Due to an unexpected week out of the office I’m getting no better at catching up on my queries. Give me a few weeks and this will look a lot better, but for now I stand at 700 or so queries in my in-box dating back to January 28.
Jessica
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Chip on Your Shoulder
We all have our down days and there’s no doubt we’ve all become frustrated with the publishing process at one point or another. Published authors become frustrated with how long things take or when editors leave or reject their next book, unpublished authors become frustrated with agents and the challenges of “getting in the door,” and agents become frustrated with all of those things and more. It’s natural, normal, and understandable, but it’s not going to help anyone’s cause, least of all your own, to develop a chip on your shoulder and share it with everyone.
Imagine if your agent became frustrated with Publisher Z because they rejected the last three submissions she made to them. Instead of simply brushing the frustration away and moving on with new enthusiasm she decided to let Publisher Z know all about her frustrations, and used the submission she was making on your behalf to do so.
What if she started her pitch to your book with, “I’m sure you’re simply going to ignore this query like you’ve done with the last three books I’ve sent, but I don’t care. I believe in my clients and do this job for love. I agent for myself and my authors write for the love of writing. However, we want the world to read this book and to do so, I need you to buy this book.”
Imagine how mad you’d be. I get queries from authors like this all the time, and while I understand what they must be going through, it also makes it an easy query to reject. Let’s face it, an author who starts out that angry with the process is presenting herself as someone who won’t be easy to work with. So, while it’s understandable that you will, at times, be frustrated, try not to always share it with everyone.
Jessica
Imagine if your agent became frustrated with Publisher Z because they rejected the last three submissions she made to them. Instead of simply brushing the frustration away and moving on with new enthusiasm she decided to let Publisher Z know all about her frustrations, and used the submission she was making on your behalf to do so.
What if she started her pitch to your book with, “I’m sure you’re simply going to ignore this query like you’ve done with the last three books I’ve sent, but I don’t care. I believe in my clients and do this job for love. I agent for myself and my authors write for the love of writing. However, we want the world to read this book and to do so, I need you to buy this book.”
Imagine how mad you’d be. I get queries from authors like this all the time, and while I understand what they must be going through, it also makes it an easy query to reject. Let’s face it, an author who starts out that angry with the process is presenting herself as someone who won’t be easy to work with. So, while it’s understandable that you will, at times, be frustrated, try not to always share it with everyone.
Jessica
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Random Questions
I receive so many questions from readers. Keep them coming! Here’s a collection of those that I didn’t feel warranted a full post, but yet still deserved an answer. Also, keep in mind that some of these may have been answered more extensively in other posts, so don’t forget to search our archives for more detailed information.
I was wondering how important it is for an unpublished author to have a website. Is it really necessary at all or should you wait until you have a book on its way to the store bookshelves? I've had some of my friends tell me I should have one to show agents and editors I'm serious about my writing. Is that the truth?
I honestly don’t think it’s important at all. Work on writing your book, the web site can always (and needs to) come after a deal is made.
If a Canadian (or British, or Australian, etc.) writer ends up with an American agent, who I assume would go after American publishers first, in what currency will the writer be paid?
Typically payment is made in the currency of the publisher or agent. Checks I issue to my clients, from contracts they have, are issued in the American dollar.
Does the age of the author matter to you? Especially in the romance genre—if the author’s age is 50+, will that adversely affect your ability to successfully represent?
Do a quick search through previous blog posts, but this is a subject I’ve definitely discussed in detail. In a nutshell, no. I’m looking for a great book and in many instances there’s no reason for me to ever even discover how old an author is.
Is it a no-no to include the blog name at the end of my query?
Not at all. I think including your blog name and/or web site in your query only makes sense, and let’s put it this way, it can’t hurt anything.
When sending pages in an email (not as an attachment) is it a good idea to format it like a regular full or should I format the pages like an email message? (single space, etc.)
I think you should probably format as an email message, using the formatting options of your email program.
I have been working with two beta readers on my latest book. They have made many good suggestions and I have even changed plot elements based on their recommendations. What is your opinion of working with a beta reader while writing a story?
I think it’s a great idea! Beta readers, like a critique group, are a great way for a writer to learn the craft and get opinions from others she trusts.
