Facebook for fun and marketing

by Miriam

Being a relative latecomer to Facebook, I’ve embraced it enthusiastically. On a personal level, I enjoy knowing what my friends are up to without actually having to schedule a phone call in the middle of a busy week. Given how busy most of my friends are as well, I’m pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. On a professional level, I like to keep tabs on our clients and publishing colleagues – it’s helpful to know who’s doing and saying what, and, often, rumor and information get around faster on Facebook than through PW or Pub Lunch. And, of course, it’s undeniable that with the gazillion members and the sophisticated networking capabilities, Facebook is a great way to market yourself and your book. Thing is, you gotta do it right.

Because I’m far from being an expert in this area, I won’t go into technical details about what doing it right entails. (In fact, I would suggest that those of you trying to establish an effective presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, who have the means to do so, should seek help from a good brand building consultant specializing in this area.) But, I can share some of the things my colleagues and I have discussed as being turnoffs:

1. Be interesting. If you’re using social media to further your career, don’t treat it like the equivalent of sitting on your couch in an old t-shirt, watching reality tv and eating Doritos. You should make an effort to make interesting observations, post entertaining links, etc. Telling all your friends repeatedly that you love your cat, or offering local weather reports in your area, or what you had for dinner last night is nice every once in a while but if all your posts are the same, people will stop paying attention.

2. Don’t oversell yourself or your book. If you only post when you have a book event you want people to go to or use your update screen to post fragments of your novel, your “friends” will start to get annoyed. Your posts will become the equivalent of spam and be roundly ignored.

3. Try to read your friends’ posts and comment when appropriate – don’t just indiscriminately “like” everything or offer clichéd or throwaway responses to their posts. Remember, their friends are seeing your comments too and that’s an opportunity to expand your own network.

4. Avoid sending “gifts” en masse. A birthday greeting to a friend is fine. A “blessing” that will appear on the walls of your 1,500 friends…not so much.


What are the Facebook practices you all find irritating? And which other social networks do you find yourself and your favorite authors on online?

DIY Book Tour

Before working in publishing, I thought an author's life consisted of sleeping in late, wearing a dressing gown all day, writing chapter after chapter of the next big novel, and attending glamorous book tour events. I pictured authors being shuffled from bookstore to bookstore for signings and readings and warm cozy nights tucked away in five-star luxury. Well, those thoughts were soon laid to rest upon entering the business.




The LA Times published an interesting article over the weekend which describes the kind of book tour that is most common these days - the drive-yourself, couch-surfing, expenses-out-of-your-own-pocket kind of book tour. It's nothing like what some of us dreamed up for our favorite writers. Now, more and more writers are promoting their books the DIY way because as the publishing business changes, so do the money risks of sending authors on book tours.



Not only do you have to be an incredible writer to gain a fan base these days; you have to be an incredible marketer. It takes a fair amount of effort to promote a book and reach out to new readers, and seeing the amount of work some authors put in when publishers cannot, is something that I greatly admire in authors. It's all about dedication to the craft, and from reading that article, there certainly remains a lot of dedication in the world of writing.

-Rachel

Reading “books”

The Guardian book blog has an interesting post about the newly fractured reading experience. With books now outnumbering games in iPhone app downloads and the release of the iPad getting closer, it’s no wonder blogger Molly Flat is feeling a big frazzled by the numerous options she has in reading platforms. I can relate as an owner of a Kindle, subscriber to numerous magazines, frequenter of blogs and someone who has spent the past two weekends at Ikea buying new bookshelves for a personal home library. I suspect Molly and I are in good company, too.

How about it readers? Anyone else feeling overwhelmed by the many choices in reading platforms lately?

