Question: how much ankle to reveal?

I've been working on a book for the past three years now. It started off as a humorous account based off of real life experiences, but after many edits, it is now in the YA fiction genre. Also, I intend on this book being part of a series. What I'm wondering is if I should mention this information in my query letters. Is it even relevant?

Please do not mention the circuitous route your book took to reach its final (illustrious we hope) form.  This is akin to watching food prepped for a beauty shot on a cooking show (blow torch, paint and glue, yum yum) or Miss America practicing her fire baton routine.  It's better just to see the final result.

As to whether your book will be a series, my standard advice is to treat the novel as a stand alone at the query stage.  You've got to get one published before you have two.

Question: Who's looking at me?

What should you expect from your literary agent during the submission process to editors? Should you at some point receive a list of who they submitted to and any feedback/rejections from publishers, or should you expect to hear nothing from them (however long that is) until they receive an offer (if they do)?

How and what you want to hear is up to you.  My default practice is to send the submission list with ms status about once a month.  I send it on a spread sheet attached to an email.  What clients do with it after that is up to them.

 In the example above, (any editor comment) is where I cut and paste the editor's email about the ms in the db for the author.


However.  This is something you can and should talk to YOUR agent about.  If you want to be informed weekly, say so. If you don't want the rejection letters from editors, say so.



Here's the downside to sending submission stats to authors: often it means they want to go over each and every editor, discussing pros cons etc.  DO NOT  DO THIS unless you are starting to suspect your agent is an idiot.

I'm very willing to discuss submissions with my clients, don't get me wrong, but it's very easy to get
caught up in analysis and let the actual agenting work slide: getting on the phone, making calls, making sales.

Tag, you're not it!

You know how you learn something new every day?

Some of those things aren't quite as fun to learn as others.

Here's a very illuminating blog post from Wendy Thomas about tagging the photos you put online.

"Mammo grahams" by Wendy Thomas

Who should you listen to?

An interesting viewpoint about listening to "unsuccessful" rather than famous writers for advice in Salon.

I think this article has a valid point but would caution readers to know the difference between writers who aren't "successful" and writers who haven't  had any success at all: the know-it-alls in advice chat rooms who've never been published but know how everything works.  Or the grammar enforcers who don't understand style.

So, rather than unsuccessful, I would say look to the yeoman writers, the people slogging away in the field every day. The people who are working hard but not (yet) raking it in.

10 Things to Do While Agents Dawdle around with your full manuscript

1. If this book is intended to be a series, map out the next three to five books.  A plot thumbnail, character development, setting. 

2. Clean up your electronic presence.  Review your blog posts for the last year for spelling errors, or flabby sentences.  Make sure your contact information is up to date.

3. Read as many debut authors in your category as you can.  Make friends with them on Facebook and Twitter (trust me, they want to be your friend!)

4. Start the next book.

5. Read Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

6. Read a book of poems. I suggest Richard Blanco.

7. Read a book that a total stranger reccomends (Amazon lists are a good place to start; Twitter too.)

8. Increase your elevator pitch skills by writing and honing pitches for books you've read and loved (but not written.)

9. Write the synopsis for your book in three forms: three pages, one page, one paragraph.

10. Read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

Question: Category

I've been rewriting a novel I've been working on for quite a while under the genre of paranormal romance. The problem I am facing is that in my attempts to improve my manuscript, I feel my story is drifting out of this genre, possibly into science fiction or fantasy.

You always say to read your genre and know it well, but I am not well versed in the sci-fi world (I have read a good amount of fantasy though).

Do you find books that combine genres to be popular? My main concern is that the genre's I'm crossing may not work together--the paranormal romance scene is quite different, in my opinion, than that of sci-fi.

Also, when it comes to querying, I am not sure how to list my book. (I realize I'm getting a little ahead of my myself, but as I've been working on this for so long I've had an uber long time to think about the next step.)

Finding the right category for a book is a troublesome task for those of us on this side of the slush pile too.


The trick here is to think about who will read your book and love it. That's one of the reasons you have to know a category really well.

