Boring is not a four-letter word…but it might as well be

by Miriam

This short piece in Salon (originally a letter in the Reading Club) last week got me thinking about boredom, specifically the kind of boredom that we publishing folks experience on an almost hourly basis. Of the thousands of queries and manuscripts that we sift through every year, a significant percentage suffer from a serious case of boring. The good stuff is exciting, thrilling, energizing, and…not boring. The very bad is tragic, hilarious, depressing, and baffling, but, again, not boring. Then there’s that other category of submissions: the inescapably, suffocatingly, mind-numbingly boring. For me, getting through these is the hardest part of my job. Saying “next” when it’s an unsolicited query or manuscript that’s dragging you down into the arms of Morpheus is one thing. It’s quite another when it’s a manuscript by a client or a client’s referral.

When it comes to explaining to a client why his or her novel doesn’t work, “Because it’s boring!” is not an option. You have to dig around for problems of plot, characterization, themes, etc., and that entails reading much more of the material than you can stay awake for without the aid of artificial stimulants. The biggest problem is, of course, that the book is boring, but people who will happily take eviscerating criticism about their prose style or their lack of character development would run you over with their SUVs if you mentioned the “B” word.



Which is why I was so amused by this phrase in axelrod’s letter regarding MFA workshop critiques: “If we didn't like a piece, we could talk about anything but the one thing that mattered, the awful, dreaded taboo word: boring.” Heh. I know just what he means.

From the Vault: Reading explained

Happy summer, everybody!  For the next while, there are going to be some absences from the blog as we take vacations, but we'd hate to leave you guys hanging.  It's no secret that we blog much more now than when we started this baby, and there are far more of you reading than there were way back when.  So we thought we'd bring back some blog entries of days gone by that you may have missed if you just joined us in the last year.  We've cued up enough, but if you have any favorites you think your fellow readers might enjoy, give us a shout below!

by Jim

Choosing what projects to take on can be a tricky thing. Given the number of manuscripts I usually have waiting to be read and how few of those I’ll actually be able to work on, I start each one assuming that I’ll be passing on it. For about 50 pages, I keep an eye out for the specific reasons I’ll be rejecting. I’m looking for overwrought writing, character inconsistency, sloppy plotting, and/or any reason to put the pages down and move on to something else.

Let’s say I pass page 50 and haven’t found a reason to definitely say no. I hit my optimistic reading phase and for the next 100 or so pages, I’m thinking, “Hook me!” I’ve invested just enough time that I won’t be upset if I end up deciding to pass, but I’m starting to think, “Hey, this could be my next new client.”

At page 150, my mood shifts entirely to, “Don’t let me down now.” Pessimism sneaks back in a bit. Even if I like this, I start to wonder, can I sell it? This is where I bust out the super handy trick that Jane taught me when I was starting out: if you can think of five editors you know who this could be right for, then it’s probably worth a shot. I ride the manuscript out keeping that in mind and also thinking about the competition. What similar books have done well? Are there too many similar books? Does this read like what’s working now, or does it read like what might be working a year from now when it would come out?

Of course, every so often, a manuscript comes along that shuttles my reading rules right out the window. And that is what I live for.

Let’s flash back to last summer. I drag a bag of manuscripts up to my roof, yank out the first one, open to the first page, read the first paragraph…and stop. It sounds so corny and over the top to say that you were hooked on something from the first page except that when it happens, it’s transporting. I read until the sun went down, and the next morning, I handed the manuscript to a colleague.

“Read a page and tell me if I’m crazy,” I requested. “I mean—this is really as good as I think it is, right?”

I fell so head over heels for the novel that I actually wanted confirmation I hadn’t just lost my mind. I felt stupidly luck to even have the project in hand. When the first page was read, I got the affirmation I needed: “It’s really that good.”

“Crap. Who else has this?” Luckily for me, though other agents did have and did want to represent the novel, its author, in her infinite wisdom, decided to work with me. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan is an astonishing novel for the young adult market that blends the literary and the commercial, stunning writing with rich characters and brilliant plotting. I eagerly look forward to its publication by Delacorte next spring.

The point I always come back to is that people who work in publishing do so because they’re readers. Yes, I read with an eye toward market and potential profit. This is a business, and when you work on commission, you can bet that there’s always an eye on the bottom line. The most thrilling part of the job, though, is playing some role in ushering a book you feel passionately about into another reader’s hands.

