I’ll be hanging out with my client Alex Temblador, discussing her publishing path, her book Half Outlaw, and doing a Q&A afterward. Come join us! (Sign up via this link)
Pre-order Half Outlaw from Interabang Books (via this link) and be put in a drawing to win a #HalfOutlaw gift bag full of goodies. Half Outlaw was named a Most Anticipated Crime Book of 2022 by Crime Reads and part of LitHub’s 35 Novels You Need to Read This Summer. And it’s just a badass book with a fierce protagonist.
The past year was indefinable in so many ways. I struggle to find the words, as I’m sure many of us do. Personally, politically, socially, spiritually it’s been. . . something. But the readers of this little blog are interested in my professional perspective. So: let’s talk about the publishing industry. Could it survive the pandemic, political upheaval, social unrest of 2020? (Reader, it did).
It made some questionable moves, with the acquisition of books like American Dirt, Apropos of Nothing, and Troubled Blood. There was a reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement, which resulted in calls for more Black voices, but many argue and agree that the lack of diversity in publishing and the industry’s performative response to it, is a never-ending cyclical issue.
And closer to home, agent scandals erupted at a pace as if a global pandemic didn’t exist. Literary agents and agencies saw increasing demands for transparency and ethical behavior. Some may not survive in the industry as a result. Individual agents faced backlash on behalf of their clients. My peers publicly parted ways with established clients for problematic behavior such as sexual harassment, racism, and gaslighting.
Much of this was fast-moving, forgotten-after-the-next-controversy-broke, but the ripples had an effect. There has been an undeniable increase in anxiety seeping into all corners of the industry. Including into the already nerve-wracked minds of the hundreds of thousands of querying authors. How can you trust agents? How do you know an agent will be there for you long-term and won’t be at the center of some Twitterstorm/unearthed as a terrible professional/person? And how can you trust yourself that you are making good decisions and won’t find yourself facing the mob?
Since a tiny percentage of this group are readers of this blog, I’m sharing that you’re not alone. I can’t speak for all agents, but I do think a majority of us have felt the shift. This past year, I constantly re-examined my goals, my mission, my reason for doing what I do. I stumbled, more than once. How was I contributing to the conversation, positive and/or negative? I spiraled out and in, was off social media then back on, had highs of elation and lows of pessimism.
And then in late-August I came down with a moderate case of COVID-19 (link to an article that a local newspaper did on my experience). At the same time the largest wildfire in recent California history blanketed the sky with smoke, making the air hazardous to breathe for weeks. The personal overwhelmed the professional. I couldn’t work, I had no desire to be connected online and life, well it sucked. Physical recovery was about two months, emotional. . . I’ll let you know.
It did bring the importance of patience into sharp focus. The fast pace of social media conversations and industry scandals will not slow down. It’s important for me to keep track of it all, in order to have an understanding of the climate. But the choices I make as a literary agent (and perhaps you as an author) do not have to be at the same pace. We are caretakers of stories, one of the deepest aspects of the human psyche. This is not a fleeting mission.
So I remind myself:
This reminder further solidified something my clients already know. That despite my incredibly high expectations of them, I am not a shark (more like a gray whale I guess?). But I believe that the patience I continue to develop will support them in navigating the industry as strongly as a shark would. (Seriously, gray whales are awesome.)
This reminder is also for authors seeking literary agents. Take your time to choose who to query and who to accept an offer from, the more thoughtful the process, the less likely it’ll be a choice you regret (the same goes for what you post online).
I signed seven exciting new clients in 2020: R.B. Lemberg, Zipporah Smith, Jasmine Skye, Kristen Schmitt, Alex Crespo, Chelsea Catherine, and DaVaun Sanders, all of whom have something fresh, poignant, and interesting to say via their fiction. Many are undertaking massive rewrites with me, but I see the long-term potential and am looking forward to what the future holds for them.
At the close of the year I sold my client Rati Mehrotra’s sophomore project Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove to Macmillan. Her debut Markswoman (one of my first deals) sold in early 2016, marking nearly five years between announcements. I’m so proud of her, the persistence and patience paid off.