If you think about people who read crime novels, they want resolution of a problem, and most definitely want justice to be done. It may be rough justice, vigilante justice, last rites, divine justice or just desserts, but there must be a reckoning of sorts to be a crime novel.

Romance novels must have a romantic relationship that grows, is challenged, breaks and then heals. The plot arc is largely the arc of the relationship rather than outside events.  In a romance, someone must end up happy, and most usually happy with a love interest.

I don't read enough SFF to know what readers must have.  It's more than cyborgs, dragons and space travel though.

And it's not enough to use the tropes of a genre to make a book fit in a genre.

Paranormal romance is shelved in romance, SFF is not.  You're very right to understand these are two very different categories.

And it's very common to have books in one category also contain elements from another.  There's crimesolving in romance, there's romance in crime fiction. There are dragons and crimes and romance in SF.

Finish the novel. Get a couple beta reads. Ask the readers what author it reminds them of. If you've got good beta readers they'll guide you.

And in the end, don't fret. I don't discard queries based solely on the category authors tell me they're writing, cause at least 50% of the time, they're wrong.  I look at what they tell me about the book.

Have an otterful day today!

I love Otter so much I could just burst.


I AM OTTER is coming in 2014, and I intend to buy it by the wheelbarrow full:

For more enjoyment here's Otter's website

Question: How much of me?

Agents have been known to check out prospective client's blogs and/or social media. How much might a badly-written blog article influence your decision to request a manuscript? As I wander the webs, I've come across blogs by unpublished writers that don't reflect well any writing skills they may have. And I wonder if writers might put as much care and attention into *all* their writing (blogs, emails, comments, etc.) if they knew prospective agents/publishers/readers were assessing their abilities based on these and not just their query letter. 

This answer applies only to me. I'm not sure how other agents work. I like to assume that everyone does things the way I do cause I'm brilliant and all that, but sadly, have discovered that is not the case.  (Further empirical evidence I should be Queen of the Known Universe and soon.)

When I get your query and the first 3-5 pages of your novel or memoir, I generally do NOT head over to your website, blog or twitter feed.  I request the pages, open a file for you and then after three ice ages have come and gone I read your work and reply.

ONLY if I am interested in taking you on as a client do I start nosing around.  Time is a precious commodity here, and if I'm not interested in the book, I'm not going to spend time on your website, blog, or twitter feed cause ..well...why would I? I've got plenty of other writers to torment.

However, and this is a big however, do NOT USE THIS to think you can get sloppy on your website, blog or twitter feed.

Everything you post should be your best work at the time.  Don't worry about going back six years and cleaning things up. Obviously you will have gotten better over time.

The big thing about your electronic presence is that it should look active.  A blog that no one is reading doesn't help you.  A twitter account with no activity (note I said, no activity not too-few followers!) doesn't help you.

Frankly most of what I'm looking for here is whether you are crazypants.  Are you going on and on about how slow agents and editors are? Are you making sweeeping political generalities?  Are YOU the only thing you talk about?

A good electronic presence is active and social.  It's well written, fun to read, and gives me something to retweet or blog about.

And if I take you on as a client you can bet your cute red cowboy boots that one of the first things we'll do is review your web presence across all platforms and ask you to clean up the stuff that needs work.  Editors look at this a whole lot more quickly than agents do, that's for sure.

A brief pause for jocularity

This has long been one of my favorite jokes:

A Buddhist monk approaches a hotdog stand and says “make me one with everything”.

Recently, a website** posted a list of 50 Best Intellectual Jokes and I found one that I like even better:

The vendor makes the hot dog and hands it to the Buddhist monk, who pays with a $20 bill. The vendor puts the bill in the cash box and closes it. “Excuse me, but where’s my change?” asks the Buddhist monk. The vendor replied, “Change must come from within.”

Here's the entire list. Which one is your favorite?

***hat tip to @TerriLCoop for the link to the list!

Question: Where? There? Huh?

