Tag: literary agents

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BACCA Writers

When Rejection Is Good

image of a rubber-stamped all-caps NO THANKS in red ink.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Last time I blogged here, I described the process of querying my first novel. Now, a few months later, I have news. Has an agent requested the full manuscript? Even better, did the agent love the ms and make me an offer of representation? Even better, was the agent a good fit for me and my work? Even better, did we contract to work together? Even better, did the agent find a publisher who wanted my manuscript? Do we have a publishing contract and a launch date?

Nope. None of those happened. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But querying has gotten a little bit easier for me.

Why? Two reasons.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Just like doing laundry or playing cards or building flat-pack furniture, our skills and facility improve over time when we keep repeating the process. The first queries I sent out were overwhelmingly difficult for me. Everything about them was hard.

Getting a decent draft of the query letter, for starters, was a long-term project. I have since revised and rewritten it countless times, but just getting it to minimally presentable status took a ton of work. Describing / selling your full-length novel with 150 words? Finding comp titles recently published in the same genre? And, by the way, what is the genre? Literary fiction? Don’t you need an MFA to be eligible to write lit fic? Book club fiction? I worry that I’m not plotty enough for that. Upmarket fiction? Maybe that’s the sweet spot. Then there’s the sentence or two of author bio – where you say enough, not too much, about yourself to sound confident, not meek, and also not arrogant. Also competent and collegial, not supplicating. Also respectful, not sycophantic.

Then there’s the ongoing search for the agents who might entertain receiving your query. On their schedule. Using their preferred document formats. In the genres they declare themselves interested in. Erf. It’s enough to make a person not want to query their novel.

Image by Leopictures from Pixabay

Point is, these skills do get easier with practice. Querying still takes longer than I think it will. I can’t just expect to set aside ten minutes and knock one out (although that’s been possible once or twice). Many of the agents I’m approaching use the online QueryManager portal. In addition to supplying places to paste in (and then reformat) or upload the requisite number of pages or chapters, the bio, comps, sometimes synopsis, and other chunks of text, QueryManager allows its agents to ask questions.

So far, I am finding that no two agents’ QM forms are alike. One agent wanted a profile of the readers I think will be drawn to my book. Another wanted to know how many copies my self-published book sold in its first year. Another wanted my Twitter handle. Another – well, you get the idea. Some of those questions can take a while to answer, and you never know until you’re already mid-query what the surprise questions are going to be, or how challenging they’ll be to answer. I have learned to allow an hour, and never to query when the clock is ticking away before an upcoming appointment.

The Nice Rejection

The second reason why querying has become a little easier is that one of the agents didn’t just ghost-reject me or send a standard no-thanks message. She actually wrote to me, and said that, while my novel wasn’t the right book for her, she’d like to take a look at my next project when it’s ready.

I knew this agent’s response was different, and yet I was acutely aware of my neophyte status in the whole world of querying. Uncertain what to make of it, and cautious about celebrating something I wasn’t sure I understood, I quoted it to a friend who’s farther along in the querying / agenting / publishing journey. I asked her, “On the spectrum of rejections, that’s somewhere in the middle, I think, yes? It definitely feels better than the ghost rejections 12 weeks post-query.”

My friend sent back congratulations, saying, “This is a really good rejection! It means that even though she’s not interested in this book, she likes your writing, and if you had an idea that spoke to her, she’d likely sign you. Print this one out and use it as inspiration.”

Getting that reinforcement from a friend and colleague helped me frame the nice rejection in a way that feels validating. The agent thinks my writing is legit!

The queries I’ve sent out since receiving that nice rejection have felt lighter, easier, more straightforward.

Funny how that works: I gained confidence from being rejected. Who knew?

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. She’s querying her first novel, and writing her second.

