Monthly Archive for October, 2009

9 Tips for the Novice (Professional) Con-Goer

Posted October 28, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: .

I had written a post before Anticipation (Worldcon 2009) about being a panelist at a convention, and a couple of people have approached me since about general suggestions for first-time convention attendees.

Most of these suggestions assume that you’re a professional in the field, or an aspiring professional, but I think they can be applied all around.

1. There will always be someone More Important Than You, and More Successful Than You. Don’t be bitter toward these people for having what you want, and don’t cling to them to try to find out their secrets and soak in some of their wisdom or karma. They’re just people, just like we are, and sometimes it’s a relief to them to be treated like normal people. Treat them politely and as equals, and you’ll find that they’ll treat you politely and as equals, back.

2. Most of the people at a smaller, writer-biased convention are there to network, just like you are. If you’re talking to someone and a person you know approaches, don’t just wave or make them wait. If you don’t know for a fact that they know each other, introduce them and include them. Most conventions supply nametags, which make this a simple task. A professional or personal introduction can go a very, very long way. Everyone should do this, and it surprises and upsets me that more people don’t. By introducing people you know from different circles, or introducing people you know to new contacts, you’re spreading the habit and encouraging them to do the same. You’d want that introduction if it was your friend talking to someone cool. Offer them the courtesy, and you’ll be more likely to receive it from them.

3. If you’re representing yourself as a professional, look and act the part. Dress a little better than the average con-goer. It may mean that you don’t get to wear the witty t-shirt or let your cleavage hang out, but if you want to make a professional impression on people, unless those things are part of the persona you’re choosing to adopt, a nice business-casual look might be better suited. A shirt with a collar or a blouse with jeans, or slacks, can still be in a color scheme and style that don’t brand you as a total outsider, while making you look classy. Be conscious of your personal hygiene, too. Don’t torture the person you’re talking to with your garlic breath from lunch! You’ll always end up meeting the person you most want to meet when you’re least prepared to meet them, so I use that as a guide: dress the way you’d want to be dressed to meet that person, at all times.

3a. Take care of yourself. Most conventions are at hotels and convention centers – places surrounded by cheap fast food, expensive fast food, and little else. Stay hydrated, get enough sleep, and remember that caffeine, sugar, alcohol and carbs aren’t the only food groups, even if you do need to range a little further afield, or pay a little more, for the rest. Remember your vegetables and your vitamins, and your body will thank you.

4. Have a business card, a bookmark, some kind of something to hand to people. Carry them in your pocket or somewhere else in convenient reach, in some kind of protected way so that they’re not going to look like they’ve been in your pocket all day, but keep one extra card outside that container and flush to it, so that if you’ve only got a moment, you can hand off a card without having to fumble for it and make someone wait. Some conventions give out badge holders that are designed really nicely for this.

5. The best way to track down someone Important is to look them up in the programming guide, attend their reading, panel, or signing. If it’s a signing, you’ve got a few dedicated moments of their time, but it also brands you as a fan and not an equal. If you hang around after a reading or a panel, they’re in their “on” time then, unlike when they’re heading out for dinner with their friends or family, and they’re probably going to expect to be approached. If they’ve got a time commitment and they have to run off to something else, accept it gracefully. It happens. Otherwise, wait patiently with the other people who are hanging around to have a word with them, introduce yourself and say hello when it’s your turn.

5a. If you’re approaching someone Important as an equal, introduce yourself with your professional credentials, offer them your card if you can, and compliment them on some aspect of the talk they’ve just done. Don’t hand them something to sign. That instantly brands you as a fan. There’s nothing wrong with being a fan, but a fan is not an equal. If you want to be seen as an equal, forego the autograph just this once. The personal connection you could potentially make with them is more important.

6. Time can really get away from you at a convention. Flip through the schedule ahead of time, or in a quiet moment. If there are things you really want to do or see, list them out for yourself and keep aware of your list, or you’ll probably end up missing some of the things you were looking forward to. My list always has a few interesting options, where available, for each time slot. If I end up skipping the ones I’m not as into, that’s fine, but if I find myself at loose ends, or if I’m with a group wondering where to go, I have access to something I think would be interesting, or that features someone I’d like to see, without having to dig through the schedule for it.