And I’m happy to report there seems to be no long-term side-effects from COVID (although increasing my vitamin levels was crucial for full-recovery). I’m still catching up professionally from the experience, so I expect to be closed to queries until March, if not longer. I’m resisting the urge to rush through this more subtle part of the healing process. It’s important that I maintain the balance of what I can do, with what I should do, in order to be a stable force for my clients.
So, I thank you for your patience.
It is universally claimed that one of the major reasons submissions get rejected is because of grammar errors. That an agent will take one look at the spotty pages and toss it out.
So those of you who have done the research and understand the submission process to the best you can, of course you comb through your pages, even futilely AFTER you send it (I see you, you anxiety-ridden worker bees). And upon re-reading you discover that you misplaced a comma, or even worse, misused a homophone! So you agonize when that rejection letter comes in, was it because you spelled the witch’s altar with an “e”? How could you have been so dumb?
I’m here to reassure you. We are human, we make mistakes. Publishers have entire departments whose soul job (see what I did there?) is to make sure their content is grammar-error free. And even then it’s not a hundred percent, we’ve all caught a random error in a published book.
Sure, there are professionals (or people in general) who will judge your pre-published work based on its grammatical precision. But before you label yourself stupid or inferior for making those mistakes, try to see the bigger picture.
“Perfect” grammar is an inherently classist concept (PrintRun Podcast has a wonderful episode about this: Grammar and Power). Someone who belittles others about grammar, had the privilege of an elite education. They are attempting to wield power–their intention is to make you feel inferior, nothing else.
And by default, agents sit in a position of power. Power creates hubris. It’s a reality we’ve all been faced with. Some deal with it better than others.
So turn the picture around. Consider what you want in a literary agent. If an agent actually rejects your submission because of specific grammar errors (potentially rules that you were not educated in) do you want to work with them? Coming from such different perspectives, will they understand or relate to the content and be able to champion it with the passion and sensitivity it deserves?
This is not to say you should toss all your grammar concerns aside. Odds are your submission isn’t getting very far because your writing is underdeveloped. Writing is first and foremost an apprenticeship. You should be continuously honing your skills, including your proof-reading abilities, so your prose reaches toward your ultimate goal, whether it be more elevated, more streamlined, easier to read, more beautiful etc.
This may seem like conflicting advice, don’t worry and do worry about grammar. To be clear, understanding why grammar is important and how to wield it, can and will strengthen your writing. This education is an attainable power, but there is no shame in your ignorance of it. Your path is different, but your work is not inferior. Anyone who tells you different, whatever position of power they hold, is the one with the complex.
Part of a literary agent’s job is, sadly, “crushing dreams.” With every rejection I send I know I am causing real pain to another person out there. Joey Franklin stated in his fantastic Poets & Writers article Submit That Manuscript! Why Sending Out Your Work Is So Important, “Neuroscientists have actually identified similarities between our response to rejection and our response to physical pain.” I was equally in total agreement and completely horrified. I’ve had reactions to rejections that lasted hours if not days. But I also send rejections on an almost daily basis. My submission karma is not looking good.
Franklin goes on to express why submitting is so important. It’s a part of the necessary evolution and development of your writing. You need your dreams crushed so you can pick them up again and make them stronger. Ignorance is bliss, but it won’t get you published (in most cases).
I was on a panel and a writer asked, “How can I balance picking out comparable titles yet staying true to my story because it’s too different, unique.”
I looked her straight in the eye and replied, “Trust me. Your story is not unique.”
Woah. I knew instantly it was a bit much, a knee-jerk response.
A good reminder that writers aren’t seeing what I’m seeing in my inbox, the constant refrain of: “My story doesn’t have any comparable works.” or “What I’ve written is beyond compare.” etc., ignoring the magnitude of what makes up the literary canon. The dozens of weirdly similar concepts being pitched. The two-thousand submissions in two months.
Luckily, and to my embarrassment, the agent next to me chimed in to ease the tension. She used a word which resonated with me and the room full of writers. Fresh.
Stories, by their nature, are repetitive:
But yours can be a fresh take.
