"Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time..."
You'd like to think that once you've been published, you'll never have to write another query letter, but Colleen and I both know better. You change agents, you do proposals, you have to pitch every project in one way or another. So there's something for everyone in this no nonsense list of Query Dos and Don'ts from literary agent Wendy Sherman:
DO...
Write a fabulous query letter
Tell us why you chose our agency
Tell us why this book has an audience, and why you're the one to write it
Include information about your credentials to write this book, publications and prizes, awards, and conferences
Know the competition and describe those titles
Tell us which well-known writer's work yours most clearly compares to
Keep your letter under two pages
You can include a double-spaced table of contents and overview (non-fiction)
You can include a double spaced 1st chapter (fiction)
Tell us if you are submitting to more than one agency
Always include a SASE
Please be sure to provide us with your email, phone number, and address.
Read the books on how to find an agent - there are several. There is much valuable information that will help you throughout this process.
DON'T...
Refer me to your website for a reading sample.
Tell me about all the agents who have turned you down
Call to see if we received the material
Send me a query for something I turned down before (even if you rewrote it)
Tell me about several books I can choose from. Pick one!
Send anything that is single-spaced or in type less than 12 pt.
E-mail. We no longer accept e-mail queries.
Fax. We do not accept fax queries
Drop it off in person
According to Sherman, "The bottom line is: do your homework. Be as well prepared as possible. Read the books that will help you present yourself and your work with polish."
I've spent the last few days helping a loved one car shop, which has changed a lot in some ways (thanks to the Internet and Consumer Reports) and is exactly the same (unfortunately) in others. Most of the sales people are knowledgeable, helpful, and respectful, but sadly, a few of them are still the kind who give car guys a bad name.
But it's possible to learn lessons from both the good and bad that can be applied to the "selling" of your story to the reader (a group which includes agents and editors.)
1. Be honest about what you're selling. The promise you set out for the reader in the story's opening should not later shift in a whole different direction. ("You don't look like the kind of woman who ought to drive an economy vehicle. Let's walk over and look at some of these beauties! You like red, don't you?") Consumers who feel tricked, manipulated, or flat-out lied to won't be inclined to buy.
2. The shiny little extras may add a bit of razzle-dazzle, but it's what's under the hood that really counts. Is your story premise solid? Are your characters compelling? Is your dialogue sharp and crisp? If the answer is no, all the extra chrome appearance packaging (or snazzy gimmicks) in the world won't sell your work.
3. Don't rely too much on slick salesmanship. A great product sells itself -- if you'll only quietly introduce it and then get the heck out of its way.
So as you go about the selling part of this career, take heart. It's really not all about the cult of self-promotion or whether you aggressively chase down readers at your signing. (Heaven forbid.)
It's about story in the end, and I find that heartening.
It was inevitable. Joe the Plumber has a book coming out. According to the Huffington Post:
The book, called "Joe the Plumber -- Fighting for the American Dream," is to be released by a group called Pearlgate Publishing and other small publishing houses.
"I am not going to a conglomerate that way we actually can get the economy jump started. Like there is five publishing companies in Michigan. There's a couple down in Texas. They are small ones that can handle like 10 or 15,000 copies. I can go to a big one that could handle a million or two. But they don't need the help. They are already rich. So that's spreading the wealth to me," he said.
Errrkaaay…It’s totally possible that a gifted ghostwriter could take the raw material of Joe's life story and make a great book out of it, but I don’t think that’s going to happen here. I think this is going to be more of his chunky, ill-informed "folk wisdom" (not). Frankly, I wish the dude would, for the good of the nation, shut up and go away. But I love living in a country where people don't have to shut up and go away. It's a conundrum. I guess if not having a plumbing license hasn’t kept him from being “the plumber,” there’s no reason his Flintstonian grasp on the language should keep him from being “the writer”. All I can do is exercise my right as a reader to say no thanks.
One of the most disturbing trends in the publishing industry lately is the manipulation of bestseller lists in order to impart legitimacy on books that haven’t earned the bestseller rank. I suspect many of these would never get done at all if the publisher didn’t know in advance that a sponsoring special interest group was going to buy the copies required to pump it into the market like a barium enema. If a book I hate is loved by enough readers to earn a place on the lists, so be it, but bulk purchases that use the lists as a high-priced ad space corrode the credibility of lists themselves and harm authors who’ve legitimately gotten agonizingly close, only to be edged out by well-funded pretenders. It kills me that respected publishers participate in these shenanigans. The only upside is that the dirty money might be used to provide advances for more deserving authors. Whatevah. All I can do in my little corner of the universe is email bookstores and tell them that I will not patronize the store while books with falsified bestseller stats have FOS (Front of Store) placement.