Categories
BACCA Writers

Querying

Although asking literary agents and book publishers to pick your work is a huge part of the writing life, I avoided it for a long time. Over the years, publishers accepted articles I’ve written. Blog hosts published my guest posts. I have published books that other people have written, as well as one that I wrote. I have helped other authors set up their books via their own indie publishing enterprise. I have contributed chapters to published books edited by others. Until recently, though, I hadn’t asked someone else to publish a book that I wrote.

It’s a whole new adventure. Do people enjoy asking strangers to stop, look, read, and love their manuscript? Perhaps. I’m not aware of anyone who reports a fondness for the activity. The conventional wisdom is that querying, as this process is called, is a necessary slog. It can take years of querying one manuscript before an opening appears, and more years – if everything goes well – before that manuscript emerges in print as a new book. Writers swap stories of the long road from query to publication. They curse the agents who turn them down, and then they sometimes curse the agent(s) who work with them.

Agents

Agents also struggle. There’s never enough time. They work on commission, earning money from a manuscript only after they’ve managed to sell it to a publisher. They earn more money when that book becomes successful in the marketplace. This provides incentive to pick winners, not just projects of which they are fond. There’s also the dream of picking the unknown project that becomes the next big thing. But that’s much riskier.

Agents’ time needs to be allocated to growing and strengthening their network of connections to the acquisitions editors at every publishing house and imprint that might one day be a fit for one of their clients. (If you already know them, you have a much greater chance of getting them to agree to take a look at a new project.) But agents’ time also needs to be allocated to working alongside their existing writer clients, negotiating film rights, working with the audiobook narrator, conferring on – if not always able to approve – the cover design of their clients’ next books. But their time also needs to be allocated to reading the new stuff that’s perpetually coming in via new queries from new authors. Most literary agents got into the business because they love reading. From what I hear, though, a busy agent barely has time to think, let alone sit down with a new manuscript from an unknown author.

The lottery

Why do unknown novelists like me even bother? If the system is rigged against the new writer, what’s the reason for slogging away, against the odds, hoping to be the exception? Because deep down we each believe our work is special. Because it’s a rite of passage. Because if you don’t buy the ticket you can’t win the lottery.

photo of a Mexican lottery kiosk, with a handpainted sign, on a city sidewalk

You gotta be in it to win it.
Photo by José Pablo Domínguez on Unsplash

Sometimes it feels as though querying is like buying a ticket and then paying interest on the ticket price. Your carefully polished query letter is the price of the ticket. Rejections are the interest. Stories abound of writers who papered the walls of their room with rejection letters – back when correspondence happened on paper. For a while, I’m told, agents sent replies to querying authors via email, usually in a standard rejection that a lowly office assistant or automated process could issue, occasionally with a more carefully worded note. (I have celebrated heartily with friends who exclaimed, “I got a personalized rejection!”.) Nowadays, many agents explain in their submission guidelines that not hearing from them after a period of time means the query has been rejected.

I knew of one unpublished novelist who didn’t go with the subservient flow. She was an experienced radio journalist, who knew her way around a sentence, and had name recognition among the NPR cognoscenti. When it came time to query her novel, she donned the mantel of a professional, not a supplicant. It worked! She treated the agents as peers, and they responded in kind. She got a modest book deal, and her novel was published to some critical acclaim. This was several years ago now, and the querying process has only gotten more difficult since, but her example still shines for me like a beacon.

Andie Jordan

What am I querying? A novel – my first – about Andie Jordan, a young woman finding her way in the New York City art world of the early 1980s.

Who am I querying? Some agents and some small publishers. From what I can tell, books like mine are slightly more welcome at certain small presses than they’d be at the big corporate publishing houses. As the PRH / Simon & Schuster news last fall indicated, the big five are publicly traded companies responsible to shareholders for profiting from books and other intellectual property. They prefer proven winners – in the form of (already) best-selling authors, popular tropes, celebrities, pop-culture heroes, and themes ripped from the headlines. “Quiet” novels like mine – and I mean that as a compliment – aren’t likely to be their cup of tea. So whether I look for an agent or a publisher, the publisher that would bet on my book is almost certain to be a smaller one.