At the delightful (and not just because you can gamble there) Las Vegas Writers’ Conference last year, someone asked a panel I sat on, “Would you rather have something come across your desk that has great writing or a great plot?” It’s an unanswerable question. Because I’m not looking for pieces of a good book. I’m looking for the whole package, or for someone who inspires me to believe in their ability to create the whole package.

In responses to rejection letters, understandably upset writers sometimes ask, “Who are you to judge me? What right do you have to say who’s good enough?” All I can answer is that I’m a reader. I’m an audience. And I want you to win me over as much as you want me to be won. It can’t happen always, but we hope it happens enough.

Originally posted in April 2008.

Unsold

by Jim

Last week I admitted to having a case of blogger’s block and asked for suggestions for future topics. Thanks to those of you who offered suggestions! Two people wanted to know what happens when we don’t sell a book. And how can I avoid jumping on a topic as upbeat and positive as that?!

So…yes, sometimes agents sign on books and then cannot sell them—usually because the editors who review those submissions are bad and wrong. It’s true! So what happens then? Well…it depends.

Option 1: We recommend to a client that they revise their manuscript according to some specific feedback that we received during the submission process. Sometimes editors offer very constructive feedback. And doors can occasionally be left open by the editor for resubmission should the author rework. There’s nothing wrong with pausing a submission and taking stock of what changes need to be made. As much as we work with clients editorially, sometimes it takes another eye to see a different kind of potential in a manuscript.

Option 2: We recommend that a client table the current project and work on something new. Some books flat out don’t sell. Maybe they’re good novels but not good first novels. Maybe they’re in a genre that’s just glutted in the marketplace. Maybe editors are blind to the genius that we agents have clearly seen in the project and just need the time to recover their sight before we take a project back out at a later date. These things happen. And there’s no shame there. We’re looking to build long term relationships with our clients, and we sign folks on because we believe not just in their project but in them. I’ve had clients who didn’t get a sale until their second or third novel. That’s far from ideal! But it happens sometimes. And in the best agent/client relationships, there is a level of trust and mutual respect—if that is there and two people continue to have faith in each other, you just keep working until you get it right.

Option 3: The least happy of all options. Here’s the thing: the agent/client relationship is a really close one . It depends on a deep level of confidence being felt on both sides. If that confidence is shaken, it can be best to part ways. And that can happen on either side. A client might want to find a new agent to offer a different perspective. Or an agent might be concerned that their vision for how to break the author out has become too murky. You don’t always get it right on the first go, and that’s really unfortunate, but sometimes it just is.

In short, if a book doesn’t sell, you just keep evaluating and asking questions. Why didn’t it sell? Is it the content? Is it the market? Is it the timing? The important thing is that you learn from the experience and you go forward, still chasing publication, still fighting to be heard. This business can require nerves of steel, but the potential reward is great.

Timing is everything

by Jane

So much of life has to do with timing: where we go to school; who we end up with as a partner or a spouse; what job we end up with. And, there is no business where this is more true than in publishing.

An author has an idea, finds just the right agent who “gets” that idea and who then finds the right publisher to publish that book at just the right time. There are so many good examples of this--and, of course, there are negative examples as well.

This week, for me at least all of this really rang true:

I sold a novel that one of our best and oldest clients had been working on for five long years to just the right editor and publisher.

I sold another book just a week after I sent it out on submission--it was an idea that just happened to strike a chord right now, from an author who wrote a brilliant proposal and it went to a publisher who really got it.

Trying to beat the rush out of town for the London Book Fair, I also quickly closed two other deals. As it turns out, I didn’t have to hurry. As a result of the unpronounceable volcano, many of my colleagues had to cancel their travel plans.

Still, timing is everything.

The submission process

by Jane

In the comments last week, Joan Swan asked us to review how submissions are done. I raised my hand to offer this explanation:

I submit proposals and manuscripts on a multiple basis nearly all the time. While the proposal or the manuscript is being completed, I am talking about the project with various editors who I think might be interested. If they are, I add their names to a submission list, and when we deem the proposal or manuscript ready to submit, I set a date and tell the author when I am planning to send it out.