My extended family is living proof that liberals and conservatives can peacefully coexist with genuine love and respect for one another. Coulter, Hannity, and Limbaugh are not my enemies. Franken, Moore, and Olbermann are not the enemies of my parents. In the big picture, it’s the constant vociferous bashing, jingoism, and hate talk that are the enemies of peace and progress. I can't tell Rush or Rachel to shut up. I cherish their right to speak freely. But I am hereby exercising my right to say "I'm not listening." I refuse to tune in for one more word of slanted, vitriolic, blow-holes-gone-wild blather, be it righty tighty or lefty libby. And I'm taking fifteen minutes a couple times a week to email the local businesses who sponsor AM hate radio to tell them that I will be unable to patronize their business as long as they sponsor programming that promotes hate and ignorance because I feel that it is tangibly damaging the country I love.
I will never support any restrictions on free speech. I honor Joe the Plumber’s right to peddle his pretzel logic and snake oil via the media of his choice. God bless the America in which any megalomaniacal pinhead is free to grasp after his fiteen minutes and sign a "book deal" (with like five publishing companies in Michigan and a couple down in Texas), but having heard this guy talk, I’m just not interested in anything he has to say. I invite you to join me in my disinterest and enjoy not reading Joe’s book. (I’m going to enjoy not reading it next week almost as much as I’m enjoying not buying it right now!)
Do the tiny seeds I sow in my little victory garden change the world? Heck, yes! They change my world. Cultural dynamics begin with personal conscience. We the People (make that We the Market) have the power to guide the publishing industry and the airwaves in a more intelligent direction by choosing civility over slander, journalism over jingoism, craft over craftiness. One little string bean at a time, we can tone down the tone by turning down the volume (the sales volume, that is). It can’t be legislated politically, it has to be embraced individually.
An eloquent lesson in storytelling, "Give Up Yer Aul Sins" is the Oscar nomniated short from a Brown Bag Film series that repurposed 50-yr-old recordings of Dublin school children telling Bible stories. Watch and learn.
Director/Producer - Cathal Gaffney Animator - Alan Shannon Producer - Darragh O'Connell Original recordings by Peig Cunningham
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)
And even then, you'll have your mother or your old man or some other spoilsport riding you, asking you why the hell you never get up off the couch.
So I guess we've established that criticism is a part of life. So you might as well be happy doing whatever you're being flailed about.
As for me, I choose to write books, risk rejection, pick myself up and write another and another. I have something to say, and this is how I choose to say it. To the very best of my ability.
So what about you? Are you sitting around waiting for some sort of guarantee of universal acceptance? Seriously. Or are you going to finish polishing that book, research those markets, and (you know who you are) finally get that query or submission in the mail?
2008 National Book Awards were announced last night at a black tie dinner in New York. I was in Houston, Texas in my PJs, taking a break from a 16-hour writing day, downing a beer in front of "Top Chef". (Sheesh, we live in a competitive world.) Anyway. The envelope, please...
YA Lit Judy Blundell What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
Poetry Mark Doty Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins)
Nonfiction Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton & Company)
Fiction Peter Matthiessen Shadow Country (Modern Library)
I have a serious problem. All of my bookshelves (and I have many) look like the ones pictured. Or much worse. Besides that, there are the books stacked beneath nightstands, hidden in magazine racks, and shoved in various nooks and crannies.
Many are old favorites. Some not so much. Others are autographed by good friends, and far too many are waiting around to catch my eye.
So what's a book hoarder to do? Psst... Buy more bookcases, whispers my avaricious soul, but I know in my heart there could never be enough bookcases or enough room in my house to place them.
I know in my heart the time has come. Time to set some books free, from paperbacks (even autographed copies) I know I'll never reread to those I suspect, after a decent interval (years-long in many cases) will never get read in the first place. It's time to find new homes for hardcovers I've loved and loaned to friends and duplicate copies of the audio version of my own book. Though I've been holding on to most of the books I've used to research the historicals I've written, it's probably time to turn some of them loose as well. (Sob!!!)
So today I culled, at least a little, but rather than earn a few measly bucks of store credit trading in, I e-mailed a young mother I barely know save for the fact that she loves to read and has little money to buy books. She reacted quickly, gratefully, reminding me of something Joni recently wrote about so movingly: that of all the joys that books can bring up, it is sharing them that's best.
But lest you think I'm as generous as St. Joni, I still have hundreds of books left. As proof, I'll tell you that this photo was taken *after* I cleaned house. ;)
So, bibliophiles out there, how do you deal with the storage problem? Have you ever been tempted, as I have lately, to buy an Amazon Kindle or E-reader due to space considerations? And if you have one, do you miss the feel of paper-in-your hands, the smell the wafts up from fresh pages? And what about your eyes? Do they suffer from the screen-time?
Sitting under an acutely blue sky in her quiet garden yesterday, my friend and I were talking about the way we process ourselves and the world through both writing and reading stories. While the gently literary women's fiction written by my friend is a world away from Nick Cave's cynical lyrics in terms of genre and style, both consistently generate a host of thinky thoughts for me -- hers are soundtracked by brown wrens and mockingbirds, his by weathered band buddies.