1) What is your preferred format for manuscripts. Seems like a pretty basic thing but your post on where the page number should go shows that people seem to be all over the place on, well, placement. Things like which font to use, what the cover page should look like (genre, title, name, contact info), the margins (1" all around), how the chapters should be (typed numbers vs numerals), chapter start point (top of page or middle), or anything else that makes your job a little easier to do when you ask for a full manuscript. Most important, where does the copyright date and notice go? (Just kidding) Like I said at the top, I thought this was in a FAQ you already provided but I can't seem to find it now.

2) When do you use a numeral instead of typing out the number? I thought I read on your blog numerals for measurements (height, weight, etc.) and for numbers over 100 otherwise spell them out.

You're going to love this answer: I don't care.
No really.

When you include 3-5 pages in your query there aren't page numbers because it's electronic. There aren't margins. There's no cover page. There better not be chapters. And as long as the numbers are base 10, we're good.

On a full manuscript request, again, I don't care. Just make sure the info is THERE! DO number your pages. Do include a cover page with your contact details.

Industry standard fonts are TNR and/or Courier 12 pt but honestly in this day and age I can change anything you send to that with two clicks.

The stuff that makes me crazy is formatting done automatically by your word processing program cause I can't see it, and I can't fix it.

Turn all that fancy schmancy stuff off (like superscript for 3rd)

Any agent that gets her knickers in a wad about this kind of stuff is probably very old school. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just another piece of info you have about her.

Where formatting and style ARE important is when the book is sold and you have to turn in a manuscript that follows house style guides.

I think page numbers are in the lower right corner and your Name/Title are in the header section flush left on manuscript pages, but I've been taken to task for this by some pretty good agents so until I am Queen of the Known Universe (which frankly can't be soon enough) just make sure they're there, that's all.

The only time I got really cranky about this was when we were running a contest and didn't specify formatting on the novels submitted and ended up with a hodgepodge. It wasn't so much that everyone was wrong as it was they were not uniform.  

Question: When are you too new?

 At what point does a new agent with no sales raise red flags? When they have been agenting for two months? Six months? A year? I know that not all beginning agents make sales quickly, but when does not having any sales become a huge red flag to someone considering them for representation?

This is a question with multiple answers.  There are multiple answers because "new agent" can be applied to people in wildly differing situations.

Someone who hung out her shingle in Left Of Nowhere, Nova Dakota last year cause she loves authors and wants to help them is a far different cry from someone who worked at BigAssAndDonchewFergitIt House as an editor for twenty years and is now turning to the Dark Side.

New agents come in all levels of expertise and experience.

The more expertise and experience, the sooner they can make sales (generally speaking.)

If someone who's worked in publishing for 20 years isn't making sales within a year, I'd wonder.

If someone who's never worked in publishing and is agenting part time to "help writers" EVER makes a sale, I'd be astonished.

Here's the real rule: I don't want to be first on a new venture.

If a publisher is just starting out,  or someone has a great idea for new idea about movies you can watch on your phone, I want to be their third project, not the first. I want them to make all those inevitable mistakes with some other guy, not me.

This applies generally to agents as well.  I'm not always well received when I say "anyone can sell a book" but it's very close to true.  Selling isn't the hard part of agenting. The hard part is keeping writers well-published.  To do that you need years of experience.

Of course, when I was first starting out I had a very different pitch on what you wanted in an agent, and experience was not on the list I can assure you.

To answer your question: anyone who is agenting should have made a sale in a year. Anything less  than that and they're not full-time, or not well-connected, or not getting good projects.  All of those things are Not. Good.

Do bookmarks work for promo?

I don't know for sure.

I don't think there is a way to graph the rate of return on money invested in promotion.   It's akin to the broken window strategy in law enforcement: nail the guys who jump the turnstiles (a small "victimless" crime) and you'll cut the crime rate (guys who jump turnstiles often have outstanding warrants for other petty crimes.)

While publicity and petty crime aren't in the same ball park (we hope!) they both have difficulty measuring results related to effort.

But back to bookmarks.