How am I querying? I write (and rewrite) a query letter. This is a one-page term paper / marketing document that must obey certain guidelines. Some of these guidelines, available online, are specific to each agent or publisher. For example, the periods of time when they are, or will next be, open to queries; the form in which they accept queries – in the body of the email, or attached to an email in 12-point Times New Roman with one-inch margins – or the kinds of projects they want. Others are generally accepted industry standards, like including your book’s title, word count, genre and category, plot, and author bio. Writing and rewriting your query letter is a part-time job, as is updating your research on agents’ and publishers’ open dates, submission rules, schedules, wishlists, and more.

Want to see my “plot paragraph” – the heart of the query letter? Here you go:

Andie Jordan is a talented painter and aspiring writer in 1980s Manhattan. A manager at the cutting-edge New Art Center, she tirelessly supports the arcane artistic visions of a select group of middle-aged white guys – until the job completely takes over her life and she stops painting. Even after she resigns, the Center pulls her in. While she struggles to recover from workaholic burnout, a federal prosecutor questions her in his case against the Center for mishandling public funds. A work friend has a debilitating breakdown; looking into its cause embroils Andie further in Center business. Desperate to leave arts administration behind, she enters journalism grad school, with plans to investigate the intersections of art and money. Her thesis advisor, with secret ties to the Center, criticizes Andie’s tactics. The prosecutor discourages her research, which might jeopardize his case against the Center. Then, out of town to exhibit some new paintings, Andie learns that her ex-boss, who can blackball her from New York galleries, wants her added as a defendant in the criminal case. She despairs of ever breaking free from the Center’s long reach to clear an independent creative path.

#amquerying

I maintain a spreadsheet of agents and small publishers whose expressed interests intersect with what my novel can offer them. So far, everyone I’ve contacted has either said no or has said nothing.

My novel’s working title is Andie Jordan Needs a Life. Why “working title”? Because in the unlikely event Andie gets picked up, a lot will be subject to change, including the title. When it comes to book marketing, everyone knows that we DO judge a book by its cover, as well as by its title (a significant element of said cover). And the publisher of a first-time novelist will have a lot of power and influence – earned over years of experience and marketplace clout – over the debut author. So titles often change. I’ve already changed Andie’s title several times, on my own, and remain open to better ideas.

Will I stop the madness? Very likely. But not yet. I feel as though playing this out is teaching me things I need to understand. I’m learning by doing. I have joined the immense community of writers who dedicate themselves to the process of querying. On a good day, I can feel us cheering one another on. Go, fellow queriers!

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. She’s querying her first novel, and writing her second.

Categories
BACCA Writers

The 5th Annual Hampton Roads Writers Conference – Day Two

September 18, 2013, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Day Two

To read about Day One, click here!

8:30 am:

Bestselling Author Lisa McMann

Lisa McMann
Lisa McMann, Author

Day Two began with introductory remarks by New York Times bestselling author Lisa McMann.

Lisa is the author of the WAKE Trilogy, the VISIONS series, the UNWANTEDS series, and other books with tween and teen characters. She talked about her road to publishing success. She spoke of the joys of balancing a writing career with her life as a wife and mother.

She also spoke of the abuse she faced after becoming an author, such as bad reviews and hateful “fan” mail.

9:45 am:

The First Ten Lines Critique Session

Conference participants (including me) could submit the first ten lines of their manuscript (anonymously, thank goodness) for professional – and public – critique.  The critiquing panel consisted of the three visiting agents – Ethan Vaughan, Jeff Ourvan, and Dawn Dowdle, as well as author Lisa McMann.