--Chasya

Slush Week: The recap

by Jim

So kids, did we learn anything from Slush Week? We hope so! Obviously, the subject of query letters is one that makes some authors very tense. I noted a touch more hostility among our commenters than ever before! And I understand. It’s an enormously frustrating process. Even from this vantage point I can see that. Hopefully, though, the exercise helped to further demystify the procedure at least a touch. Here’s what I consider the takeaway:

--For those who weren’t sure, the final tally was 6 passes and 3 requests: Jane, Chasya, Miriam, Stacey, Michael, and I would have passed. Jessica, Rachel, and Lauren would have requested more.

--There’s a lot of okay happening: That was a solid representation of what our inboxes actually look like. One we sort out the queries that make terribly obvious mistakes like addressing us by the wrong names, we’re left with a lot of queries that are very…okay. I can’t remember who said it to me all those years ago when I first hit the slush pile, but: “If it isn’t a yes, then it’s a no.” There’s no “maybe” option with unsolicited queries. We request things, or we don’t. And with the volume that’s coming in and the number of clients we already have, there often isn’t the chance to consider material if you’re waffling after the query. So often you won’t be turned down because you’ve written a bad query but because you haven’t written one that’s great. It’s a fine line but a crucial one.

--Compare yourself to other authors, but not all of them: There was a touch of confusion about our recommendation to compare yourself to other authors, particularly when Miriam had just said not to compare your work to “canonical titles.” “Canonical” is the key word there. We want to know who of today’s authors you’ll be shelved with. The comparative titles should give us an idea of the type of work you have and who you see your audience as. Once you start getting into the classics, well…it’s dangerous territory. You can compare yourself to great writers working today—let’s say you’re writing a novel from multiple point of views that you say is reminiscent on Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin. That’s bold, but I’d be on board if the writing bore it out. But if you tell me you’ve written the next Anna Karenina, my response will be, “Oh, realllllllllly?” Keep it contemporary, and don’t be a braggart. Be careful about comparisons to massive bestsellers: comparing your book to successful authors who aren’t the most obvious choices (as in, not Dan Brown) gives us a stronger sense of what sort of book you’re writing and also shows that you really do know your category—not to mention that you’re less likely to be comparing yourself to the same author as everyone else in the slush pile.

--Be straightforward: you want to give us enough information to want to read more. As Jessica pointed out, it could take two single-spaced pages to do that. More often, it does not. Give us a snapshot of what your book is in the most concise way possible while still focusing on what makes it stand apart. It’s a taller order than it sounds, but it is the recipe to success.

--This is subjective: I was surprised when I saw that Michael suggested not to make your query sound too much like cover copy as I’ve given quite a few workshops at conferences where I told people to study just that copy and use it as a model for how to frame a query. That, in itself, is probably enormously frustrating to authors. But the truth is, there’s no such thing as a perfect query, and people respond to different things. It IS a subjective business. Remember that just because one person doesn’t have a positive reaction to your work doesn’t mean the next won’t.

--There are no right answers, only wrong ones. Bottom line: you can screw up a query by being too boastful, rude, silly, gimmicky, or underinformed. Once you’ve avoided all of those things, you have to rely a bit on kismet—whether your letter hits the right person at the right time, whether it sounds like something they think they can sell, if anything too similar has hit their slush pile on the same day, if they already have a project that would compete with it.

At the end of the week, what I can say is that we honestly are looking for those books that break out of the slush pile and grab our attention. The query itself is, as a commenter noted, simply a means to an end. You want to convince us that we want to read more, and we honestly do want to be convinced. So as frustrating and unnerving as the process is, do keep trying.

Any lingering questions still unanswered? Did you feel like you learned enough for us to do this again down the road?

The role of the editor

by Jane

It must be in the wind. Twice in the last two weeks there have been major articles about an age-old subject that is still so very important in the business of publishing: the role of the editor. Even though publishers keep cutting staff, including some key editorial people, the editor’s value hasn’t diminished; in fact, in this era of growing digital publishing the role of the editor--whether he or she is on staff inside the publishing house, functions as an outside freelancer, or is even, as in our company, an integral part of a literary agency--has remained an incredibly vital one to the author and the quality of the book.