I recently attended Bouchercon in Albany.  I ran into all sorts of authors, new, known, pubbed, unpubbed. Several were authors I'd known for awhile who now had book deals.  Big huzzahs all around.  Passing out of bookmarks very often.

Fast forward a week and I'm tidying my desk and what surfaces but a bookmark for A Killing at Cotton Hill by my friend Terry Shames.  I've known her for years, had many pleasant conversations with her, had been glad to hear of her book deal at Bcon. Had I bought the book there? No I had not.

So, here was the bookmark to remind me, and today I ordered it.

And now I'm writing a blog post about it.

Net effect of that one book mark (building on years of attending Bouchercon, a snazzy website, and a lot of effort) is pretty good.  Did she hand out bookmarks to people who didn't buy? Sure. But it worked for me, and now that you've read this blog post, maybe it will work for you.

So, do bookmarks work for promo?  Yes. And they sure as heck are better than nothing.


My working philosophy for publicity and marketing is do everything you can, and one thing more.

Question: How many candles?

I am a teen who is serious about writing. I've written several novels and am in the process of revising my query letter. I was wondering what your thoughts were about revealing my age to agents. Should I be vague and say that I'm a teen, should I say my exact age (13), or should I avoid what my age is all together? I'm worried that if agents see how young I am they won't take me seriously. So . . . thoughts?

I think you're right to understand that agents won't take your work seriously if you mention you're 13. It's ok to not mention your age at all.

Of course, if you are offered representation, your parents have to sign the agreement for you, as they will a publishing contract.


I was talking to an agent friend of mine who has the good fortune to look like a fresh faced young girl even though she's 30. When she was starting her career, and her young face was not a plus, she regularly finessed about her age. Not lie. Don't lie. But no one needs to know your exact arrival on the planet.

This works if you're concerned about being too old as well. 

Smoochies! Have a great day!

I don't know where @JennyBent found this but oh man I ruthlessly lifted it from her Twitter feed

new story from Laird Barron!

Laird Barron is an amazing writer of horror (I'm told.)
VERY good horror in fact.
He's won awards for it.
Accolades.
Fans extoll his writing far and wide.