Here are a few pointers about submitting to agents:

  • Number one rule for all agents is  FOLLOW SUBMISSION GUIDELINES. Agents are looking for reasons to say “NO,” and incorrect formatting, misspelling the agent’s name, sending attachment when explicitly told not to send attachments are all reason to instantly reject a query letter and sample.
  • Grammar is important. Hire a proofreader, especially if grammar is your weak point.
  • Avoid clichés.
  • Make sure your verbs carry the emotional weight of the story. Stay away from adjectives and adverbs.
  • Avoid lengthy italics. An overuse of italics in a manuscript looks amateurish and is a symptom of unpreparedness.
  • Vary short and long sentences to create tension for the reader.
  • Don’t quote unknown or obscure books. This pulls the reader out of story.

11:00 am:   

Getting Ready for My Very First Pitch to a Literary Agent (Yippee!)

The Hampton Roads Writers Conference offered the opportunity to meet with one of the three visiting literary agents and present a ten-minute pitch. I jumped at the chance. This would be the first time I’d ever met with a real-live literary agent, and obviously, the first time I’d pitched my manuscript. Yes, I’d written query letters and attended agent roundtables at the Virginia Festival of the Book, but this was my first sit-down, face to face meeting. I was meeting with Ethan Vaughan of Kimberley Cameron & Associates. I had only ten minutes with Mr. Vaughan, beginning at 11:15 am., but I was ready.

. . . Or, at least I thought I was ready before I’d attended Chantelle Osman’s Perfecting Your Pitch session  (See day one.).  According to Ms. Osman, I’d done several things wrong. I’d written my pitch (and even made a copy for the agent.  Talk about being overwritten!)  I’d practiced my pitch until I could recite it in my sleep, and I’d even timed it perfectly. If I didn’t pause, it would take eight of my ten minutes, leaving me two minutes for questions and answers.

Wrong!

Wrong!

Wrong!

Ms. Osman explicitly said that pitches shouldn’t sound rehearsed.  Oh well, too late to change it now.

I arrived at the small conference room on the second floor of the Westin Hotel early. One table, two chairs. Mr. Vaughan wasn’t there yet. No one was there. I was his first pitch of the conference. Was that a good omen or bad? The timekeeper – the man who’d tell me when my ten minutes were up – arrived.  He told me I could take a seat but I declined. I wanted Mr. Vaughan to choose which seat he wanted first, and then I’d take the other. I didn’t want to do anything to make him feel uncomfortable. (I felt uncomfortable enough for the both of us. )

Waiting, waiting - photo of a clockface
Waiting, waiting

I watched the clock. 11:00… 11:05… 11:10. I paced the hallway outside the conference room, practicing my new Tai Chi moves. Part the wild horse mane, white crane spreads its wings, needle at sea bottom. 11:12. . . . 11:13. I could hear people coming down the hallway, talking. 11:14  . . . 11:15. I hurried back to the room, notebook with the copies of my pitch in hand, big smile on my face.

Introductions

I eagerly shook Mr. Vaughan’s hand and told him how impressed I was with his literary agency, Kimberley Cameron & Associates, their book list, and their well-known dedication to their authors. Mr. Vaughan enthused about Ms. Cameron’s devotion to her agents and her clients, which I found both heartwarming and endearing.

photo of Ethan Vaughan
Ethan Vaughan, Literary Agent

I glanced at the clock. Eight minutes left! No time for small talk. I plunged in. I read my pitch as fast as I could. Head down, monotone, my mind blank.  AND I MEAN BLANK!

If you’d asked me at that moment what my book was about – the book that I’ve worked on for years, the book I’ve dedicated my life to, the book I’ve dreamed about, the book I’ve given up being with family for — if you’d asked me at that moment, I couldn’t have told you who the main characters were, let alone the plot. I was as stiff as a robot.

I looked up to take a breath and knew I’d made a mistake. My pitch was too long and too detailed.  I’d given him more of a synopsis than a pitch. Mr. Vaughan was very kind. He asked questions and I tried to answer. I told him this was my first pitch ever and I was very nervous. He says I did a good job (proof that literary agents do indeed tell lies) and gave me a few suggestion for the “next time” I pitched to an agent.