Check this out. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live via the BBC. "What we once thought we had we didn't, and what we have now will never be that way again...we call upon the author to explain..."
...Well, I go guruing down the street, young people gather round my feet Ask me things, but I don't know where to start They ignite the power-trail straight to my father's heart And once again I call upon the author to explain
Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought? I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker, it's fucked up and he is a fucker But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain I call upon the author to explain
...Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best! He wrote like wet papier mache, went the Heming-way weirdly on wings and with maximum pain We call upon the author to explain
Down in my bolthole I see they've published another volume of unreconstructed rubbish "The waves, the waves were soldiers moving". Well, thank you, thank you, thank you And again I call upon the author to explain Yeah, we call upon the author to explain
Prolix! Prolix! There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
Speaking of things that bring a lump to my throat, I thought I'd share this Reuter's photo by Goran Tomasevic working in Iraq. According to Yahoo News, it was one of this past week's most e-mailed photos, and no wonder.
This photo is a study in irony: the innocence of the sleeping puppy juxtaposed against the instruments of war. There is a sweetness in the fact that some GI, most likely a young person very far from home, would shelter this pup under such conditions; there is a tragedy in the bleak surroundings and the danger to both the GIs and the animal.
In that irony there is story. And in every good story, I believe, irony abounds.
There are three main types, you may recall from high school. Verbal is often synonymous with sarcasm. It's the contrast between what a character says and what he/she means.
Dramatic is often used to build suspense. It's when the reader knows something the character does not. Usually something having to do with a nasty surprise in store for our intrepid heroine.
Situational is when the reader expects one thing to happen and something else entirely occurs. (Surprise!) This one is often used to great effect in comedy.
Sounds relatively simple, but don't sell irony short. In addition to its use in plot and dialogue, irony can be used to deepen character by giving a person who appears to be a stock type totally unexpected, seemingly contradictory attributes. Irony can even be used to enhance setting, for example when writing of a rough-and-tumble frontier town's beloved opera house or a leather S&M bar in an Iowa City suburb. Irony adds complexity and hints in all those contradictions we find so captivating in real life.
So as you write today, think about how you might use this tool to add depth to your work. And if you're really interested, check out more on the many faces or irony.
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. -Robert Frost
Frost has always had the ability to elicit a lump in my throat, so I'll share this lesser-known favorite of his work. I used the final stanza as an epigraph on one of my desert-set novels.
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it—it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it be less— A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home
PW reported yesterday that Steven King's animated short story "N" has hit a million downloads. According to Yahoo News:
"Stephen King has once again lured his readers to try a new way to enjoy a story," Susan Moldow, executive vice president and publisher of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, said Thursday in a statement.
The print version of King's short story, in which a psychiatrist fatally absorbs the madness of one of his patients, is included in the collection "Just After Sunset," released this week.
Enjoy Kings commentary and all 25 eps via the widget below!
Sarah Silverman is writing a book, several sources confirm. Publishers have been fighting over it all morning and afternoon, with Trident Media Group founder Daniel Strone overseeing the proceedings and no doubt smiling broadly as the pot climbs past $2.5 million.
One of Mr. Strone's other clients, meanwhile, ex-Microsoft sponsor Jerry Seinfeld, has a book on the market this week that is said to have driven at least two publishers crazy enough to submit bids in the $7 million to $8 million dollar range.
And later...
The auction for comedian Sarah Silverman's book has ended, with HarperCollins emerging victorious after submitting a house bid in the neighborhood of $2.5 million dollars..
Meanwhile, a Tina Fey book recently sold for $6 million.
There's a lot to say about the this and that of mega mill advances for celebs, but if you (like me) momentarily felt this news flash like a fork to the spleen, let's remember two things.
First, all three of these celebs are genuine writers, not some barely literate pro football oaf and two well-packaged pop princesses. This is not book money being sucked up by Paris Hilton gassing on about her four minutes in jail. These are three people who love words and have the talent and skill to use them masterfully.
Second, we're contantly told by our agents that book deals are about one thing and one thing only: what the market will bear. And this is proof that the market will bear a hell of a lot. I'm not saying, Hey, Tina got six mill, so can we!; I'm saying that in the present whirling maelstrom of craptacular dysfunction that is the American economy, Sarah Silverman got exactly the same advance she would have gotten six months ago. I think this is a good indication of faith in the recovery of the market. The dire predictions we're hearing are not unfounded, but there is good reason to be optimistic, or at least remain calm.
The publishing industry is still here and will remain. Yes, there will be some bloodletting, but the dust will settle, and writers with talent, tenacity, and a cool head prevailing will survive just fine.
And in case this pep talk hasn't cheered you up, here's Sarah's disection of the word cancer. ("Wordplay can be fun!")