I've never read a word of it.
~~~SCARY!!!!~~~

I can read thrillers all day and night but I can't read horror. I'm not sure why. I kind of blame Stephen King for this (why not!) because I saw the movie based on his book Christine and promos for the movie based on his book Cujo and I actually lived in Oregon where they filmed The Shining...let's just say I slept with the lights on for.. oh wait I still do.

So when the modern day master of horror Laird Barron needed an agent, of course I tossed my hat in the ring. And bless his deeply twisted heart, Laird thought I might be up to the task.

My ace in the hole was the trusty Money Launderer here who loves his books with a passion.  As soon as Laird signed on the dotted line, I added a task to her job description: read Laird's books so I know what they're about.

Well, sadly she's not in the office today (I mean rilly...not at work on a Saturday?? what kind of fresh help is THIS!) so I had to scour the internet for help.

Here's the description of Laird's latest story.

"LD50 is a bone- dry thriller that reminded me of a hungover David Morrell. I also liked Jessica Mace, Barron’s heroine a lot- in fact, my mind cast Jamie Lee Curtis circa The Fog in the role while I was reading the story. I hope that we’ll see more of her in the future and that she doesn’t end up as lunch for some Elder God, like most of Laird’s protagonists."

--Dimitris Kontogiannis, www.crowsnbones.com

And here's the link to the LD50.  Read with the lights ON!

Question: This? That? The other?

We authors query a novel to multiple agents simultaneously--standard practice.   What is the etiquette status of querying multiple agents with different projects?  Fr'example, I query Agent A with my Regency Romance and Agent B with my epic Fantasy and Agent C with my YA.  At the same time.  Both books are complete and polished.   Is this acceptable practice, or considered a no-no?

I'm wondering about the level of awkwardness in informing an agent that another agent has offered representation on a different project.

No, I haven't been foolish enough to do this, though the temptation tugs at the corners of my soul. Curse these finished books looking for homes.

You can query any agent with any project you want. There are no Query Police to enforce my ideas about what you should do. (One of the many things I will attend to when crowned Queen of the Known Universe, of course.)

But your question assumes a fact not in evidence:  you can write at a publishable level in not just one category but three.

I don't think that's possible. Not for a debut writer.

And if you point to authors who do that (and there are some) I'm going to ask you to look carefully at whether they wrote all those books at the same time, or started after they had an established career.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try your hand at several categories. Write what you love and let the chips fall where they may.

BUT when you get ready to query, you're asking to have your work considered not as a passion project but a publishable book.  To know if your book is publishable you need to know the category VERY well. That means reading, and paying attention to what's selling, and what's not.  Unless you've cloned yourself or figured out how to add six hours to every 24-hour day, you simply don't have enough time to do that for more than one category.  If you're the parent of children still at home, hold down a job, and don't want your spouse to forget your face, you have even less time than those of us who eschew having a real life.

There's an understandable urge to query and just see what happens. I strongly urge you not to do this to yourself. Hearing a raft of No or worse, deafening silence is hard under the best of circumstances. Doing it for three books at once would wound the strongest creative soul.

The answer to your question is: yes you can.
My fervent hope is you may not.

Question Emporium: All of meee!

I recognize that authors should find an agent who is a good match from a career perspective, rather than jump at the first who shows interest. But what if I find an agent who seems like a good fit -- we get along -- but...

Here's a scenario I'm facing. (I thought I'd ask before I start the ball rolling.) Right now, ONE of the works I'm pitching is a historical fiction piece. I found an agency which (per their website) specializes in historical. (Plus some non-fiction.) What if he likes the book, and wants to represent me. But when we talk about my other books -- such as my YA thriller, he says, "I don't do those."

I suppose the crux of the question is, would signing on with the first agent hurt my chances at landing another agent for that book? Would another agent be likely to think, "I want you all, or not at all."

I'm always surprised when authors think agents are like underpants: change up as often as hygiene requires.

When you sign with me, I expect to represent all your work, and hopefully for the rest of your career.  Does that always happen? No.

Before you sign with anyone though, I would expect to talk about your future plans. If you're signing with me, and you mention you also write YA, we'll have a discussion about how to handle that.

I have clients who write in categories I don't represent.  Fortunately my estimable colleague Brooks Sherman does, so I just make him do the work while I reap the glory.

I've also spent a good deal of time learning categories that I don't normally work on because clients need books sold. This is why you see deals for me in YA and urban fantasy. I joke that I sold those by mistake but it's really because I have clients writing that who came to me for something else.

This is something you MUST talk about before you sign with an agent.  Thinking you can just find another agent for part of your work, or change agents if the first one doesn't handle a category is not a good idea.

The perfect reply

I saw a book review for something written by one of the real housewives of New Jersey: her strategy for a happy marriage.*****

When trusty Brooks Sherman  posted this link on Facebook I knew what I'd now send to anyone who doesn't know that poor NJ dear is heading for a reality smackdown and soon.





****(The thing that sent me into spiral of screeching was this: "Girls don't poop. Me, never have. Never will. It just doesn't happen. Or, that's what Joe thinks! We've been married for nine years, and he has never once seen or smelled my business. How have I pulled this off? I don't do it when he's around or awake. In an emergency, I have my ways of pooping so he won't hear, smell, or see. It's a challenge."

The idea that in this day and age you'd give any thought at all to this is mind-boggling to me.  Decorum is one thing.  This is the other.)

Time for the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic grant!

I won't bore you with a repetition of my love for this award.. I'll let these pictures speak their thousand words***

 


The William F Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program is now accepting submissions for grants that will be awarded at Malice Domestic 26 in 2014. Two grant winners will receive grants in the amount of $1500 plus comprehensive registrations for Malice 27.

Submissions will only be accepted from September 15th through November 15th, 2013.

For submission guidelines and complete information regarding the Malice Grants Program, please visit our website   






**I found Stephany Jaye Evans at Malice when she won this award. Here's the story.

Enjoy a day just hanging out!