7. Talk to strangers. Conventions are great opportunities to meet people with like interests and unexpected connections in common. You will miss out if you don’t network with new people. Even if they aren’t Big Name Important People, they may still have a lot to offer and there’s still potential for a friendship or even a professional opportunity that may surprise you. You never know what someone else does, or who they know! Going to a convention with a group of friends or colleagues is a lot of fun, but step outside your circle, too. Talk to the person next to you in line. Maybe they’ve traveled a long way, or have an interesting story to share. At the very least, it’ll be an engaging way to pass the time.

8. Be very aware of body language. If someone’s eyes start glazing over, if they start looking around and beyond you, or angling themselves away from you, it’s time to thank them gracefully and let them go. It’s uncomfortable to be cornered, and it’s uncomfortable to watch someone being cornered. I’ve been held hostage after panels by people who “don’t hear” my polite nudging that I have somewhere to be, or in one case, wouldn’t let me go even when a colleague came to take me away to our next scheduled event. Don’t be the guy (or girl) that people need to escape from.

9. Have fun! Don’t attend a convention with a checklist of people to talk to, or you’ll stress about it and forget to enjoy yourself. A convention, and even a panel, never turns out exactly the way you plan, and it’s the parts that deviate from your expectations that usually turn out to be the best and most memorable parts. Go with the flow, have fun, meet who you meet, and remember that you can’t be everywhere at once and you can’t do everything there is to do. Enjoy being where you are, and remember that there’s always the next one to do the things you miss out on.

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World Fantasy Convention

Posted October 26, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , .

This weekend, I’ll be attending the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, CA. If you’re going to be there and would like to say, please feel free to drop me a line. A comment or a note through the “contact me” page will get to me, and I’m @gabrielle_h on Twitter.

I’m not currently scheduled for programming, but you’ll be able to catch me at Philippa Ballantine’s reading at 10:00 on Saturday in the Garden Room.

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Gentle Horror

Posted October 22, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

Just as I was sitting down and going over my list of potential blog topics, @paul_e_cooley asked an interesting question over on Twitter and graciously gave me permission to reprint it here.

The Dragon Moon Press guidelines specify fantasy, science fiction, and ‘gentle horror’, so the question, “What’s gentle horror?” was probably inevitable.

While I have a soft spot for the phrase, I didn’t invent it. I wish I could say that I did, but it was already in the guidelines as I inherited them. What it means to me is something that I’ve adopted and adapted as I’ve worked at Dragon Moon and become more familiar with the “feel” of our somewhat eclectic catalog.

Sometimes requirements are vague on purpose. Instead of narrowing things down to a rigid box, phrases are open to interpretation specifically to invite you to bring your own personal definitions of them, and to invite you to be creative and push the boundaries.

Publishers, and this probably won’t surprise you, do like for authors to be creative!

By gentle horror, I don’t mean “Attack of the Killer Zombie Cottonballs”. It has nothing to do with Satin [sic] devouring your soul.

To me, what distinguishes gentle horror is the proportion of plot elements to horror elements. I’m open to manuscripts which have scary and suspenseful elements to them, not all-out frightfests or bloodbaths. I’m looking for horror within the contexts of sci-fi and fantasy, not mainstream thrillers.

I’d consider Weaveworld by Clive Barker (one of my favorite books) to be gentle horror. Contrast it with The Hellbound Heart (the book on which the movie Hellraiser was based). There are still plot elements, to be sure, but horror takes much more of a front seat.

Not that Weaveworld is for the weak of heart, either. Gentle horror doesn’t have to be gentle. Phil Rossi’s Crescent, for example, I consider gentle horror, even though it’s a gritty, harsh story with some explicit adult content and nastyness, and there’s very little that’s gentle about it. But contrast it with Jack Kilborn’s Afraid, which will have you covering your eyes with your own intestines before you even realize you’ve ripped them out.

The point is more that Crescent is a science fiction story with a horror element, not straight horror, not a straight psychological thriller, just like Weaveworld is a dark fantasy story with a strong horror element. Gentle horror doesn’t have to be gentle. It doesn’t have to be safe for children; it doesn’t even have to be safe for work. It just has to have horror as a spice, not as the (mystery)meat of the dish.

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Behind the Scenes, Part 1

Posted October 19, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , .

Last month, I got a chance to sit down with author PG Holyfield and talk on the record about the editorial process. At the time, I was halfway through my first pass on his novel Murder at Avedon Hill, forthcoming with Dragon Moon Press, so it was great to actually meet the author and talk to him in person about writing, editing, publishing, the technical differences between writing for podcast and for print, what an editor does, and the specific issues we’re encountering in the process of working on his book.

It was a fun interview; as convenient as e-mail is, it’s always nice to get a chance to meet a colleague and talk about all that stuff in person. You don’t need to be familiar with his work for the interview to make sense, and I think offers a great example of the editorial process and the rapport that develops: we’re both on the same team, working to make the book the best it can be.

Take a listen to the first segment of our Behind the Scenes interview, and enjoy! I’ll be addressing some of the points from the interview in future posts.

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Author Pages

Posted October 15, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

If you are a published author, I strongly encourage you to go sign up for Amazon.com’s Author Central and create your author page.

More than just a listing of your current works, author pages are designed to be a better-rounded promotional opportunity. You can put up a headshot, a biography, and link in your latest blog posts. Take a look at my client Chris Jackson’s author page as an example.

It’s free, centralized publicity available any time someone clicks your name on Amazon.com, and a potentially useful self-promotion tool, so go and take a few moments to sign up.

This week I’ve been very busy finishing up one fantastic project and diving headlong into another. I feel really fortunate to be able to work with some seriously great new writers, and I have a feeling that these two in particular are going to go far.

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Query Letters: What Not to Do

Posted October 12, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

Last week I wrote about query letters, a topic near and dear to every writer’s heart… and often a source of much anxiety. Monday’s post was about the preparation, Thursday’s was on the actual components of a query, and today I’ll follow up with the little details.

Because queries are such a source of anxiety, people tend to overanalyze the guidelines and read too far between the lines. You’re sending something very important out into the ether, getting little to no feedback on it, and it’s hard to know what you’ve done right and where you might have gone wrong.

As I’ve said before, common sense will usually rule the day. Keep a pleasant, professional tone, include all the important things, and you’ll be fine. The gray areas are where people tend to get stuck; the optional things that you hear about but aren’t sure if you should do.

Remember that this is just one editor’s opinion. I don’t speak for every editor, publisher or agent out there. But maybe one editor’s opinion, explained plainly, will help to give you a sense of the editor/agent perspective.

Don’t try to impress me.

You’ll have heard this one before, I’m sure. Lots of people give this advice, but very few of them tell you what it means.

Notice that I said “Don’t try to impress me,” not “Don’t impress me.” There’s a big difference there. Of course I want to be impressed. We all want to be impressed. The key is that we want to be impressed by your story. We won’t be impressed by anything else.

What this doesn’t mean: Write a bland pitch and a synopsis that’s just a clinical outline of events.

What it does mean: Write an exciting, vibrant pitch and synopsis, but don’t include any gimmicks with it.

Please don’t:

• treat your query like a sixth-grade book report — don’t dress up as your main character (by querying from a fictional first-person POV). Don’t use fancy dialect or otherwise “act” your query. Let your story speak for itself. You can make it plenty interesting without dressing it up in fancy clothes.

• use visual formatting effects to stand out: perfumed pink paper or glittery effects or ornate fonts. All it does is make a query difficult (or in some cases, painful) to read.

• go out of your way to format at all. All that work is going to go away when the publisher does their own layout, anyway.

• include gifts. If someone doesn’t like your manuscript, a bribe won’t change their mind. It doesn’t matter whether it’s creepy, expensive, or matched to the theme of your manuscript.

• make threats, even veiled or playful ones, about what will happen to us, our family, or the fate of civilization if we don’t accept your manuscript.

• submit to a personal address instead of the official submissions address, thinking it’s a shortcut or it’ll get you more attention. We have official channels for a reason. Going outside them is a great way to fall unlabeled through the cracks, or to creep someone out and make a bad impression.

• overhype. If you try to set our expectations too high, you have nowhere to go but down. Don’t tell us what a blockbuster hit the movie version will be, or how many awards it will win. Don’t tell us we’ll need to do a 100,000 print run.

