Hiatus Day Three

Mikey

Mikey passed away two years ago at the age of twelve due to what we believe was undiagnosed cancer. He was truly the chillest cat you could ever meet--it was like he had his own breed of coolness. His passing was fairly traumatic because it was so unexpected and it broke my heart, but you've gotta stay grateful for every animal you have the gift of loving. He was my gift.

Hiatus Day Two

Hitch

Hitch is my daughter’s Miniature Dachshund, a wiener party link who envisions himself a junk yard Pitbull. As a new pup given to my daughter with a will-you-marry-me-note tied to his collar, Hitch offered the proposal. As a member of our family he immediately became my grand-dogger and the subject of my first column over three years ago. Shortly after the column broke Hitch became very ill and we almost lost him. But, he's a fighter - little guys like him have to be.

Now, Hitch lives with us. (Busy road, no fence etc.) He’s pretty much ours but we haven’t told him yet. He loves us, but will always love them more, and that’s okay because he’s quick to defend us from his own shadow, a leaf blowing across the lawn as well as a house fly. He’s a snuggler who is funny, sweet and very loud. We adore him.

Hiatus Day One

The blog will be on hiatus for Holy Week (Thurs-Sun).

For the iterim, here are some of the blog readers faithful friends to keep you company.

category, the topic that never dies

I'm getting ready to query my latest novel, and I'm not sure what category it falls into. It's set in London, spanning 1938-1971, and while the historical time period influences it somewhat, I don't think it's enough to count as "historical" fiction. The focus of the novel is the relationship between a mother and daughter and is told from both of their perspectives. It's about the relationships between women (these two women, an aunt, and two sisters) and various struggles specific to women (childbirth, what it means to be a mother). I was thinking about calling it women's fiction, but it doesn't have the more traditional "hopeful" ending that I've seen in much of the women's fiction I've read. I was also thinking of simply calling it a family saga. Any thoughts?

You're right to avoid categorizing anything from 1971 as historical. More than a few agents tsk tsk at anything called historical that takes place during their lifetimes.

It's not a family saga because it's only 30+ years. I think of family sagas as multi-generational, somewhat like the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, Roots by Alex Haley, The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, The Godfather by Mario Puzo. Those are the ones I've read. There are a lot of books in this category that I haven't read but you probably have.

Women's fiction doesn't require "hopeful endings" so much as emotionally satisfying ones. Sometimes that's a distinction without a difference; sometimes it's a pretty subtle distinction at all.

I'm pretty sure that's what you've got here, and womens fiction is a nice big juicy category so you're probably not shooting yourself in the footnote to call it that.

Third time's a charm right? Do I have to mention 1 and 2?

I have recently completed my third novel, but have yet to find an agent. So, my question is regarding past manuscripts that were rejected during the querying process by prospective agents. Do I mention these in my query?

I would love to inform any potential agents that I am in it for the long haul. I have learned that agents are looking to build a career with an author and while my day job does not include writing, the longterm goal is definitely to quit my job and write full time. How do I tell an agent that I am serious and this isn’t just a whim or hobby? Is that something you can casually reference in a query?

You do not need to mention former dives into the query pool; it's better if you don't. I don't care about your learning curve, I care about whether I love this novel and think I can sell it.

You do not need to tell me you're in this for the long haul, or that you want to build a career. I assume that from jump.  I also know that what you think now isn't what you might think in five years.

My ONLY concern is the here and now. Tell me about this novel in an enticing way, and send me a novel that makes me want to get on the phone and pitch it to editors, and we'll let everything else fall into place.

Your underlying assumption is that you have to pitch me as an author I want to work with. It's exactly the reverse. I assume you're someone I can work with until you provide evidence to the contrary.

Evidence to the contrary are things like intransigence about edits; annoyance at the glacial pace of publishing (well, EXPRESSED annoyance, we're all perpetually annoyed); or somehow conveying that you think I work for you rather than with you ("hiring an agent" is a phrase that makes me cringe.)

Any questions?

A picture is worth a thousand words

Let's say that a hard working author is also a hard working artist and decides to create a series of very lovely drawings to go with his shiny new book (along the lines of 30 drawings for a 100,000 word story). Is this something that should be highlighted in a query letter or do sharks only prefer the fresh meat of the written word? This doesn't often appear in the FAQ section of agent websites and I was wondering also about how often this happens.

This is an interesting question.

Let's assume you don't have this blog for answers. If you were just trying to figure out how to query drawings with a novel, how would you submit them?

Attach a pdf?
Query guidelines say "no attachments."

Insert in body of email?
Those graphics get stripped out of my email and sent as an attachment OR they send the email directly to spam.

Just say "I have art"
That seems lame, doesn't it?

Ok, so the next step is figure out how other people who have art in their 100,000 word novels submitted it. Off to Amazon for research. Or the local library.

Wait. What?
There are no novels with art?
How can that be?

Well, mostly cause adult novels do not include art. Even from hardworking artists. The first reason for that is money. It costs more to include any kind of art. The higher the cost to produce the book, the less money the publisher makes per book cause they can't just make a novel more expensive than other novels and still sell a gazillion.

And you really don't want to be the most expensive novel on the shelf as a debut author.

So, no you don't highlight this.
You don't even mention it.

The reason it's not in FAQs is cause you shouldn't even be considering it.

Put the art on your website AFTER you know you have a book deal. Your fans will appreciate it.

And in case you think I'm just blowing smoke, if a query letter tells me about all the great art that goes with a novel, I pass at once.  

What is: platform?

I’m in the process of querying a memoir. After about a dozen queries, I’ve had three bites for more: one came back an R&R, the other two were passes. One of those passes was on a partial, and the agent responded that she found the story “intriguing” and my voice “terrific” but was concerned about my lack of platform. When she initially requested the partial, she asked if I had an MFA. I do not (stupid law school…). Now, because I have written a coming-of-age memoir of the literary sort, I was a little surprised to hear her problem was my lack of platform. Did she really mean platform—as in expertise, blog followers, Oprah connections, etc.? Or do we think she meant, you have no pub credits, and no MFA? Is that, too, part of platform? It’s driving me nuts: What did she mean? And if she did mean blog followers, is this the norm for memoir??

Well, I don't know what she meant, but I do know what platform is.

Platform is how readers know about you NOW and will find out you have a new book. So yes, it is blog followers, or a huge following on Instagram, or a gazillion followers on your YouTube channel. It's not an MFA or a lot of previously published books. It IS a mailing list.

And it's helpful for any writer to have those but most of you won't.

So, if you don't have a huge-ass platform, what do you have? Hustle. And a list of places that will want to hear about your book, even if they don't know it now. That's called "where we will find readers for this book" in a proposal. (Memoir is not sold via proposal.)

A lot of times with history and biography, the platform is for the subject of the book, not the author. A book on World War Two for example will appeal to people who like that topic, even if they've never heard of you before.

Sure it helps if they have heard of you, but you've got to start somewhere.

Memoir is a lot harder unless you're talking about an event or time period that's already of interest. If you have an MFA the assumption is you've got access to teachers or fellow students or alums who will read and blurb your book.

That's not platform exactly, that's more like useful connections.

Pub credits are not platform in that they are not ways people will hear about your book but they are very useful for establishing that you're publishable, and reviewable. Someone who's been published in The New Yorker is pretty likely to get review attention.

You haven't begun to fully tap the number of agents who consider memoir, and you're getting a pretty good request rate.

Keep querying.