What are your thoughts on Canadians finding representation from literary agents in the U.S.?
I don’t know why you wouldn’t. BookEnds has a number of Canadian authors as well as authors from other countries.
Jessica
I was wondering how important it is for an unpublished author to have a website. Is it really necessary at all or should you wait until you have a book on its way to the store bookshelves? I've had some of my friends tell me I should have one to show agents and editors I'm serious about my writing. Is that the truth?
I honestly don’t think it’s important at all. Work on writing your book, the web site can always (and needs to) come after a deal is made.
If a Canadian (or British, or Australian, etc.) writer ends up with an American agent, who I assume would go after American publishers first, in what currency will the writer be paid?
Typically payment is made in the currency of the publisher or agent. Checks I issue to my clients, from contracts they have, are issued in the American dollar.
Does the age of the author matter to you? Especially in the romance genre—if the author’s age is 50+, will that adversely affect your ability to successfully represent?
Do a quick search through previous blog posts, but this is a subject I’ve definitely discussed in detail. In a nutshell, no. I’m looking for a great book and in many instances there’s no reason for me to ever even discover how old an author is.
Is it a no-no to include the blog name at the end of my query?
Not at all. I think including your blog name and/or web site in your query only makes sense, and let’s put it this way, it can’t hurt anything.
When sending pages in an email (not as an attachment) is it a good idea to format it like a regular full or should I format the pages like an email message? (single space, etc.)
I think you should probably format as an email message, using the formatting options of your email program.
I have been working with two beta readers on my latest book. They have made many good suggestions and I have even changed plot elements based on their recommendations. What is your opinion of working with a beta reader while writing a story?
I think it’s a great idea! Beta readers, like a critique group, are a great way for a writer to learn the craft and get opinions from others she trusts.
What are your thoughts on Canadians finding representation from literary agents in the U.S.?
I don’t know why you wouldn’t. BookEnds has a number of Canadian authors as well as authors from other countries.
Jessica
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Kate Douglas on the Next Step
Kate DouglasDemonFire
Publisher: Kensington
Pub date: February 2010
Agent: Jessica Faust
(Click to Buy)
Taking the Next Step in a Writing Career
Thank you, Jessica, for sharing your blog with me today. (To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she’d offered me the spot to shut me up. I’ve been driving her nuts for the past few weeks while waiting for the release of my first mass market paranormal romance, DemonFire, and I have a feeling she gave me today’s spot out of self-preservation. Did I mention the book is out today?)
Oh, maybe about a gazillion times. The funny thing is, this is far from my first book—I have a successful series at Kensington called Wolf Tales (the seventeenth in that series released in January and the eighteenth comes out next month)—but those books sell as trade-sized paperbacks with limited distribution due to their erotic content—no placement in the local Wal-Mart or Target stores for those babies. They’re limited to major bookstores—the big chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, and online booksellers where erotic content isn’t an issue. DemonFire and the next three in the DemonSlayers series should be everywhere that paperback books are sold. They’re what I think of as “vanilla” romances—more for a general audience than my other books—which is a long segue into the main point of my post today, and that’s where an agent comes into managing an author’s career after the author is successfully published.
I’ve made no secret of the fact it took me forever to get my first New York contract. Even after I signed with Jessica, the running joke was that the best thing about having an agent was the fact she could get me rejected a whole lot faster than when I was submitting on my own. I was used to waiting a year—Jessica was getting rejections within weeks!
Luckily, I discovered I’d signed with an agent every bit as stubborn and hard-headed as I am, and eventually she got the right manuscript in front of the right editor at the right time. That submission, the first Wolf Tales, ended up launching Kensington’s new erotic romance line, Aphrodisia, in January 2006, and continues to be the best-selling series among all their titles. The first book is currently in its tenth print run, and I’m contracted into 2011 for more.
But where do you go from there, and how do you grow a career? Jessica and I talked over some different ideas, all revolving around getting out of erotic trades and into a more general audience mass market format, aiming for increased distribution. I gave her one proposal for a mass market paranormal series that she shopped around, but we couldn’t drum up any interest in it at all. We talked about it some more, and Jessica said I needed to think in terms of a “big” book.