All of our proposals and manuscripts are now being submitted electronically as opposed to only a short while ago when they were sent in the mail. We find this is far more efficient and it has helped us streamline the process. With nonfiction proposals, we generally go to at least 20 publishers at a time. With fiction, we submit to 5 or 10. On the day of the submission, I sometimes call editors to say the material is coming to give them a heads up--editors receive so much material from agents and authors, I don’t want our submissions to get “lost” in a crowded inbox.

With nonfiction I usually begin following up, if I haven’t heard back from editors, about a week to 10 days later. With fiction I will wait for two weeks as reading an entire manuscript is bound to take longer than just a proposal. I ascertain the editor’s level of interest (and, yes, I collect their rejections) and then I gently try to press for when we will have an offer. If more than one publisher makes an offer, I usually try to have an auction.

Sometimes this process takes only a couple of days; sometimes it can take months depending upon how many interested parties I have and how many rounds of publishers I have to go to.

If I feel after the first round that more work needs to be done to improve the proposal or manuscript, based on feedback from the editors, I will suggest that to my client and share the comments that I have received from publishers. It is up to the author to decide whether he or she wants to make any changes.

Depending on the project and the comments I receive back from publishers, I decide just how far I will go in terms of submitting to more and smaller publishers. Sometimes we go to a number of rounds and sometimes we don’t. I do find though that I am persistent enough to sell a very high percentage of the projects I take on.

I am happy to answer any specific questions on this process if you have them.

Publishing love

by Jessica

As Valentine's Day approaches and retailers redecorate in shades of crimson and Pepto Bismol, I thought it fitting to look at book publishing and the language of love. As an author I know pointed out, romance--not the genre, but as metaphor--seems to govern the acquisition process. When editors pass on a project they say they “just didn’t fall in love,” or admit they were “not sufficiently passionate,” or (and this is something that I myself have been known to say) “admired but did not adore” the work in question. What’s this all about? In what ways is landing a book contract like falling in love?

I’d say two things; first, that to some degree, the metaphor is not wholly disingenuous. Publishing is driven, to a surprising degree, by gut feeling and genuine enthusiasm, and in order to pitch a project to colleagues, collect second reads (so that others will also fall in love), parry the inevitable skepticism of the sales and marketing team, and otherwise assert that this book should occupy one of the finite slots that each imprint is allocated, editors do need to be engaged. Publishing love, does not, however, exist in a vacuum, nor is it blind.

In order to summon--and sustain--the abovementioned passion, an editor must believe that a project fits in with the mandate of the house. A commercial house best known for its big name thrillers is probably not going to open its heart to a literary stream-of-consciousness narrative, no matter how brilliant. Past performance also plays a role. An editors’ capacity to love is distinctly dampened by the whiff of failure. So if your book falls into a category that has proved disappointing for the imprint (their last two travel memoirs tanked) or across the industry (for example general parenting titles), or is perceived as difficult to sell, romance may be elusive. And of course, if you are a published author, your own track record, unceremoniously retrieved from Bookscan, is taken into consideration. Downward trending numbers can cool the most ardent infatuation. Finally, published or not, who you are plays no small role in the courting ritual. Famous, well-connected, possessed of a national media platform? You grow more loveable by the minute. I don’t wish to sound cynical, because, in truth, I’m not. I don’t regard the contemporary publishing landscape as an intellectual wasteland dominated by celebrities--on the contrary, I’m haunted by all the excellent books I may never read. I also meet with editors and publishers of formidable taste and professional conviction. But for some odd reason, book publishing (again like love) is something we tend to romanticize, wish to see as “pure,” impervious from calculation, profit-motive, self-interest. Which, of course, it’s not. But however you prefer to think about love, the book industry is not best perceived through rose-colored glasses.

The great chain of rejection

by Jessica

Most every writer has a raft of rejection stories, some funny, some harrowing, some downright infuriating. Without question, the worst aspect of my job is turning people down, and I’m aware that the form rejections most agencies employ are a locus of particular outrage. As Jim pointed out in his recent post, they are a necessary evil, since giving a personal response to each query—even the richly deserving—is simply too time-consuming. Like you, I must triage my inbox, and so any constructive criticism and words of encouragement I might otherwise be inclined to offer fall by the wayside.