In her piece last week in the Huffington Post, well known literary agent Jean Naggar describes this role beautifully.

The bottom line is that the editor’s role should never be taken for granted.

Lauren's Slush Week entry

by Lauren

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

Dear (Agent's name),

Cleopatra Giancarlo is different from your average twenty-something career girl. For one thing, she knows when people lie because she can see the truth in their shadows. For another, she doesn't use her power for good. Or evil. After repeated failures to help others, she mostly just uses it to get deals at Bloomingdale's. She fears what the government would do if they discovered her ability, yet she longs to find out if there are people like her out there. If there's anything more she could be.

She gets her wish when two strangers whisk her away from her old life and introduce her to the world of suprasensors. John Arlin and Samantha Grooms represent an organization called YuriCorp, one of many privately-owned firms that employ supras like Cleo to increase their profit margin. Any of these firms would be thrilled to have Cleo on staff, and their methods of recruitment aren't always friendly.

But even in the world of supras, Cleo doesn't get to be normal. Her new boss wants her to go undercover and seek traitors in the company ranks. Her new friends know what she can do and how to work around it. And her new assignment might end up with her in a coma--or worse.

The Whole Truth is a 100,000 word paranormal women's fiction with a mouthy heroine who finds out people are people even when they can bend spoons with their brains. I've got an MFA in creative writing and am published in (titles/publishers/genres redacted for Slush Week purposes).

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to your response.

(Author's name)

Rachel's Slush Week entry

by Rachel

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

Dear (Agent's name),

Before she was F. Scott Fitzgerald's muse, seventeen-year-old Zelda Sayre was a mischief maker in her childhood town of Montgomery, Alabama. Known for wearing flesh-colored bathing suits and staying out late with boys, she caused her daddy some real grief.

Flirting with boys and breaking their hearts was a daily occurrence for Zelda. Until she met Scott. He was a handsome lieutenant on base near her hometown. With one dance, Zelda was in love with him. But Scott was transferred to a different base, and love letters helped their romance. After an on-again, off-again courtship, they were finally married.

And although their marriage was fun, darker things ran deep underneath the surface, like Scott's obvious alcoholism and the beginning of her schizophrenia. Growing up seems like a boring task and Zelda never thought she'd have to do it. But she can't stay a child much longer, can she?

My YA historical fiction, GOLDEN, is complete at 80,000 words. The full manuscript is available if requested. Thank you for your time and consideration.


Sincerely,
(Author's name)

Michael's Slush Week entry

by Michael

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:

Dear (Agent's name):

An imprisoned poet. A mysterious orb. And one mega-dose of snotty older sister, named Athena.

Twelve-year-old Jared Ahern’s got all three on his plate. (And that’s not counting the orb’s vicious inventor, trapped in a time sump.) Jared desperately wants to pry himself out from under Athena’s shadow and get some adulation of his own. When the orb, with its power for time travel and shape-shifting, summons him and Athena to rescue Shakespeare from the Tower of London, Jared leaps at the chance to show his mettle. 

Jared’s quick-thinking springs Shakespeare from his cell. But things go awry when Shakespeare returns with Jared to Oregon, leaving Athena stranded in the sixteenth century in the guise of Good Queen Bess. Worse yet, Jared’s sixth-grade enemy steals the orb. Now Jared must use both his skateboard and his love of “Star Wars” to retrieve the orb and rescue Athena, before she becomes the Queen of England. Permanently.

Shakespeare on the Lam is a middle-grade adventure, complete at 28,000 words.
I follow the blog on your agency's website and see that you are looking for adventure middle-grade for boys, so I believe it might be a good fit for your list. I am enclosing a sample chapter, as stated in your submission guidelines. I’m also querying other agents.

I am a member of SCBWI and Willamette Writers. My short story, “Carlito’s Question,” won 3rd prize in the 2009 Kay Snow Awards competition, sponsored by Willamette Writers. Shakespeare on the Lam is my first novel.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
(Author's name)

Jessica's Slush Week entry

by Jessica

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:

Dear (Agent's name):

My dad made his living off people's inability to keep on living.