• tell us who would play your main characters in the movie. Seriously, don’t. First, because I think it’s cheating. I think it’s seeding your reader’s imagination with a preconceived picture, and it is often used to cover for the fact that the characters aren’t fleshed out well enough in the writing to create that picture on their own. Second, because it makes it sound as though you’re already thinking toward film instead of concentrating on your print product… you know, the one you’re trying to sell me on. I’m not buying a movie, and I’m especially not buying a movie that relies upon a very specific Hollywood A-list cast that you’re probably extremely unlikely to get. Bonus “no” points for posthumous casting.

Contested Territory

Opinion varies on whether you should compare your writing to other authors’ styles in your query. Personally, I’m against it. This is your time to show us your voice and how you’re unique, not how you’re the same as someone else. There’s a place for that sort of comparison and it’s very effective when used properly… but in my opinion, that place is on the book cover and the marketing promo, not in the query.

Opinion also varies on the use of rhetorical questions in a pitch or synopsis. Personally, I’m completely neutral on the matter, but I know that there are agents and editors who hate them. In fact, there are enough agents and editors who hate them that you’re probably safer avoiding them.

Others don’t mind it, but personally, I don’t like to see the sentence that starts with, “My manuscript would be a good fit for you because…” In my perspective, if you tell me the genre and the wordcount and give me your brief pitch, I’ll know whether your manuscript fits my needs or not.

Low-maintenance isn’t the same as boring!

You want to come across as low-maintenance, adaptable and easy to work with. Showing that you’ve read the guidelines and formatted your submission in accordance is a large part of that. Taking a sane tone of voice is another. The less you say, sometimes, the more sane and easygoing you will appear.

The query letter isn’t the place to make demands about contract terms. Hook someone on your writing and you’ll be in a much stronger position to negotiate. Don’t come off as high-maintenance, pushy and demanding before you’ve even said hello.

It also isn’t the place to show paranoia or distrust for the publishing process. A paranoid author who password-locks a submitted file or insists on only sending it hardcopy and registered, or otherwise expresses concern over it potentially falling into the wrong hands or being used for unscrupulous purposes, is very unlikely to be offered a book deal. Publishing is a profession and publishers are professionals. If you can’t trust us to look at your work without stealing it, you’re not going to get very far. Honestly, most of what we see isn’t worth keeping. The work that is worth keeping, doesn’t get stolen. It gets signed.

Control Freaks Beware

There is a certain amount of editorial control that you give up when you sign with a publisher. The formatting and layout will be up to the person whose job it is to do those things. You probably won’t have a say in much of any of that, down to what font they use and what they use to separate the chapter breaks. It’s best to be accepting of that up front, or at least to seem accepting of that.

Down the road, maybe you can make suggestions or requests. They may be considered and incorporated. They may be considered and then later discarded. Either way, the query is not the time. The more conditions you place on your work right out of the gate, the more you come across as difficult to work with. When you query, all that matters is the text. Sell us on your story. The rest comes later.

The art question

Speaking of editorial control, I’m often asked whether art should be submitted with a query. The answer to that is a resounding no. To put it in perspective for you, even authors who write childrens’ picture books don’t usually collaborate with an artist. They write the script, and an artist is paired with them later to illustrate the words.

When you’re working with a large publisher, they will have an art director and an art department in-house. These are people who specialize in knowing what sort of art makes a good cover image and sells a book. You might be able to make a recommendation to them, but providing your own art up front or insisting on working with a particular artist will probably work against you. Even if the art is good, it may not be the sort of thing that works well on a book cover. If the art isn’t so good, it may color perception of the quality of your manuscript. Again, there’s no harm in trying to suggest or request a particular artist at the appropriate point in the process, but the query isn’t the time or place.

Don’t get impatient with the process

Publishing always seems glacially slow from the outside, and I can sympathize that the time from when you send off your baby to when you hear back from someone can feel endless. Publishers are busy, busy people, and it’s an industry that requires a lot of lead time to get a book ready for print. You have to realize and accept that you’re just one tree in a publisher’s large forest. You will be tended to, but in their time, when your slot comes up and your priority rises to the top.

From a personal perspective, if I’m doing thorough edits on a 300-page book, and industry standard pace is 5-10pgs/hour, and it’s not my only project, that’s going to take some time. If you don’t hear from me, it doesn’t mean I’m not working. It probably means I am.