Littered as it is with “Dear Author” responses, or dead silence (better? worse? You tell me), the agent search can be profoundly dispiriting, but it’s useful to remember that publishing is bound together by the great chain of rejection. Agents turn down writers, editors reject agent submissions, editors are shot down in their editorial meetings (“Not for us.” “Won’t sell,” “Who cares?”), and publishers, though they are ostensibly at the top of what can seem like an appallingly medieval cosmology, they too face rejection when the books they select are summarily ignored by the public. Most everyone involved in publishing is convinced, at one time or another, that the keys to the kingdom reside in others’ hands. Recently I met with an editor who waved his arm in my direction and said, “You people seem to think that houses are swimming in money. But it’s just not the case. I’m telling you it’s grim at my offices. Positively funereal.”

So what’s my point? That rejection is an immutable fact of this business, and that for all involved, developing a thick skin, a deep reservoir of stubbornness and a sense of humor are critical. I also think that we all might dispense with the illusion that books represent the optimal way to “share a story with the world.” A writer’s conviction that his is a book that “people need to read” is better served in the blogosphere, where people can do so. For free. Another not-so-helpful canard is that being an author represents a reasonable path to fame and fortune. These days, fame and fortune are a reasonable path toward being an author.

Obviously, no one is as invested in a book as its creator; it is, of course, your time, your ideas, and sometimes your very life. Memoirists are in the unfortunate position of being judged not only on their ability to write but the substance of their character, life choices, and tone of voice (“a little whiny, too chirpy, too callow”). It’s enough to make a misanthrope of anyone. Yet most everyone involved in the book world, from writers to agents to publishers to consumers, shares a core belief—one, I think that is not misplaced—that readers recognize talent. Such recognition may not come soon (why writers have drawers full of unpublished manuscripts), and it may not be with commercial success. Still, the vast majority of people toiling in the publishing business are united not only by the need to soldier on in the face of rejection, but also by the belief that a really good book is inherently valuable.

Questions to ask yourself

by Lauren

Just came across this really handy item that SCBWI's Kathy Temean posted on her blog: Top Ten Questions Dutton Editors Ask Themselves When Looking At A Manuscript.  Very useful for all writers, especially novelists, whichever market they write for and whether or not Dutton would be interested.  I recommend you consider these points about your own manuscript before you share it, because most of these are questions that'll be asked down the line throughout the publishing process, in many cases all the way up to readers buying your book.

(via Janet Reid)

Chasya's Questions Corner on Submission Etiquette

by Chasya

Question:

As a follow up to your post on December 1, is it considered good form to let agents who have your full manuscript know when you receive another request for a full (assuming they have not asked for an exclusive)? I want to be above-board and professional, but I don't want to needlessly pressure (or annoy!) agents who have my work.



Answer:

The short answer to this is no, you generally shoudn't inform an agent who is reading your manuscript that you have received another such request. It can be difficult discerning what can be considered a faux-pas when it comes to submitting your work, but where updating agents on who else is reviewing your material is concerned, this isn’t something we request or expect. We do always appreciate a writer’s desire to cross their Ts and dot their Is, but there’s no need to worry about this one!



Keep sending in your questions to news@dystel.com!

What Jessica Papin wants

by Jessica

 

In light of Miriam’s post on good holiday gifts, and Stacey’s elaboration on what she’s looking for, I figured I’d post my own holiday wish list, the projects that I’d love to discover in my virtual stocking, the visions of submissions/sugarplums that dance in my head.

• Popular science or history of science, in particular, neuroscience, medicine, natural history and biology, but if the writing is good, I’m open to most any discipline. I’m looking for today’s answer to Lewis Thomas.
• Plot-driven literary fiction, books that contain both gorgeous writing and a well-constructed, dramatic narrative arc.
• Literate, John LeCarre-style spy thrillers
• Novelistic/narrative retellings of pivotal chapters in world history—modern or ancient—with strong contemporary resonance.
• A modern gothic novel, like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
• Polemic/muckraking narrative, a la Barbara Ehrenreich
• Psychology and sociology growing out of original research, with either a “big think” or prescriptive orientation.
• A surprise