Dad, who called himself Digger O'Dell, was the gravedigger and cemetery
caretaker in small-town Waseca, Minnesota. Death was our family business,
and I spent long summer days in cemeteries. I wandered graveyards, reading
names off tombstones and wondering about the people in the ground. I
absorbed the stories and images of those who had gone before me: a mother
and her six kids killed by a train, a rosy-cheeked 15-year-old girl, a
county sheriff shot on duty.

Yet, as I write in my memoir, We'll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down, a
strange silence about death pervaded our lives. A large divide existed
between working with death each day and actually understanding grief. Dad
and Mom were no strangers to mortality-they bought their own giant tombstone
in their early 40s, and they knew death intimately through the loss of loved
ones. But in this stoic Midwestern place, our stories were not ours to tell,
and I sought answers and explanations through the stories of others. After
my dad died from a fast-growing cancer when I was 15, the silence in my
family grew exponentially. But I realized that just as the stories I grew up
with kept the dead alive, words would be the only way to prove that my
father walked this earth. Our stories must be ours to tell.

Eight excerpts from my 68,000-word memoir have been published in print and
online literary journals. A short chapter earned first place in creative
nonfiction in the 2009 Missouri Review audio competition. Another chapter
was selected runner-up for the 2006 Bellingham Review Annie Dillard Award
for Creative Nonfiction. It was published in the Spring 2007 issue and
subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. My memoir earned me a spot in
the competitive mentorship program at The Loft writing center in Minneapolis
in 2007-08, and I also received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant for my
creative nonfiction work.

I spent seven years as a journalist for a small daily newspaper. I have
written more than 20 nonfiction books for children, and I teach journalism,
English, and history at the college level.

I would be happy to send you a book proposal, sample chapters, or the entire
manuscript. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you
at your earliest convenience.


Sincerely,
(Author's name)

Stacey's Slush Week entry

by Stacey

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)


We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:

Dear Mr./Ms. (Insert Agent's Name),

Life is tough, but Natalie MacKenzie is about to find that it gets a whole lot tougher when your stepsister is a succubus.

After Natalie is accused of burning the high school science wing to the ground (without anything more explosive than a pencil and paper), her father finally tells Natalie the truth: her mother wasnt human. Her father and stepmother decide to ship her off to a special school in Turkey where she can learn how to control herself and her fire abilities.

The only thing that makes the idea bearable is that her parents allow her stepsister and best friend, Olivia, to join Natalie and the other students for a two week tour of the country. On the way, Natalie and Olivia fall for the same guy, David, and when he chooses Natalie, Olivia makes a deal to become a succubus, which gives her power to have any guy she wants.

And she wants David.

Its up to Natalie to figure out how to use her fire abilities to rescue both Olivia and David--assuming that the other elements let her live that long . . .

My Stepsister is a Succubus is a young adult contemporary fantasy novel with 70,000 words. Although I have not yet published a novel, I have sold two magazine articles to the Ensign magazine. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
(Author's name)

Miriam's Slush Week entry

by Miriam

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:
 
(Dear Agent:)

I would like you to represent, The Price of Blasphemy, a complete 62,000 word work of up-market fiction and social realism.

The novel is told as a first-person narrative, throwing the reader into the tumultuous mind of Richard Bunbury, a charismatic and volatile agnostic who is determined to live a simple, Monticello-inspired lifestyle by operating a charity that aims to impede America’s divisive nature.

While living in Washington D.C., Richard falls in love with Dawn, a devout Christian attorney who specializes in non-profit law. Incompatible faiths eventually create a fissure between the unlikely pair. Dawn begs Richard to convert, but he refuses, arguing that her God, if he exists, is passive and weak. Angered and outraged by Richard’s blasphemy, Dawn abruptly brings the relationship to an end. When the fury caused by his broken heart mixes with his preexisting (yet dormant) mental instability, Richard lashes out, which results in disastrous and shocking consequences.