Take a story about a superhero who saves the world. How many times have you read that one? I bet you’re rolling your eyes right now. Me too. So how did a movie with that same old story make over 200 million dollars world-wide opening weekend just this year? Because it was fresh. Wonder Woman was a superhero movie starring a female superhero, directed by another female. Gasp. (Sad that in 2017 this is considered fresh, but we’ll save that rant for another time. Throw in the argument that a female screenplay writer should have been involved, and my head might explode.)
So how do you know you are writing something fresh? By reading, reading, reading. Then writing, writing, writing. Then submitting, submitting, submitting. And all over again. Writing is an apprenticeship. The more you read, write, and submit, the more you learn. You learn to recognize the commonality of stories and writing. You begin to see the building blocks which all books are built on and the mythologies that have supported stories for a millennia. You come to understand what is universal truth versus lazy stereotypes. And your vision shows in your writing. You are able to take a story and make it your own, put a new spin on a tired tale. The more awareness of how wide and sweeping the literary world is, the better you can navigate it.
So perhaps your story is not unique. But it can be fresh.
In general, publishing moves slowly (we’re talking molasses). You can be out on submission for months, even years, first with literary agents and then again with publishers. So it can be incredibly frustrating to hear stories of authors getting signed by an agent after two weeks or being picked up by a publisher after three days. You’ve spent years honing your craft, learning the market, and researching industry professionals, while newer, younger authors are celebrating on Twitter or shouting with glee on their blogs about their astonishing and seemingly-instant success, causing you to feel like you’ve been too long in the query trenches, that you’ll never get published.
This is not true. The timing of when/if your manuscript gets picked up depends on many different factors, far too many to fit into one blog post. But a main factor is what kind of appeal your manuscript has. I like to break it down into three types: *note, these categories are assigned given that the manuscripts are well-written, evenly-paced, and tightly-plotted.
Market Hot 🔥🔥🔥
These are the stories that happen to hit the right note on the market. They are timely, they are polished, and the author has managed to leverage it to be visible to multiple agents and editors at one time. These are the projects with multiple agent offers after only a week on submission. The reason these get snatched up so quickly is agents know they are hot. There is a distinct advantage to being the first to make an offer, and if that’s not possible, someone else will offer soon, and so an agent has to read it fast or risk being left in the dust when the fight is over. And when the dust clears, often that same manuscript ends up selling at auction with publishers not long after, while those agents that lost out quietly weep over ice cream.
The odds of your submission falling in this category are slim. But given the excitement they generate, these are the stories you hear the loudest. Try not to compare yourself to this. Dream big always, but be kind to yourself as the path to publication is long and hard for most.
Heart Novel ❤️❤️❤️
These are the manuscripts that land smack in the middle of an agent’s MSWL (manuscript wish list) but aren’t necessarily market hot. These stories are the reason most of us got into the business. For example, I’m dying for an adult upmarket expansive historical romance set in a Mexican hacienda, with thoughtful social commentary layered into it, written by a latina/indigenous author. Or a northern California fantasy full of local magic, cryptozoology, weed, and redwoods. This is super specific to me and my tastes, not to the market. If one of these landed in my inbox, I would sneak it up to the top of my tbr-list. Not because I know competition will be tight, not because I have a list of editors the length of my arm to send it to, but because it’s a story I believe in, a story that touches my heart.
These are also rare (I’ve signed one) and may not hit the publishers the same way. Maybe the heart novel gets an agent quickly, but could be on submission to publishers for months/years. Maybe the agent sells the client’s next work, waiting until the client makes a name before selling the heart novel. That your ms will hit exactly what the agent is looking for is far-fetched, although your odds increase exponentially with the more research you do on each agent. At least if your project comes close, it will definitely make us pay attention.
Dark Horse 🌚🌚🌚
Finally this category is probably where your manuscript lands. The unknowns. The slushpile. The surprise. Most agents after a drink or two will tell you they didn’t know they wanted that particular submission until it landed on their desk. Of course you want to aim for the right genre and reader age range that the agent represents, but within that the potential is vast and varied. I had no idea I wanted a middle-grade historical set in post-WWII Japan plus tiny dragons or a military space adventure with an unreliable narrator. I fell in love after they were submitted to me. The response times on these can be weeks, to months to even a year or so depending on the agent’s workload, the ever-changing market, and available space on their client list. There may be R&Rs (revise and resubmit) and phone conversations without an offer. It could even end with the heart-breaking “this is good but I didn’t fall in love,” rejection. The potential to find a Dark Horse is why agents have a submissions inbox. But we’re busy with our clients, so we have to carve out the time to read that manuscript we’ve been sitting on.