I left knowing I wouldn’t get a contract but proud of myself for giving it a shot. I’d met many writers who were too shy to pitch their stories, or too afraid. I was shy and afraid, too, but I learned something very valuable in the process. Mr. Vaughan was polite, considerate and helpful. He gave me suggestions for the next time I pitch my  story, which was a very generous gift, indeed.

— Carolyn O’Neal

Carolyn O’Neal is a co-founder of BACCA Literary. 

Categories
BACCA Writers

Hampton Roads Writers Fifth Annual Conference

Carolyn O'Neal at the Hampton Roads Writers Conference, 2013
Carolyn O’Neal at the Hampton Roads Writers Conference, 2013

DAY ONE:

It’s a three-hour drive from Charlottesville to Virginia Beach, unless you hit Navy traffic. Then it could take weeks. I was careful.  I left C’Ville at noon on Thursday, Sept 19th so I wouldn’t get caught in the 5:00 rush.   I wasn’t heading to Virginia Beach for a late summer tan or a fishing trip in the Atlantic. I was going to Virginia Beach to attend the Hampton Roads Writers 5th Annual Conference. It ran Thursday, Sept. 19th through Saturday, Sept. 21st. The organization describes itself like this:

Hampton Roads Writers (HRW) is a nonprofit, Virginia Beach, Virginia-based group of professional and aspiring writers, friends, and supporters of the arts who have joined together to promote the craft and passion of writing and the love of reading and literature in Virginia. We aim to encourage readers and writers of all ages and talents, as well as acknowledge and celebrate awareness of local and contemporary authors and their work. We serve as a resource to our community by creating and supporting literary events throughout the Hampton Roads area.


I signed up the minute I discovered I could pitch my novel to a real, live literary agent who represented my genre. Ten-minutes, one-on-one pitch session. I was excited to get on the road. I grew up in Norfolk so driving through Norfolk to Virginia Beach packed an emotional punch: The tunnel, the Chesapeake Bay, the condos thrown up as soon as Norfolk tore down the old Ocean View Amusement Park.

Chesapeake Bay, photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Chesapeake Bay, photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

I drove by my old elementary school and my parents’ house. I noted the new front porch and a beat up pickup truck parked in the driveway. Mom and Dad never would have let their car look like that. I considered visiting their gravesites but this wasn’t the time to wallow in the past. This was the time to get ready for the future.

The Westin Hotel in Virginia Beach was a great choice for the Conference.

The Westin Virginia Beach Town Center
The Westin Virginia Beach Town Center

Clean and friendly, plus the Hampton Roads Writers (HRW) Conference attendees received a reduced rate. As I checked in, I was greeted by a familiar face, Cliff Garstang from SWAG. Cliff was preparing for his first presentation that evening. I don’t remember when or how I heard about the HRW Conference. Probably from Cliff.

Since I was going to the conference mostly to pitch my story, I had e-mailed HRW earlier asking about their refund policy. Lauran Strait, the President of HRW, was great. Her responses were timely and polite. She told me the formal refund policy:

Registration fully refundable until July 26, 2013; from July 27 to Aug 23, 2013 all refunds will result in a forfeiture of $25.00; from Aug 24 to Sept 11, all refunds will result in a forfeiture of $50.00; after September 11, no refunds will be issued.

I let her know that I was driving three hours to Virginia Beach from Charlottesville and had to book a hotel room for two nights. Lauran understood the effort and expense so she added a special caveat.  If the agent I was going to see canceled at the last minute, I would still receive a full refund. Not only that, she also made sure I was on schedule with my submissions. I’d signed up for a couple of events that required submissions, including a “First Ten Lines Critique Session” and an optional (fee-based) 10-page manuscript evaluation by agent Dawn Dowdle. Lauran even sent e-mail  reminders of when the submissions were due.