Okay. Now I hate to admit this, but I didn’t have a clue what she meant. Agents and editors tend to toss out terms and phrases like we actually know what they mean, and usually I just nod and agree and figure that at some point it will all make sense. It’s like talking about “voice.” Until you find yours as an author, you probably haven’t got a clue what anyone means. Or that old standby, “write the book of your heart.” I hate to sound crass, but the book of my heart was whatever I could sell, and thank goodness I really loved my Chanku shapeshifters, because I’d hate to have to write over twenty books about characters I couldn’t stand.
But I digress. Jessica was still tossing out ideas, I was taking notes, and then she pulled that “big” book description again. So I shot back, “Okay. How about good versus evil?” It doesn’t get much bigger and I thought it was a nice, witty answer.
She said great. Go for it. Send me a proposal. Once I realized she wasn’t kidding, I went to work. I took the idea of good versus evil and localized it, setting a story in a small town on the flank of Mount Shasta in northern California. I’m familiar with the area, the fact Shasta is known for its energy vortex and the local legend of a lost civilization of technologically-advanced Lemurians supposedly living inside the mountain, and the more ideas I jotted down, the stronger my sense of the story became. I think it was the moment that I got a visual of demon-possessed garden gnomes that I knew I had something. I wrote the proposal, Jessica helped me tweak it, I wrote three chapters, she ripped them to shreds—nicely—but this is where trust comes into the agent/author relationship. I trust my agent’s take on things. She knows what works and how to make my writing stronger, so I adjusted my story, ignored a few of her ideas that didn’t work for me, but ultimately we worked together until I had three really great chapters and synopses for three books.
She began shopping it around in November 2008, and we didn’t hear a word. I was so busy trying to get my next Wolf Tales book written that I didn’t worry too much until she finally called and said we had an offer. It was disappointing, to say the least, and I was tempted to turn it down, but Jessica told me not to worry, that we still had a few other editors to hear from. What I didn’t realize is that often the fact an offer has been made will spur other editors to finally LOOK at the proposal that’s been sitting on their desk for weeks. A few days later, a counteroffer came in. Jessica took that one to the first editor who’d offered, and the auction was on.
I can honestly say that having your book proposal go to auction is just about the coolest thing that can possibly happen. And right before both publishers interested in my DemonSlayers trilogy broke for the Christmas holiday, Kensington came through with the winning bid—for four books, not three. I was thrilled to be able to stay with the editor who had first purchased Wolf Tales—Audrey LaFehr has championed my writing from the very beginning, and it’s made this release today even more special, to know that I have a publisher willing to bid good money for my stories and then turn them into books with gorgeous covers and send them out into the world. It wouldn’t have happened without an agent willing to take a chance on me, and it wouldn’t have happened if I’d given up when those rejections first started pouring in—back in 1985.
Twenty years from first submission to first signed contract, and I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s been a great ride and it continues to get better. I’ve never worked harder in my life or had as much fun, and if you want to see what a sixty-year-old grandmother, who always wanted to be an author, can write when she’s got a supportive agent and a terrific editor, pick up a copy of DemonFire.
Did I mention it’s out today? Thanks, Jessica!
Here’s a quick excerpt, just to give you an idea:
“You asked what would happen if things got out of balance.” Dax nodded toward the fireplace. “That’s a good example. It’s happening now. Demons are slipping into this dimension through a pathway that’s normally closed to them, a portal in the vortex which is your mountain, that gives them entrance.”
Not exactly what Eddy wanted to hear. “You’re kidding, right?” He didn’t look like he was kidding. In fact, he looked awfully serious for someone making a joke. “The vortex is all New Age folklore. No one around here really believes it exists, unless you count my father, who is the king of otherworldly theories, or the stores and companies catering to the tourists. The vortex is no more real than the Lemurians.”
“The what?” Dax frowned and stopped rubbing Bumper’s ears. Bumper growled and wagged her tale. Dax went back to rubbing.
Eddy couldn’t sit still any longer. She bounced to her feet and began pacing around the small living room. “Lemurians. They’re not real, unless you ask Dad.” She spun around and laughed. “He’s going to be thrilled when he finds out about you. Proof that some of his crazy theories are actually true.” Dax and the demons, she thought. It didn’t get any better.