How long before you can send a followup? Check the submissions guidelines for a publisher. They’ll often tell you how long they take to respond. Give them another [unit] or two beyond that. If they say three days, give them four or five before you email politely. If they say weeks, or months, likewise. Things come up, emergencies happen, and keeping the books on schedule that are already slotted for production is a higher priority than going through the ones that aren’t signed yet.

Be polite in your query, not demanding or passive-aggressive. There’s no way someone can answer “Have you looked at it yet?” to tell you what you want to hear. If they’d looked at it yet, they’d have told you. Compare:

“I’m writing to follow up on my manuscript, [title], which I sent to you on [date]. It was a pleasure to meet you at [some conference]. Thank you again for accepting my query and I look forward to your response.”

That’s about as non-aggressive and pleasant as you can get. It doesn’t ask someone if they’ve read it, when they’ll read it, or when they can expect to hear back, it just politely reminds them that they have it and how long they’ve had it. It doesn’t get passive-aggressive and say “I know you’re really busy and you probably haven’t had time and I’m really sorry to bother you…”, it’s just straightforward, pleasant, and non-demanding.

When you do get signed, by the way, that glacial pace doesn’t change. You’ll feel like it’s taking ages to get edits back, or to get a cover back from the art director, or that your book is in the can for six months doing nothing while it waits for its slot in the production schedule. Well… it will be. These people are juggling a lot of books and they’ll get to each stage of yours when each stage comes due. Get used to it, relax, and spend that time writing your next masterpiece.

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Components of a Query Letter

Posted October 8, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

This week, I’m talking about query letters. Not a coincidence, since Michell Plested posted our great discussion on query letters and submissions on Monday. Please go and take a listen if you have a chance.

First, before I get into the actual parts of the query letter, a note on formatting guidelines.

Formatting guidelines exist to help editors keep from going blind. They streamline the process, and make things easy on the eyes for people who are sitting and reading for 8, 12, or 16 hours a day, or more. They exist so that your manuscript can be handled in the most convenient and efficient way by a particular handler, and forwarded on most conveniently within that organization, and that’s why they vary from place to place.

Specific formatting rules (like what to put in the subject line or on the outside of the envelope, for instance) may also exist partly to show a particular place whether you’ve read their particular guidelines or not.

You should definitely follow the guidelines as they’re presented to you, even if it means reformatting every time you submit someplace new. Helping editors not go blind is important, and showing someone you want to work with that you’re able to follow instructions is also important.

However, and I know this is easier said than done, you should not stress yourself out about it. Being one point short of perfect compliance, unless it’s a major point like forgetting to include contact information, is probably not going to hurt your chances. A good manuscript isn’t likely to be disqualified over a minor problem on the query letter checklist. As long as you’re professional and use common sense, you’ll probably be fine.

That professional tone is important too. The query letter is the cover letter to your resume. In addition to getting people interested in your manuscript, it’s also your chance to prove that you’re not high-maintenance, pushy, delusional, or insane. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

If no guidelines exist on a particular point, like font size or number of spaces after a period, don’t sweat it. It means that it doesn’t matter to that particular editor.

Don’t try to make it gimmicky, shiny or eye-catching. Focus on making a pitch and a manuscript that can stand out from the rest even in the same boring typeface and format. You’ll get more positive attention from following the rules than from breaking them. When I see a nicely formatted, low-maintenance manuscript, I breathe a sigh of relief.

So. That said, on to the letter itself.

Your query letter is, for all useful purposes, just like the cover letter you send with your resume when you’re applying for a job. It should be professional, it should be courteous, and it should contain the standard pieces of information that the person reading it is going to be looking for, with no fancy tricks, fillers, or unnecessary information.

Essential information

The first things I look for in a query letter:

• Title
• Word count
• Genre
• Name and contact information

Before you present what your story is about, I want to know how many words I’m getting and what genre to expect. I don’t want to have to wade through multiple chapters — or even multiple paragraphs — to first discover if the manuscript is even going to be a fit. Don’t bother trying to tell me why it’s a good fit. You don’t need to. Show me the word count and the genre, tell me what it’s about, and I’ll be able to tell for myself.