There is always space for the Dark Horse. It just might take it longer to get to the finish line.
Remember those days when you so naively believed to be an author all you had to do was write? How I long for that innocence. In the current market, whether traditionally or indie published, authors are expected to be self-promoters, indeed have to be to survive. You hear a lot of buzz at conferences or online around the term “author platform” and a quick online search will find many great posts explaining what that is from Jane Friedman’s Blog to Writer’s Digest to The Book Designer and so on. However, all that information can be somewhat overwhelming, especially if you are just starting out and/or have a bit of a social media phobia. It’s also a bit of a catch-22; how can you have an online presence if you’ve never been published, but how can you get published without an online presence?
As I represent mainly fiction, an author’s platform doesn’t make or break my decision when I’m considering a submission. Nonfiction is a different story, more on that here from Rachelle Gardner who does represent a lot of nonfiction and here from Brooke Warner who works with a lot of nonfiction writers. However, I do like to see if the author is online savvy, which means they have the potential to build a good platform in the future. This will help my judgment whether I want to take the time to request and read their full manuscript or even offer them representation. The best way to show you have the chops to make it in this crazy online world? A solid author website. What constitutes a solid author website previous to publication? Basically it’s an online resume for agents, editors, and future readers.
A great example of a simple but effective author website is my client Rati Mehrotra’s at ratiwrites.com. Although it’s not a professionally designed website, it straightforwardly gives all of her information as an author. Her bio, her credentials, her WIP, and a consistent blog, all linked to her other author online presences. And there is a subtle but clear theme that directly relates to her writing. I like to direct new authors there, because her site, in particular, helped me make my decision to represent her, and it’s not a hard site to replicate.
In the end although you don’t need an author website, it does make a difference, at least when I’m considering your submission.
My father is an artist. A really talented and skilled painter. He’s worked on his craft for over 50 years. I grew up in awe of the man who dedicated his life to art, blindly believing as only a child could, that he was wildly successful, because it was enough to be great at something. As adulthood settled in, I then became aware of the bittersweet knowledge that he will probably never be recognized for it, financially or otherwise. He’s been told over and over, his work isn’t commercial enough, not marketable enough, not enough. A refrain that writers are all too familiar with.
As my career in publishing extends, I hold that insight deep inside. That an artist can be an incredible genius at what they do, and yet they may never be recognized for it. That even if I don’t see the commercial viability in something, this does not mean the writer hasn’t spent years honing their craft.
And yet. I also watched my father yearn for fame and fortune. Weirdly disconnected from the spiritual questioning and artistic wild freedom found in his work, was this idea that he would one day be simply discovered. An altogether human desire, so relatable on so many levels. Who doesn’t dream of the day we stumble on our own golden goose? But when your art becomes the potential goose, the complications can be dizzying. And by relying on “being discovered” the long grinding years of marketing yourself, working the system, making your art something that you are paid for, is now not your responsibility. (Yes, the system for all artists is unfair, and you can do all of these things and still not be successful, but that’s a post for another day.)
So I hold this insight with me as well. That an artist’s work can have the potential, but if they aren’t ready for the grind, they may not be a fit for publishing. But I know it’s not useful information for those writers who pitch me their “bestseller.” And I can’t argue with them, because I understand their dream. The best I can do is attempt to explain the art is content for your career.
What perhaps will be useful for a writer to know, and the point of this post, is literary agents are looking for writers who do understand this complexity. That we are not “discovering” you. That you have to build your career over time. You may lay a golden egg along the way, but you won’t need it in the long term.
See my interview with Geek on Record about the eBook publishing revolution here.An editor in New York recently said to me, “This is one of the last true apprenticeship fields.” Although she meant it as just an interesting aside, the more I thought about it, the more I realized this is both a problem and an unfortunate truth in writing and publishing.