“According to local lore, they’re a race of mystical beings, tall, beautiful people with strange powers who supposedly live inside Mount Shasta in rooms made of gold. Legend says they’re descendents of people from the lost continent of Lemuria that sank beneath the sea, that they had advanced science and technology thousands of years ago. They were even supposed to have flying machines, sort of like the old Atlantis myth.”
Dax shook his head. He twisted around in his seat so he could follow her erratic pacing. “Atlantis is no myth. It really existed and its descendants are still around. I’ve never heard of Lemuria. I’ll need to look into it. The vortex, though, is definitely real. How do you think I got here?”
Eddy stopped in her tracks and stared at him, looking for a twitch, a smile, anything to tell her he was teasing.
He wasn’t.
She glanced at Willow. As if the sprite knew she was being watched, she flashed bright blue and just as quickly faded.
Okay. Point made. Eddy took a deep breath. “Why don’t you tell me exactly how you did get here. Just promise to ignore me if I look incredulous.”
Dax stared at her for a long, slow moment. Then he shook his head and his gorgeous lips turned up in an unbelievably sexy grin. “Eddy Marks, I doubt I could ever ignore you . . . not for any reason.”
She felt it right between her thighs. A hot lick of heat that had no business firing her senses and making her muscles clench, especially after a hokey come-on like that. It took a tremendous amount of will to continue gazing directly into those smoldering eyes of his. Demon’s eyes. She had to remind herself that, for all his appeal, Dax was not only a stranger, he’d already admitted to being one of the bad guys.
“I’m waiting,” she said, planting her hands on her hips, ignoring his innuendo and her body’s traitorous response.
He still had that cocky grin plastered on his gorgeous face, but at least Dax settled back against the couch. “I was a demon. An immortal in a world of evil. It suited me for a long time, and then it didn’t.” He shrugged. “For some reason, I began to question the life, the constant desire to cause pain, to kill.” He shook his head, shrugged. Gave her a self-deprecating grin. “I guess I learned the hard way. One does not question evil. I got tossed out of Abyss.”
The snake tattoo crawling out of his waistband slowly writhed across his belly and chest. Mesmerized, Eddy blinked. She must be more exhausted than she’d realized.
The subtle motion stopped. The tattoo stayed put. She swallowed and raised her eyes. It was too unsettling to steal even the quickest glance at his body, not when things like that happened. “Where does a demon go that’s worse than hell?”
Dax ran his fingers lightly over his tattoo. Had he felt it move? He stared at her for a moment before he answered.
“Earth.”
Monday, February 22, 2010
Query Recap
It’s been a while since I’ve done a recap on the queries I’m getting, but since I’ve been inundated in 2010, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what I’m getting and how I’m responding. These are the results of two days of query reading. That does not mean I read every query I received in two days, but this is just the number I was able to respond to.
Total Number of Queries: 40
Fiction: 26
Nonfiction: 14
Total Number I Rejected: 40
Total Number of Requests for Partials: 0
Total Number of Requests for Fulls: 0
Total Number I Deleted Because It Listed 25+ Agents in the “to” Section of the email: 1
Total Number of Queries Written in First Person: 1
Rejections in which I Gave Advice: 4
(The advice I give on queries is usually fairly general, but can range from a variety of things: it could be suggesting that the author learn how to write a proper query, it could be suggesting the author work to write a stronger query, it could be telling the author that the idea is more appropriate for a magazine article than a book, etc.)
Total Number of Thank-Yous in Response to Rejections: 5
Requests for More Information, Advice, or a Query Critique: 1
Queries for Books (or Book Proposals) That Were Not Complete: 2
Duplicate Queries the Author Accidentally Submitted Twice: 3
Requeries for Work I Had Previously Rejected After Reading Partials: 2
Queries Sent or Addressed to the Wrong Agent: 1
Jessica
Total Number of Queries: 40
Fiction: 26
Nonfiction: 14
Total Number I Rejected: 40
Total Number of Requests for Partials: 0
Total Number of Requests for Fulls: 0
Total Number I Deleted Because It Listed 25+ Agents in the “to” Section of the email: 1
Total Number of Queries Written in First Person: 1
Rejections in which I Gave Advice: 4
(The advice I give on queries is usually fairly general, but can range from a variety of things: it could be suggesting that the author learn how to write a proper query, it could be suggesting the author work to write a stronger query, it could be telling the author that the idea is more appropriate for a magazine article than a book, etc.)