What Stacey Glick wants

by Stacey

As some of you might know, I had identical twin girls 10 months ago, and have 2 "older" girls at home (3 and 4 1/2). So, while I have continued to work throughout my entire pregnancies and maternity leaves, my life has had a lot to do with topics like dirty diapers, play dates, and nursery schools lately. Listening to some of the respondents from Lauren's earlier post, I wanted to give a little insight into what I'm looking for right now. For obvious reasons, I'd like to see more smart, unique, well-told parenting titles. The category is really overcrowded, so it's important that the authors have a strong platform, a fresh message, and a voice that resonates with today's overstressed, exhausted parents. It doesn't have to be practical either. There are some great narrative books out there that aren't in the parenting category per se, but appeal to that market, books like the one I just recommended on our site, One and the Same by Abigail Pogrebin. I'm also always looking for more narrative nonfiction, like a project I represent, The Widow Clicquot, which tells the little known story of the dynamic French woman who created the champagne brand. Another category I'm very fond of both personally and professionally is memoir. Also overcrowded but when it works, it's so satisfying , like Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine, which I've blogged about before, and which I sold after sending the proposal to 54 publishers before finding the right one! It helps for memoir to have a platform already in place, like Shreve Stockton's The Daily Coyote, based on her very popular blog. In the practical area, I am always interested in working with how-to authors on craft books and cookbooks. And finally, I've had some good success recently with young adult fiction, and I'd love to see more smart, quality work in that area. I hope to hear from you soon with new submissions!

(Now seems a good time to point your attention to our relatively new sidebar:  "I wish I saw more..."  We'll use it as a way to keep you all up to date on the "Why can't someone just send me a query for X?" conversations that go on 'round the DGLM offices.  Check it out to the right!  UPDATE:  Sorry, I meant to thank Susan at Stony River for the excellent idea!!  -Lauren)

Chasya's Questions Corner: On Word Count

by Chasya

Question:

Does your agency set a limit on how long a work of fiction should be? Does it make a difference whether it's science fiction or historical fiction?


Answer:

The short answer to this is no, there’s no limit. The number of pages it takes to tell your story is the number of pages the manuscript should be. In fact, a while back I did a blog post on this very question, and to paraphrase myself, which is kind of a weird thing to do but I’m going to do it anyway, what we’re looking for is material that we fall in love with, and that’s a pretty intangible thing that wouldn’t be limited by the length of a manuscript. That said, it’s also important to know your genre as well. Most commercial fiction runs between 80-100K, whereas epic fantasy, for instance, is 250K. I’m not going to lie, if you send in a query for your hard-boiled mystery and tell us your manuscript is 250,000 words, we will be taken aback since it’s unusual for us to see a word length that high for that type of manuscript. But at the end of the day, if the word count is higher than average and we like the query, we won’t balk at the length.


Please continue to send us questions at news@dystel.com!

Chasya's Questions Corner: On Fiction Credentials

by Chasya

One of our readers asks: “How important are previous publication credits to an agent? Do you prefer [to] receive queries from writers who were already published in a literary magazine/journal?”


Answer:
Having really good literary credentials may get you noticed, but it’s not the only thing we’re looking for. As Michael pointed out in his post about queries, we’re looking for a great many other things. Among them a strong voice, an original idea, etc....

It certainly can’t hurt you to get your work placed in literary journals, but being published in one is by no means the deciding factor in who we choose to represent. We’re on the lookout for all sorts of fiction, and limiting queries to authors who have any specific type of credentials really restricts our ability to search for great projects in a broad range of categories.


We hope you’ll continue to send questions! Please send us an email at news@dystel.com.

Query spam

Recently, Michael encouraged you not to sweat the small stuff in queries and to understand that it's more important to write a great query than to worry about individual agents' pet peeves or assume that one false move will get you deleted without being read.

That's excellent advice, and I fully support it. But I've noticed over the last year or so that there's been an upsurge in the number of queries that seem to come through some company or program, rather than directly from the author. And that these queries tend to be sent to every agent here (and presumably every agent in some large database) and also tend to get filtered out as spam by our junk mail program. When I check my quarantined email, nearly every query in there has formatting that suggests to me they're coming from the same place. Lately they've been emails that begin with a salutation, proceed to a block of text with title/author/logline, and then begin a letter below. At one point they were emails where the logline was in the subject of the email. I've discussed this with other agents here and at other agencies, and we've all had the same experience.

Will I reject an author on principle if they use such a tactic? No, not really. A great query is a great query, and they're not always so easy to find. But while I have no problem with authors querying multiple agents, I don't think this is a good way to do that. For one, if it's getting trapped in our spam filters, it's probably getting trapped in many other agents', and that's not a good way to get read. Beyond that, if I sense going in that all my colleagues and the entire rest of the publishing world has the same query, I'm already less inclined to get excited about it. But mostly, it suggests to me that the author hasn't done any research and likely doesn't understand that certain agents and certain editors and certain publishers work with certain types of books.