If you’re like me, as many in our field are, you spent your childhood with your nose in a book. Late nights under the covers with a flashlight, sitting on the sidewalk while others did sports, and hours at the local library are the bright, shiny, happy spots in your memory.
Sadly for me, as I got older, reading became less an obsession and more of a hobby. My English class in high school was uninspiring, and few of my peers read like I did. I was from a small rural town and poor, so although I had dabbled in writing here and there, there was no concept of being a writer for a living. I was privileged enough to go to college, but there was no way I would waste that opportunity on an English major. I didn’t know taking a literature class was an option, let alone having a career in books. (This belief prevails. Check out this Slate article: Major Exodus: How do post-recession English departments attract students to a field losing popularity?) Thus I got my Bachelor of Science and reading was further pushed into the “something I only do for fun,” area of my life.
Ironically, it was my career in biology that reunited me with my love of books. As a field biologist I got to witness many of the amazing creatures nature has to offer. That being said, I was also twiddling my thumbs, a lot. You do quite a bit of “observing” in the field, which means waiting and watching for something to happen. That’s when the ideas for a novel started crowding my brain. I spent my nights tapping away at the computer, and it rekindled the love and obsession I had as a child. One year later, ta-da! My first complete novel.
I was going to make a living as a writer! This was what I should have being doing all along! Of course as anyone in the publishing world will tell you, it wasn’t ready. But I didn’t know that. It took 100+ rejections, a MFA in Creative Writing, self-publishing my next novel, and a 2-year unpaid internship at a literary agency for me to understand, six years later, what “ready” meant.
All of that experience was my apprenticeship, and it opened my eyes to the world of publishing as a potential career. If you love books, despite what people tell you, teaching English or starving writer are not the only career options. The book industry world needs managing editors, literary agents, book-marketing gurus, book buyers, bookstores, designers, proofreaders, copy editors, ghost writers, book reviewers, writing conference leaders, distributors, publishers, the list goes on.
I only wish someone had pointed this out to the little girl with her nose in a book. I would have started earlier, done the unpaid internship in college, (an aside, thankfully it’s become increasingly required by law to pay interns, so think twice before accepting anything unpaid!) taken the courses in writing/literature, begun my career path sooner, so that the struggle would have been at the age it should have been. The MFA programs are equally as guilty, many of them focus on writing as art, scorning the “commercial” world, which is where most people in the book business make a living.
Many others who work in the book industry have a similar story to mine. They fell into it later in life, and realized they were in love, but it took some time to get to a moderately successful career and there were many financial sacrifices along the way. And still others don’t make it that far. The path to publishing is littered with the exits of talented and brilliant people, ex-editors who couldn’t survive on such low salaries, ex-literary agents who didn’t have financial support in those first few penniless years, ex-interns who had to get a paying job and more.
Why can’t being an author and working within the book industry be a viable career path for everyone? Why can’t more universities offer programs like Columbia’s Publishing Course? Why are we expected to toil away at un-paid/low-wage apprenticeships just to get our foot in the door? Why is it that there is not a career path for novelists the way there are for so many other jobs? Why is there so little money in such an important field? And why is most of it concentrated in NYC, one of the most expensive cities to live in the world?
It was luck and privilege that I was able to follow my dream career at an older age, which included a partner willing and able to support me and an educated mother who taught me to love to read. People say that publishing/writing is a career for trust-fund kids and retirees. This is not true, but it is definitely an uphill battle if you don’t have those advantages. One of the biggest reasons for this is a lack of information/opportunity available to those with less means. There are not many options for the not-so-privileged, the need-to-work-for-a-living, and the few paths to work in books that are viable for us are buried under negative stereotypes of post-English-major lifestyles.
Books are considered a luxury commodity, even though reading and writing have proven again and again to be a crucial aspect of human nature. See the Guardian’s Reading Fiction “Improves” Empathy Study Finds, or the New York Times’s Writing Your Way to Happiness or NPR’s How Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ Led a Radical Muslim to Moderation.