Total Number of Thank-Yous in Response to Rejections: 5
Requests for More Information, Advice, or a Query Critique: 1
Queries for Books (or Book Proposals) That Were Not Complete: 2
Duplicate Queries the Author Accidentally Submitted Twice: 3
Requeries for Work I Had Previously Rejected After Reading Partials: 2
Queries Sent or Addressed to the Wrong Agent: 1
Jessica
Friday, February 19, 2010
Query Status
For those who have submitted to me or are considering submitting to me I thought I’d give you a quick update on where things stand in my office. Keep in mind, these are submissions that have been submitted to me and me alone.
E-queries: I have answered all equeries sent prior to January 27. If you sent a query prior to January 26, 2010 you should have received an answer. If you have not yet received an answer check your spam filter or resend. Currently there are 500+ queries in my inbox, all dated after January 26, 2010.
Hardcopy proposals: I have a smattering (that's about ten) of snail mailed proposals that were sent to me in late August and September. I apologize for taking so long but since I was out of the office October through December these sat longer then they should have. I promise that I will respond to all hardcopy proposals by March 1.
Email proposals: I have 31 proposals in my inbox that need my attention. These are proposals I’ve requested. Sadly there are a few that date back as far as August, a couple from September and then, since I was out of the office October through December, the rest seem to be from 2010 (although a few late submissions are there from December). I need to check carefully, but I do believe there is a full request or two in there as well. I am slowly and steadily getting through these. I hope to have all proposals from 2009 answered by April 1. The key word here is “hope.”
A couple of things to note:
All proposals are requested. If you sent an attachment with a query I consider that a query and will only read the attached material if I’m intrigued enough by the query to do so.
I respond to everything. That means I respond to all queries and all requested submissions. If you haven’t received a response and your material was sent prior to January 27 please resend. Either my response got lost in transit or stuck in your spam filter or your query got lost in transit or stuck in my spam filter.
I answer queries and read proposals randomly which means that someone who sent a query yesterday could very easily have an answer sooner then someone who sent a query on January 29. There’s no real explanation for why I do it this way. It could be because a query is short or easier to read, it could grab my attention in a way that’s either positive or negative, or it could be that I feel like going through my inbox backward instead of forward.
Now clearly I need to get reading.
Jessica
E-queries: I have answered all equeries sent prior to January 27. If you sent a query prior to January 26, 2010 you should have received an answer. If you have not yet received an answer check your spam filter or resend. Currently there are 500+ queries in my inbox, all dated after January 26, 2010.
Hardcopy proposals: I have a smattering (that's about ten) of snail mailed proposals that were sent to me in late August and September. I apologize for taking so long but since I was out of the office October through December these sat longer then they should have. I promise that I will respond to all hardcopy proposals by March 1.
Email proposals: I have 31 proposals in my inbox that need my attention. These are proposals I’ve requested. Sadly there are a few that date back as far as August, a couple from September and then, since I was out of the office October through December, the rest seem to be from 2010 (although a few late submissions are there from December). I need to check carefully, but I do believe there is a full request or two in there as well. I am slowly and steadily getting through these. I hope to have all proposals from 2009 answered by April 1. The key word here is “hope.”
A couple of things to note:
All proposals are requested. If you sent an attachment with a query I consider that a query and will only read the attached material if I’m intrigued enough by the query to do so.
I respond to everything. That means I respond to all queries and all requested submissions. If you haven’t received a response and your material was sent prior to January 27 please resend. Either my response got lost in transit or stuck in your spam filter or your query got lost in transit or stuck in my spam filter.
I answer queries and read proposals randomly which means that someone who sent a query yesterday could very easily have an answer sooner then someone who sent a query on January 29. There’s no real explanation for why I do it this way. It could be because a query is short or easier to read, it could grab my attention in a way that’s either positive or negative, or it could be that I feel like going through my inbox backward instead of forward.
Now clearly I need to get reading.
Jessica
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Queries in First Person
I’m not sure if it’s a new trend or just one I didn’t register before, but it seems lately that I’m getting a lot of queries in first person, and I have to admit, except for maybe the very, very rare instance, these are not working for me.