I do think it's important to know where your book fits and to figure out particular agents you feel would be right for your book. I think that part of being a successful author is understanding the market and how it works. Much like when I submit a book to editors I carefully consider to whom I'm going to send based on what they're looking for, I expect prospective clients to do the same.

I don't discount the possibility that some of the queries I've received in this way were carefully selected for me and not sent to the whole wide world since I don't actually know how they're being generated, but if so, why lump yourself in with those people who really are just spamming the publishing industry? As an agent who gets too many queries a day to count, I recommend you send your queries to the agents you've carefully selected one by one. (Not that you can't submit queries simultaneously, because we expect that you will and I don't know any agents who have a problem with it, but that each query should be sent in a separate email to a particular individual.) Sure it takes more time, but if your writing career is not worth investing time in, then why would you even bother? And, to be honest, why would we?

Or course, as Michael mentions in his post, I'm almost certainly preaching to the choir here! If you're actively learning about the goings on of the publishing industry, this may well be advice you don't need. But if you could shed any light on where these queries are actually coming from, I'm all ears!


-Lauren

Nothing out there like it?

In working on prescriptive non-fiction, I’ve noted a phenomenon among authors that I’ll call the “there’s nothing out there like it” fallacy. Interestingly, it seems to affect a disproportionately expert population—physicians, nutritionists, psychologists, trainers, counselors, and attorneys—writers with professional credentials whose proposed book emerges from a considerable knowledge of their target market. Indeed, the fact that these people come in daily contact with their would-be book buyers should mean that they have a better sense than anyone of the information their patients/clients lack. In theory, these experts are ideally positioned to perceive a book-shaped hole in the market. But interestingly enough, this is not always the case.

There are a few reasons; because the general public may be demonstrably in need of information (or perhaps just reluctant to implement it) it does not always follow that there’s a dearth of books on the topic. In my experience, experts may know their audience inside and out, but they don’t necessarily have a clear sense of the competition. Acquiring editors, meanwhile, have an overdeveloped sense of the books in the field; usually they’ve published them. (Agents do too, which, apropos of the recent discussion, is another reason why we’re handy). Busy professionals, even those who assiduously keep up with the relevant journals, rarely have the time to read books aimed at a general audience. They do, however, hear their clients/patients complain that there is a shortage of reliable information “out there.” They field the same questions again and again. They rightly perceive their clients’ points of confusion, and may be especially gifted at untangling complex information, or perhaps they’ve created a program that gets amazing results. It is not so very difficult to therefore imagine that all this would merit, even demand, a new book.

Maybe so. But in order to test this premise, writers need to do significant research, not only on Amazon.com, B&N.com, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, or Publishers Marketplace, but also in multiple bookstores and libraries. No single source is especially reliable: on-line searches may be too broad or too narrow; looking at the bookstore shelf may not give an accurate sense of all that’s actually on offer; libraries don’t necessarily reflect all the newest entrees. Ideally, aspiring authors should read, or at least skim, the likely competition, with a dispassionate eye (does the world really need another book on this subject) and in hopes of spotting an opening. If “nothing out there” really means “there’s nothing out there written by me,” bear in mind that publishing houses find this a persuasive argument only insofar as the “me” in question has one or more of the following: a national platform; a media profile; conducted groundbreaking research; a fresh approach to the subject at hand. It is this last aspect that is most tractable. It is true that most nonfiction is platform driven, but it is also concept-driven, and teasing out a hook—which is not so much a gimmick as a clever, easily-grasped, organizing principle—is essential. Finding a way into your subject that has not been done and done again is difficult, but not, I think, so difficult as acquiring the MD, MBA or PhD to begin with!


-Jessica

Chasya’s Question Corner is live!

Thanks to everyone who sent in their questions! As I mentioned in my post last week, I’ll be choosing one or two of your questions a week and answering them here. There were a lot of really good ones and I hope to answer as many of these as I can, so if you don’t see yours here today it doesn’t mean that we won’t be responding to it later. What I mean to say is, stay tuned!