Beginning with the murder of an imaginary homeless man and progressing to leasing, insuring, and converting dilapidated Bible Belt churches into satanic places of worship, Richard is out to prove his theory that God is passive, while exploiting the Christian religion in order to acquire his personal Monticello. As Richard Pavlovian-ly predicts, the rural communities of North Carolina unknowingly facilitate his scheme with their helpful acts of arson, but as Richard’s sanity continues to crumble, his plan gets sloppy. Richard fails to account for the media’s outrage and the anger of the local townspeople, causing the reader to learn that drawing the ire and contempt of a pious following carries a steep price.

The Price of Blasphemy explores themes of love and inhumane manmade divisiveness. In the tradition of A Clockwork Orange, The Catcher in the Rye, and Fight Club, this novel is deeply probing and begs the question: Which is more godly, faith or love?

My book will be of broad public appeal in that it offers the fervor of controversy, true love, and a fragile protagonist who is a talking looking glass, representing the society of yours and mine. Our readership will vary from those with an appreciation for a touching story with clean, fluid prose, to those desiring to relate to a voice that shares feelings of isolation and an uncontrollable instinct to self-destruct.

This is a multiple submission. If you are interested in reading the manuscript, I would love to give you the exclusive opportunity over an eight week period. Thank you for taking the time to help me pursue my literary endeavors.

(Closing, Author's Name)

Tempus fugit

by Miriam

We all know birthdays are a time for deep reflection, for taking stock of the present, reviewing the past and charting course for the future. (Or, if you’re me, pouring yourself a glass or five of wine and hoping the whole ugly business will go away by the time the Advils kick in.) But this year, with another birthday looming and a long post due for the DGLM blog, I’ve been doing more reviewing than usual. It occurs to me that I’ve spent almost half of my adult life working in publishing--for those of you trying to do the math, yes, I started out when I was 14. To put it in perspective, the first George Bush was in his freshman year as president when I first walked into the offices of Acton & Dystel; Oprah’s Book Club was seven years away, and the kids who founded Facebook were getting ready to start kindergarten.

A lot of cataclysmic events have come and gone since the day I sat in Jane Dystel’s office for an interview wearing my best (okay, my one) gray suit and hideously uncomfortable matching gray pumps. I can’t remember exactly, but since this was the ‘80s, there must have been shoulder pads and white pantyhose involved. Jane was--and is--a tiny, delicate blonde with a voice like whisky soaked granite (I think I’m actually quoting someone here). She was, herself, relatively new to the agenting side of the business and was a tightly wound bundle of energy and determination. She was building a client list and learning the ropes from the then very successful Jay Acton--a fascinating man whose clients ranged from bestselling romance writers to the legendary Tip O’Neill to numerous sports stars whose memoirs all went straight to the Times list--and she needed an assistant.

Long story short, reader, I took the job and never left. Occasionally a friend or acquaintance will ask why I’ve stuck around so long. “Don’t you get bored?” “Aren’t you itching to try something new?” “Isn’t publishing a dying industry?” The answers: “never,” “sometimes,” and “emphatically no.” Thing is, like any other line of work, what we do is sometimes tedious but never boring. (Does that make sense?) Literary agents don’t spend all their time schmoozing celebrities and cashing $1,000,000 advance checks or even reading great literature. There’s a lot of haggling over ¾ of a percentage point in the royalty section of a 25-page publishing agreement written in a cross between Sanskrit and legalese with a font size of 5.5. There are the endless stacks of queries (some of which make you wish you’d never learned to read). There are unhinged authors and psychotic editors. There are big disappointments when a book you had high hopes for gets remaindered almost before it’s published or when you lose an author you’re pursuing to a bigger, flashier agency, despite the fact that you know they’d be better served by a smaller, more attentive outfit.