After settling into my hotel room, I went to register for the conference. I was given an impressive agenda:

Kevin Maurer, award-winning reporter and New York Times bestselling co-author of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, and Lisa McMann, New York Times bestselling author of the WAKE Trilogy , the VISIONS series, the UNWANTEDS series, will deliver keynote addresses. Other presenters included fiction writers Clifford Garstang, Lydia Netzer, Jeff Andrews, andChantelle Aimée Osman,  author and Certified Public Accountant Jack Downs, poet Jeanne Larsen, and agents Ethan Vaughan, Jeff Ourvan, and Dawn Dowdle.

Chantelle Osmam, President and Owner of Twist of Karma Entertainment
Chantelle Osmam

I attended my first breakout session Thursday evening, 6:30 – 8:00 PM on the topic of PERFECTING YOUR PITCH, presented by Chantelle Aimée Osman, owner of Twist of Karma Entertainment..

Chantelle was exhausted. She’d just arrived in Virginia after a murderous flight from Arizona. After a couple sips of coffee, she began.

Start with your Teaser Pitch.

Give the genre and 2-3 sentences that provide the agent with the basic idea of your novel. Avoid generic statements. Chantelle used the Wizard of Oz to illustrate a Teaser Pitch:

After a cyclone transports a lonely Kansas farm girl to a magical land, she sets out on a dangerous journey to find a wizard with the power to send her home.

Next, give the agent your Expanded Pitch.

Tell the story in an organized fashion.  Add details, avoid backstory.  Highlight heroes, goals, conflict, risk, pivotal elements, turning points, and the end.

Our farm girl, Dorothy, dreams of going over the rainbow. Through a freak cyclone, she and her farmhouse are transported to Munchkinland.  There, she learns the only way back to Kansas is to meet the Wizard of Oz, who has the power to get her home.  So she sets off on a dangerous journey.  Along the way, she meets a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodsman, and a Lion.   And they travel with her.  However, Dorothy has made an enemy of a Wicked Witch, and she and her three friends  …   (Oz pitches courtesy of Christopher Lockhart.)

Chantelle leaned in close and looked us in the eyes.

“Pitches sell you, not just your writing.”

  • If you don’t appear passionate and excited about your own work, no one else will be. You’re starting a business relationship, so be professionals. Dress appropriately (generally just slightly more casual than the person you’re pitching). Be respectful, appear open to ideas and suggestions. Be flexible. The person you’re pitching to has more experience in the industry, and can help.
  • Practice, but don’t sound rehearsed. Comedy pitches should be funny, thriller pitches should have suspense. Switch up words each time to be spontaneous. Be specific, avoid abstract themes and generalizations. Watch your audience; if they appear bored, change tactic. Be prepared to start and stop for questions or other interruptions. If you fumble, recover. Provide verbal milestones to orient the listener  (“at the midpoint” or “in the final scene”.)
  • Avoid overselling, comparisons, describing every side plot and each character’s backstory, disagreeing.
  • Make sure you have a professional synopsis and other information to leave behind ask ab out how to follow up.
  • When e-mailing the agent, be sure to put where you met in the subject line.  For example, ‘Hampton Roads Writers Conference, 2013.’”

Rules of Synopsis:

A literary synopsis is a condensed statement that  conveys the narrative arc of your  manuscript.  A synopsis shows major characters and events, from beginning to end.

  • Begin at the beginning, end at the end.
  • Break it down into 12 beats. Act 1 (3 segments), Act 2 (6 segments), Act 3 (3 segments)
  • Highlight on main characters
  • Use attention getting/action words. This is not just a recitation of facts.
  • Use 3rd person, present tense
  • Tell entire story, avoid cliffhangers.
  • Have synopsis read by people who haven’t read book and don’t know story. Can they understand plot and main characters?
  • Use normal font, e.g. Times New Roman. Nothing unusual.

That was day one.  Watch for future blog posts to learn about day two’s agenda events, how I pitched my novel, and what I learned from the conference.

Logo for Hampton Roads Writers

Carolyn O’Neal