Let me give you an example. . . .
Dear Jessica:
I’m your typical suburban mom. I have five children, a husband I adore most days, a dog, a cat, and a pet lobster (don’t ask). My life is what I think many expect of a housewife. I clean, I cart kids and my job is to take care of my family. And I love this life, or I loved it. Until the day I discovered a side of me I didn’t know existed. It was my erotic, sensual side. The side that discovered that monogamy isn’t always about just that one man, but that couple next door and maybe the one down the street.
Suburbia is my 90,000 word erotic romance. I’m a contest winner and member of The Greatest Writers in the World. I look forward to hearing from you.
Do you see why this format doesn’t work for me? When the query starts I wonder if it’s the author talking and really telling me her life story (because it does happen a lot) or if this is a query from the narrator. Most important, though, this doesn’t give me any information on what the story is really about.
Even if your book is written in first person I do not think it works to write your query in first person. You are selling your story, you’re not the narrator continuing your story.
Jessica
Let me give you an example. . . .
Dear Jessica:
I’m your typical suburban mom. I have five children, a husband I adore most days, a dog, a cat, and a pet lobster (don’t ask). My life is what I think many expect of a housewife. I clean, I cart kids and my job is to take care of my family. And I love this life, or I loved it. Until the day I discovered a side of me I didn’t know existed. It was my erotic, sensual side. The side that discovered that monogamy isn’t always about just that one man, but that couple next door and maybe the one down the street.
Suburbia is my 90,000 word erotic romance. I’m a contest winner and member of The Greatest Writers in the World. I look forward to hearing from you.
Do you see why this format doesn’t work for me? When the query starts I wonder if it’s the author talking and really telling me her life story (because it does happen a lot) or if this is a query from the narrator. Most important, though, this doesn’t give me any information on what the story is really about.
Even if your book is written in first person I do not think it works to write your query in first person. You are selling your story, you’re not the narrator continuing your story.
Jessica
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
My Grammar Handicap
Once, long ago, I ran into an old high school English teacher at a cocktail party. She was thrilled to see me and wanted to spend some time just catching up and, of course, she wanted to pitch her book to me.
The first thing this English teacher asked when we finally had the chance to sit down and talk was how I could have become a book editor when I was so horrible at grammar in high school. Yes, I’ll admit, I was one of those students who regularly got A’s on my writing assignments, but D’s on the grammar portion. Of course high school had been years ago and I didn’t think it was necessary for her to bring it up, but that’s a rant for another time.
What I had to explain to this teacher and what I should explain to you is that there are many different types of editors in all aspects of publishing (book, magazine, newspaper, etc.) and each of these editors has a very specific job. An assignment editor at newspapers and magazines, for example, is responsible for keeping up on news and issues and assigning reporters to the stories they’ll be writing. An assignment editor will often read the story overall to make sure the writer is headed in the right direction and to edit for content. It’s the copy desk and copy editors, however, who have the job of creating the headline to go with the story and editing for grammar and punctuation.
Book publishing is not much different. When I was an editor I was an acquisitions editor, which means my job was to acquire books for the publishing house and edit for story, not for technical issues. That meant working with the author on overall big-picture issues and writing major revision letters. It was the copy editor whose job was to make sure the typos were fixed, the commas were in the right places, and the grammar was what it should be.
I love my job as an agent and I still stay true to many of my acquisitions roots. In other words, I work closely with many of my authors on those big-picture issues and write a number of revision letters. I know my limitations, however, and I leave the real grammar issues to those much more grammar-wise than me.
Jessica
The first thing this English teacher asked when we finally had the chance to sit down and talk was how I could have become a book editor when I was so horrible at grammar in high school. Yes, I’ll admit, I was one of those students who regularly got A’s on my writing assignments, but D’s on the grammar portion. Of course high school had been years ago and I didn’t think it was necessary for her to bring it up, but that’s a rant for another time.
What I had to explain to this teacher and what I should explain to you is that there are many different types of editors in all aspects of publishing (book, magazine, newspaper, etc.) and each of these editors has a very specific job. An assignment editor at newspapers and magazines, for example, is responsible for keeping up on news and issues and assigning reporters to the stories they’ll be writing. An assignment editor will often read the story overall to make sure the writer is headed in the right direction and to edit for content. It’s the copy desk and copy editors, however, who have the job of creating the headline to go with the story and editing for grammar and punctuation.