But there are also great rewards. You meet and befriend talented, interesting people. You get to be “in the know” about all sorts of events--current and scandalous. You get to have engaging conversations about relevant issues or important subjects almost every day. All that and free books!

The kid who walked into Jane’s office those many years ago wasn’t looking for riches or fame (she was incredibly dumb that way). She just loved books and wanted to be a part of making them happen. All these many years later, I’m still doing it and it’s still (mostly) a pleasure.

Chasya's Slush Week entry

by Chasya

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:


Dear (Agent’s name):

When Elisabeth Starr was five years old, there was a day that changed everything, an irreversible moment that tore apart her family and sent her life and her sister’s life in two very different directions. For twenty years she has held on to the secret of what truly happened.

Now, returning to her childhood home in Western Massachusetts, Elisabeth learns that her mother plans to send her developmentally disabled sister, Kate, to an adult home. Determined not to let this happen, Elisabeth decides to take responsibility for Kate’s future and, together, they embark on a spontaneous road trip across the country. As she struggles with the dark secret about her role in Kate’s disability, Elisabeth discovers that it’s not Kate’s future that needs saving, but her own.

Spared is a 76,000 word work of Women’s Fiction about finding the right way just before it is lost forever. This is my first novel.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my submission. I look forward to hearing from you.


(Author's name)

Jim's Slush Week entry

by Jim

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

Let’s all take a look at the query on its own first, and then I’ll break it down with my comments inserted after the jump!

Dear SLUSH WEEK SUBMISSIONS,

Half-Angel, Half-Demon, Alexsi Marks must balance the war between Heaven and Hell, without losing her soul in the process...

For Alexsi, life is challenging, if routine, until the night a demon tries to kill her. Finding out about her parentage is a shock, but learning she has both demonic and angelic magic opens the door to truth and shadows. When her friends are attacked and her apartment cleaned out-the jerks even took her damn cat-Alexsi has no choice but to follow the mysterious, alluring James and flee to the Sanctuary, a haven for those with angel blood. It doesn't keep her safe from her dreams, however, or the sexy demon Declan from trying to seduce her. Alexsi faces distrust and anger on all sides, leading to a challenge beyond the gates of Heaven, or Hell. She must overcome those trying to kill her, while walking a fine line between her good side and her wicked one.

WHERE ANGELS TREAD is an Urban Fantasy complete at 99k words. I am a finalist in the Houston RWA chapter's 2010 Emily Award, Paranormal Romance category. My memberships include RWA, FFnP, Online Romance Writers and my local chapter Desert Rose, as well as East Valley Writers.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I have included XXX per your submission guidelines.


Sincerely,
(Author's name)

Jane's Slush Week entry

by Jane

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya's introduction.)

We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:


Dear (Agent’s name):

I am seeking representation for my romantic suspense novel, SAVAGE MOUNTAIN, complete at 100,000 words.

When Dan and Kay Logan find the body of the young woman in the woods, their lives change forever. Moving from the city to the sparsely populated Warner Mountains of California, the two are excited about their new life style and look forward to living full-time in the wild, rugged country where they have enjoyed vacationing for years. But mysterious dead bodies have a way of interfering with happy plans and memories.

The sheriff barely arrives before the killer strikes again; this time the victims are the rancher and his wife who befriended Dan and sold him his small ranch. The murdered man had told Dan weeks ago that a shiftless hunting guide, Pat Riley, was jealous of Dan, held a grudge against them both, and mentally was “not quite right.”

Riley’s known by the locals to be a nasty piece of work. Dan suspects he is the killer, and that he and Kay could be next in line, but running from trouble has never been the Logans’ style, and they are not about to change now. They prepare themselves and stay to face the threat, be it from Riley or someone else.

The authorities investigate in their slow and meticulous way, while Dan and Kay attempt a normal life, hoping the killer will be apprehended, but expecting an attack at any time. SAVAGE MOUNTAIN is the classic story of two people in love, who face adversity and danger the old-fashioned way – on their own.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
(Author's name)