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| Alice and The Caterpillar by Joni Harvey-Brown |
Often the time and energy and money required to produce a book is under-appreciated. The average reader imagines a scene in which the lonely writer sits atop a far-away mountain, banging away at the keyboard. The writer is often blocked by some outside force, until a flash of inspiration occurs and viola, a masterpiece! And thus the reader holds the masterpiece in their hands, quietly devouring the inked pages.
What is rarely discussed in reader circles, and even in writer circles, is the other half of the puzzle. The multitudes of people and teams that also had a hand in the work, and with whom without, that masterpiece of a book would never have reached the readers. The blood, sweat, and tears that have been shed in the process. In this modern climate of self-publishing and DIY attitudes, people often ask: what is the point of a publisher? Or an agent? Or even, an editor?
This questioning haunts me as a literary agent. I see many writers on forums talk about agents as if we are lowly serpents trolling on the talents of writer. They spew venom about the fat-cat editors in New York (whose salary is probably barely above minimum wage). It’s frustrating as no one would ask that in film. No one would ask why a script needs set-designers, or directors, or producers. As a once self-published author I fully support the advent of a new publishing paradigm. But I do believe it is important to acknowledge the amount of work that it takes to produce a beautiful book whichever publishing path one chooses to take.
Believe it or not, most of us are in this industry because we love books.
Everyone in the literary world, from publishers, agents, editors, designers, and writers are all working toward the same goal; to produce a good book. No, to produce a great book. A book that shines on the shelf, calls out to potential readers. A book that captures you with its first sentence, whose story draws you in, and whose plot keeps you up all night reading. A book that makes you excited, anxious, and sad as the amount of pages left gets slimmer and slimmer. A book that makes you sigh with satisfaction with its last sentence. A great book.
The writer spends late nights and early mornings to create a story out of thousands of words. They edit those words for months. Their beta-readers critique it, each comment a stab to the heart, but the writer bravely endures and edits it again, and again, and again. Then months to years later, when they have what they believe to be a finished project, they send it out to the terrifying gatekeepers, the agents.
The agents read hundreds of email queries, tens of writing samples, 2-5 manuscripts a week. They endure angry authors-rejected suitors and demanding writers whom feel they deserve the agent’s time over all else. They read through the slush of manuscripts, the wanna-be bestsellers, the overwritten literary prose, the un-edited sloppy writing to find that gleam, that rough gem that catches their attention. They find out if the gem is available, comb through it and ask for edits. They edit the second draft, and the third, and the fourth. Finally they take the gem, which now sparkles, and send it out to the impossible judges, the editors. Editors with whom they have spent time developing relationships with, learning their likes and dislikes, so that one day when the right ms for the right editor comes along, they know exactly who to send it to.
The editors slough through the agent queries, requesting too many manuscripts. Their desks are piled with submissions, with current manuscripts, and with books they need to read. They read and read and read. They find a book they want to sign, fight over it with other editors, capture it for their own. They deal with demands of their bosses, marketing and sales, overbearing agents, and with stubborn, pretentious, or diva authors. They work under deadline from the publisher, the pressure always on. They edit, and edit, and edit some more. Finally it is ready to go to design production.
The designer keeps an eye on every book that gets released, they keep tabs on design trends, they know if Lucinda Grande has gone out of style and that vertical stripes are serious but horizontal are playful. They read the manuscript and have a brilliant concept for the cover. They create a first proof of the cover. They love the cover. The next time they look at it, they hate it. They redesign the font, change the image, adjust the hues. They tweak something a centimeter to the left, something else a half inch up. That one shape should be circular. And blue. No, cobalt blue. They create something beautiful. The author wants something else, the agent doesn’t like it, the editor thinks it’s okay, the publisher doesn’t care. They tweak it some more. This time it is perfect.
The publisher gathers the items needed to publish the book. The ISBN number, the Library of Congress data, the copyright, the price, the mega data, the whole sale price, the royalties, the contracts, the marketing copy, the distribution, the costs of production, the marketing and promotion. They work with book buyers, librarians, bloggers, reviewers, trade publications, newspapers, and book stores to get the final book in front of eyes, on the digital or physical bookshelf. The final push so the book is out there, a book that shines, a book that calls out to potential readers.
And all of these people take a deep collective breath and hope that they have given the potential buyer something special.
A great book.