Book publishing is not much different. When I was an editor I was an acquisitions editor, which means my job was to acquire books for the publishing house and edit for story, not for technical issues. That meant working with the author on overall big-picture issues and writing major revision letters. It was the copy editor whose job was to make sure the typos were fixed, the commas were in the right places, and the grammar was what it should be.
I love my job as an agent and I still stay true to many of my acquisitions roots. In other words, I work closely with many of my authors on those big-picture issues and write a number of revision letters. I know my limitations, however, and I leave the real grammar issues to those much more grammar-wise than me.
Jessica
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Quoting Rejection Letters
I don’t care who wrote it, I don’t care if it was an editor, an agent, or another author. Do not, ever, quote a rejection letter in your query.
I just received a query in which the author said, Your Best Friend from Top Literary Agency called my book, “a beautifully written book similar to Bestselling Author,” and my first thought isn’t that I need to nab this book because Best Friend Agent has impeccable taste. It’s what else did Best Friend Agent say that made her reject the book instead of offer representation, and how many other agents have rejected the book before you even thought to query me?
And then I think I’ll just trust Best Friend Agent and reject the query too because I don’t have much time on my hands and she really does have impeccable taste.
Jessica
I just received a query in which the author said, Your Best Friend from Top Literary Agency called my book, “a beautifully written book similar to Bestselling Author,” and my first thought isn’t that I need to nab this book because Best Friend Agent has impeccable taste. It’s what else did Best Friend Agent say that made her reject the book instead of offer representation, and how many other agents have rejected the book before you even thought to query me?
And then I think I’ll just trust Best Friend Agent and reject the query too because I don’t have much time on my hands and she really does have impeccable taste.
Jessica
Monday, February 15, 2010
Formatting Guidelines
I recently received a partial request (first fifty pages) from a legitimate agency, but the submission guidelines and personal request never stated if the partial should be double or single spaced to include the exact fifty pages. I wanted to know if I should double space the pages just in case, since I am sending them off via mail per the agent’s request, or single space to include the actual fifty pages.
Manuscripts, partials, or any submissions to agents and editors should always, always be double-spaced. There is never, ever an exception to this rule unless the agent specifically says she wants it single-spaced.
I’m not sure what you mean by exact fifty pages, but the fifty pages the agent is asking for are double-spaced, so those would be the fifty pages she’s expecting. If you have a chapter break that’s more than fifty pages, then you choose the end of the chapter that’s closest to fifty pages.
Typically this is a question I might answer under my Random Questions posts, except I had a bigger concern when reading this, and that’s a concern about your knowledge of publishing submission guidelines. Before you send anything out to agents I suggest you spend some time on agent blogs, web sites, or, at the very least, reading a book or two on what agents expect from submissions. This is an incredibly basic detail and one I think most of my readers have known or understood for a long time. If you’re asking a question like this my concern is that you are making even bigger mistakes in your submission process and could benefit from a little knowledge before reaching out to agents.
I have a feeling my readers will be able to provide you with a great list of resources and information to help you understand this business better.
Jessica
Manuscripts, partials, or any submissions to agents and editors should always, always be double-spaced. There is never, ever an exception to this rule unless the agent specifically says she wants it single-spaced.
I’m not sure what you mean by exact fifty pages, but the fifty pages the agent is asking for are double-spaced, so those would be the fifty pages she’s expecting. If you have a chapter break that’s more than fifty pages, then you choose the end of the chapter that’s closest to fifty pages.
Typically this is a question I might answer under my Random Questions posts, except I had a bigger concern when reading this, and that’s a concern about your knowledge of publishing submission guidelines. Before you send anything out to agents I suggest you spend some time on agent blogs, web sites, or, at the very least, reading a book or two on what agents expect from submissions. This is an incredibly basic detail and one I think most of my readers have known or understood for a long time. If you’re asking a question like this my concern is that you are making even bigger mistakes in your submission process and could benefit from a little knowledge before reaching out to agents.
I have a feeling my readers will be able to provide you with a great list of resources and information to help you understand this business better.
Jessica
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