Midwest Writers Workshop- Agent Speak

Today's workshop began with an agent panel with Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation and Diane Freed of Fine Print Literary Management. Both were very helpful and interesting to talk to.

Diane Freed emphasized the importance of finding a good match between writer and agent.

Joanna Stampel-Volpe named 3 resources for researching the right agent for you:

AgentQuery
QueryTracker
GLA (the link to the GLA blog is already on this site)

Contrary to some of the debates out there, both admitted a willingness to look at and even represent self-published works (Diane has successfully represented 2 already), though Joanna said that she would be more interested in seeing the newest work by an author who already has a successful self-published novel to his or her credit, as opposed to representing the already-published work.

Querying from the Publisher's Perspective

Have you ever considered querying a publisher directly? Although you will have a higher probability of success working through an agent, some people are successful submitting directly to a publisher. The following advice is from the blog Editorial Anonymous: A Blog of a Children's Book Editor:

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009

The Autobiographical Portion of Our Program
When submission guidelines ask for a bio of the author to be included in the submission packet, what are editors looking for in general? I have no previous publications to list in the bio, I'm still trying to get that first publication.
1. Don't be cute. At this stage, the bio is about information, not personality. (The bio that eventually goes on your book's backflap might have some touches of personality, but that's later.) So don't tell me you're a "former kid" or that while you're not an expert on a subject, you have "a lot of theories" about it.

2. Don't be weird. Discretion is the better part of valor. You're making a good first impression, so don't over-share. If you're a mother, it's ok to say you're a mom and leave it at that. If you're a mother of seventeen children (twenty-two if you count your husband's other wife's kids), then it's ok to say you're a mom and leave it at that.

3. Try not to veer off topic. I really don't care how many pets you have. Or their names. Or their recent surgeries.

4. Tell me if you are a teacher (not a homeschooler), a librarian, a bookseller, or if you work in publishing. I do not care if you are a nanny, professional clown, swim coach, or ventriloquist. I don't care if you're a fricking play structure-- it's not about how many children you come in contact with, it's about how many children's books you come in contact with.

5. Tell me if there's anything that will help you market the book-- a blog, a lot of experience giving entertaining presentations, whatever. Keep this to the things that will look good on paper-- if you happen to have a cousin with a van/loudspeaker setup, you're going to have to talk us through how driving through the city streets broadcasting "Come And Sit On My Lap and Other Stories! A Magical Trip to the Funny Spot!" is going to help, and that's a conversation for later, possibly with our lawyers.

6. If you are writing nonfiction, tell me if you're a specialist in the nonfiction topic you're writing about. Do not tell me you're in insurance if your manuscript is about caterpillars or teddybears. And if your manuscript is about insurance, well, your manuscript had better not be about insurance.

7. Tell me about your previous books published at houses that paid you for your work. If there aren't any, say "I am not previously published."

8. If you can't say anything else, tell me what inspired you to write about this subject, while strictly adhering to rules (1) and (2). Do not tell me that writing about unicorns is your "dream vision." Do not joke that the idea for your novel about mail bombs came to you after a particularly vexing experience with a publisher's submission process. Do not tell me you're writing about china dolls because you have a collection of 379 of them from around the world and they line the walls of your writing room and with them watching you, you "never have to feel alone."


As I have said before, every query, every cover letter, every submission, is really just trying to get across two big things: (1) How great your manuscript is. (2) What a yahoo you are not.

If you can get those two things across, you don't really have to worry about anything else.

Link to original posting: http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/03/autobiographical-portion-of-our-program.html

Library mailings!

So! The library mailings are on again! John's book received a boost in sales after being listed as bestseller on his publishing company's website for the 2nd month in a row.

This weekend, on the strength of this new information, we are going to stuff envelopes for libraries, asking them to purchase the book for their collections. This is something we meant to do weeks ago, but which got derailed after other commitments prevented us, and I also had a crisis of faith in the whole self-publishing/traditional publishing industries.

So, the journey continues. We'll see what effects the mailings do. Then, on to more query letters, contests, conferences, etc. :)

Hope

Today I'm home from work. John is writing his sequel. This morning he wrote back to a young writer who had written to inquire about venturing forth into the world of writing after college. I wrote back to a literary publicist I had contacted. I also reviewed an estimate that Book Masters had sent me and continued to mull over the costs and benefits of using Book Masters over other self-publishing houses. Later I received another polite rejection letter from an agent.

Doing this work without seeing any immediate payoff, always thinking about costs, and wondering if an agent will ever consider his work can be a massive headache. I feel the muscles in my face taut with tension. But I keep telling myself to be patient. There isn't a deadline for success looming over us. I've always known that success (I should say 'Big Success' since we already have had quite a bit of success) in writing is a long, long process, but it's easy to forget when you're putting so much work into it on a daily basis. I'm glad that John has me to work on the marketing and querying, etc. for the book, while he writes his books, because I can see how having to handle all of it on one's own would be a killer for the creative work of writing- the actual work that a writer wants to be doing. Kudos to all of you writers who are doing all of it or almost all of it on your own.