. 

I actually know of a writer who does not have an agent because her interactions with current clients revealed her to be a total and complete disaster case. There were a bunch of us who'd offered and a couple of us knew each other and we swapped stories. Yes, publishing is a small insular world and, generally speaking, our clients like us. Asking for "the dirt" on us is probably a very bad choice of words.


Julie M. Weathers comment about getting in touch with my current clients just cracked me up:

3. I shoot the bull with several of them. Few of them seem sane, but I assume they were that way before they met you.

(I'm not at all sure frankly)


Lisa Bodenheim asked

Janet, in #2 you use the word playbook. Is that an in-real-life book or is it just a mind-method you use to help you deal with current clients or determine whether or not to accept an author, whose work you love, as a client?

2)What else do you want to write?
I've learned by experience to ask this sooner rather than later. A novelist who really wants to write screenplays, or non-fiction, needs a different playbook than a novelist who wants to write a series, or stand alones.

It means that if you want to write screenplays or non-fiction, we need to have a game plan to get you there. This is actually what other agents might call career management, but I think of as plotting long term strategy. Of course, no plan survives boots on the ground. We're always changing, moving, fixing, revising. BUT if we both know that our five year goals is X, it's a whole lot easier to get there than if we don't know it.

It's not a book but I do keep notes on every client about where we're going and what we're doing. There's simply too much detail to keep it all in my head anymore.


John Frain said:

I'm struck by a few questions that I would have anticipated making your list, specifically:
1) Are you comfortable with social media (implying why don't you have more social media presence, dear author, and

2) Talk to me about your willingness and availability to travel and promote your work. And

3) Realizing this isn't non-fiction, we're still interested in marketing your work. What thought have you given to this area?

Ahh…good questions. I have found that talking about all that post-publication stuff is very often too much for an author at this stage. It sends them into a frenzy about "what should I be doing to promote this book" before I've SOLD the book.

And often, at this stage, the book has one, two, or three revisions yet ahead. I try not to scare prospective clients by looking too far ahead.



Janice L. Grinyer asked a very good question:

Janet, are there any confidentiality clauses in an Agent/Client contract that would cover this issue i.e. broadcasting a Client's/Agent's personal information to the public from either/or? Having signed a few in my lifetime due to career choices, I have found they really do aid in "clearing the air" beforehand for expectations- just part of doing business.

I'm a little embarrassed to say I actually had to look at my author/agency agreement to see if it had a confidentiality clause. It does not.

However as a member of AAR, I'm bound by the Canon of Ethics 

Generally the only thing I'll tell you about my clients will involve announcing book sales or book promotions. They can say anything they want to about me, including commission rates, if they so choose.

I will only say things about my clients that I would say to them directly (and in most cases probably already have.)

Generally if I have a great story about a client it will be something that happened in public, not a private conversation of any kind. They can tell you whatever they want because it's their book and their career.

Thus: I met Felix Buttonweezer in the bar and we drank Jeff Somers under the table is something you might see on Twitter.

You would not see: Felix Buttonweezer and I palavered about his writing career today before pickling Jeff Somers in bourbon.



On Friday I listed some questions that you shouldn't ask, particularly at the query stage

The conversation veered off into vegetables so quickly my head spun.

Or as Colin Smith put it so well:

So, all this vegetable talk comes from asking green questions, does it? :D

Donnaeve said:

Asking a question like "why should I hire you?" is not only the wrong word choice, it's like inviting someone to a party, and then asking, "why are you here?"

My usual thought at a party is indeed "why am I here?" but that's not what you meant is it?



On Saturday we discussed keeping passion and verve in your writing using an example I'd seen on Twitter.

SiSi got exactly what I struggled to say:

This is a great example of something I've thought about often in my day job, teaching business writing. You can lose credibility if you make too many mistakes. You can lose the emotional connection if you are too worried about being correct. Finding the balance between "correct and connect" is the art of writing. As I tell my students, there's no formula for deciding--every situation depends on the writer's purpose, the audience, the context.

On another note, this is also an example of the tunnel vision we all get into sometimes. For me it's when I get deep into grading mode--sometimes I catch myself highlighting misused words and weird sentence structure when I realize a student just shared a personal, emotional part of themselves with me and I'm checking grammar. Thank goodness these days I'm grading online so I can go back and start over. Of course I value (and teach) correctness, but I never want it to be at the expense of losing the human connection.

Italics are mine. That's exactly what I was aiming for.

Jenz said it better than I did too:

In fact, this is a great example of why it's so hard to read for content and syntax at the same time. I have to pick one or the other while editing my own work

Colin Smith asked:

If this, or something like it, had landed in your inbox as the sample you normally ask for with a query, would you have requested? In other words, would you have read the emotion and asked for more, or would you have seen the less-than-perfect writing and passed?

I'd have requested the proposal so fast your head would have spun. For starters, I'm interested in African issues, and Africa in general. Second, I'm very interested in the concept of home and connection. Given that all of us here in America arrived from some place else (including the People we now call Native Americans---they just got here long before most of the rest of us) I'm interested in how we think of our origination places.

Mostly though: I can fix grammar and syntax. I can't conjure emotion.

And remember this is non-fiction. I've often said I'll reject novels if there are typos, knowing I'll have heavy lifting with copy editing in the ms. Non-fiction is a bit different: for starters, the proposal is substantially shorter than a novel and I won't have six other non-fiction proposals on this topic that I could easily choose instead.



Run For Your Life said:

I am usually not a big fan of Janet's articles. I find her too tough for my thin rookie skin. I continue to consume her articles because they are "good for me" but I don't like the taste. This article just reinforced that I need to be here on her site even if sometimes my feelings get hurt - this was brilliant and just what I needed and at the right time. Thank you Janet.

I salute your willingness to post this, and I'm glad to have you here.


Subheader noms

I love living in Montana- everything here is a story waiting to happen. --Janice L. Grinyer


The lovely thing about the career of writing is that it doesn't depends on you being young enough (like ballet) or strong enough (like sports) or needing to keep up with an ever-changing industry (like Information Technology). You get into it when you can get into it. Apparently, if you do really well, you can keep in it after you're dead. {g}--Her Grace, Heidi, the Duchess of Kneale


Don't lament the time you've missed, live for the moments you have now.--CarolynnWith2Ns

"But here's the glorious thing about writing, all your experience goes into it so you're not really delayed by poverty, raising toddlers, or whatever trials and tribulations life might bounce your way- it all gives you new perspective which will ultimately make you a better writer. Especially if you are strong enough to write your pain." E.M. Goldsmith


The thing about the un-responded-to request is that it's Schrödinger's full; simultaneously imbued with the unbelievable exhilaration of possibility ... and bogged down with the unbelievable tension of possibility.--DLM


This blog is like my virtual coffee shop.--Lucie Witt

Waiting? There is no waiting! There is writing and querying. --Lance

So pissed I missed the fuck fest. --Amanda Capper (I love this but honestly it requires context that the sub-header would miss, so couldn't really choose it)