If you have a question, please send it to news@dystel.com. All questions will remain anonymous:


One of our readers asks:

“I have a novel (debut) that was read by 6 editors 5 years ago (2004).
They praised it but were also consistent in why they didn't want it.
I have (after have children, etc. etc.) fully revised it, and in
effect it is a completely different narrative, but with the same
characters, setting, tone. The agent who shopped it left the agency
and we parted ways--we had no formal agreement (the deal was, if they
weren't successful placing my novel we'd have no contract). My
question is, when querying agents now, do I mention the novel's past
in the query, or wait until the agent has had a chance to read it and
connect to it? I am afraid of turning them off....concerned that they
won't read the novel with the same eye if they are aware someone else
rejected it, even if it was five years ago and quite different.”

Answer:

A quandary, indeed. How much does one disclose when it’s tough enough getting any attention as a first-time author?

The answer is actually pretty simple: It’s very important that you are completely up front about the history of your project when approaching an agent. The surest way of “turning them off” is by not being honest about the manuscript. And you don’t want an agent to think that you are being dishonest.

If you’re waiting until an agent calls with interest in the project to inform them of the history behind it, they will want to know why this didn’t come up in your initial query. Even if you mean no harm and your intention is to let the work speak for itself, it comes off as underhanded. We’re not just assessing if we’re interested in or in love with a book--we’re reading it to figure out if we feel we can sell it. If it’s been seen before, that’s an important factor. In some cases, it may help to know that a project was strong enough to get an agent once before.

If you are, in fact, letting the work speak for itself, then disclosing this information shouldn’t really matter. We understand that fiction is very subjective, and we know that a manuscript that doesn’t necessarily speak to another person’s taste is not any reason to not give it due consideration. We also understand the business, and can tell you that if your manuscript has been to every fiction editor out there and hasn’t undergone any changes, they most definitely do not want to see it again. Editors are swamped--buried in reading and juggling more hats than ever before. If they’ve turned something down it’s usually for good reason, and they don’t have the luxury of giving something a second read. A prospective agent will have to make a judgment call about whether they think that the number of editors who have seen something (and the kinds of changes) make a difference in whether or not they think they can sell. However, if an agent truly does see your talent, even if they don’t think they can sell that book, they might recommend moving on to another project first, and if that succeeds, going back and trying to shop the original manuscript.

We must rely on our authors to be forthcoming about their work in order to serve them best. Being evasive or holding back really only leads to feelings of mistrust and can put an agent in an awkward position. It’s not a good way to start, so be sure to provide these details from the get-go.



Another reader asks:

“This is probably a no, but does anyone in your organization represent children's book authors?”

Answer:

In fact, the answer is a yes. Michael Bourret represents young adult and middle grade, along with a very select group of author/illustrators. Jim McCarthy, Lauren Abramo and Stacey Glick all represent YA and middle grade, as well.



-Chasya

What Jim McCarthy wants

Authors often ask what we’re looking for. The easy answer is that whatever it is, we’ll know it when we see it. But I thought I’d take a moment to mention just a few things I haven’t been seeing but would love to.

I’d love to find literary horror whether in the adult or young adult realm. There simply aren’t enough great ghost stories crossing my desk, which I think is a shame. I want the book equivalent of Paranormal Activity. If you can scare the bejesus out of me, I’d be delighted to sign you on.

I don’t know if steampunk is really the next big thing or whether people just expect it to be, but in either case, I think it’s a fascinating genre and would love to see more of it cross my desk. For those who don’t know yet, the definition of steampunk can be found here. And for those local to New York, there’s even a steampunk haunted house coming up which looks like it might be made of awesome. Who knows? Maybe I’ll see you there.

I’d be more than happy to take a look at alternative histories. Whether it’s fantastical reimaginings of the past a la Diana Gabaldon or stories about ways that history might have played out like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. Robert Cowley’s What If? series provides endless food for thought. This site provides lots of examples of the sort of books that have been done in the category before. I think there’s room to bring the genre more into the mainstream, and I’d love to see it happen.

How to Hook an Agent

I was approached by Writer's Digest a while back to contribute to their "Successful Queries" feature, and I jumped at the chance.  One of my personal goals is to explain to authors that there's no one right way to do a query. Only by seeing what's worked in the past can you see just how varied they are.  The magazine (which features several excellent examples in different categories) came out last month, and you can still order it online.  Additionally, it was featured here on their blog, where you can see Lisa McMann's excellent query for the YA book that became WAKE, along with my commentary on why it worked for me. 

Thanks to Writer's Digest for this informative feature.  It's one I'll continue to watch!

- Michael