I also don’t want to have to dig for your name and e-mail address. Sometimes things get forwarded and, for whatever reason, the original “sent by” address in the header doesn’t make it along for the ride. Put it in the body of the mail, just to be safe.

Also, please, PLEASE make sure that the contact information you give, WORKS. Even worse than a rejection: when a publisher is interested in seeing more and can’t get in touch with you.

Don’t just send a link to your website and tell me to check out your work there — or, worse, tell me that I have to subscribe to your website in order to see it. Show that you’re serious enough to take the time to write a real query.

Phrases I never want to see in a query

“I know this isn’t the sort of thing you publish, but…”
and
“I know you’re closed to unsolicited submissions, but…”

I’m going to do a separate post next Monday that touches on what not to do, but this one deserves a special mention right up front. There’s nothing professional about contacting a stranger with the expectation that they’ll bend their rules for you. Sending your query along anyway is one thing. Pointing out in your query that you know you shouldn’t be sending your query is another. You may intend it as an apology to smooth your way, but what you’re actually saying is, “Hi. I read your policies, and then I knowingly and willfully disregarded them. Don’t you want to work with me now?” That’s probably not the kind of first impression you want to make.

Speaking of making a good first impression…

Bad spelling / grammar / punctuation in a query is a BIG turn-off. Everyone makes a typo now and then, especially when they’re nervous. But if the errors are glaring enough that it’s clear to me that you couldn’t take the time to spellcheck and read over your cover letter:

• you’re not serious enough about writing to be published. Or
• you just don’t see that those errors are even there, in which case I can predict that your manuscript will be in the same state. That’s a lot of extra work for me.

The parts of the query letter

A professional, courteous greeting. There may be bonus points for addressing it to the right person, but leaving it neutral is always better than getting it wrong.

An intro paragraph with those essential elements I mentioned above, and your elevator pitch. (More on the elevator pitch, below.)

A paragraph with a longer synopsis. A synopsis is always in third person, present tense, regardless of the perspective of the actual manuscript. It should be just as gripping as the smaller pitch, but this time give a slightly broader picture. And include the ending. Part of knowing whether you have a good, solid story is knowing how you resolve it. Don’t hold the ending ‘hostage’ and make a publisher request your manuscript to see how it all works out. They won’t. Synopsis length and depth is another topic all its own, but it’s handled very well by author Anne Mini over several in-depth posts on her blog. An especially useful post might be the one on constructing 1- 3- and 5-page synopses, but you’ll want to look at the whole series.

A brief paragraph about your published or otherwise relevant credits, if appropriate. If not, just leave it out. If you’re published, give us titles and publishers. You don’t need to mention if you’ve never been published before. You don’t need to mention if you like to read, what your hobbies are, or what your educational and professional background is, unless they’re relevant to the manuscript you’re submitting. If you’ve got a computer science degree and you’re working in IT and your manuscript is high fantasy, it’s not relevant. If you’ve been in the Navy and you live full-time on a boat and your manuscript is a nautical adventure, then that background is relevant. If you’ve been to writing workshops, that may be more relevant than your college degree. A degree in English does not a fiction writer make; it won’t impress anyone, by itself. Solid writing and connections to bestselling authors who might write cover blurbs for you… that’s not going to be enough to get you a contract, but it’s very good for a publisher to know.

A professional closing with your name and contact information.

And that’s it.

Elevator pitch?

An elevator pitch stems from the idea that you have only the length of time that someone’s on an elevator with you, to get them hooked and wanting more. The sort of pitch you’d use as a back cover blurb: it should be a couple of brief, concise sentences that capture the central conflict and raise questions that I want to read the answers to. Think of it as the five second movie trailer.

Just because you’re being professional, don’t think you have to be bland and boring on this. The whole point of this letter, from your perspective, is these few sentences. It’s the only chance you have to hook your recipient. Make it intriguing, make it count, and don’t load it down with detail.

A well-crafted elevator pitch at a conference will hook me into requesting a submission. In a query, it’ll hook me into requesting a manuscript. Properly honed, refined and streamlined, it’s worth its weight in gold.

Hang on to this pitch. You’ll need to expand it into your back cover blurb, you’ll need to refine it into promotional material if you want your book mentioned on a website or listed in a catalog, and you’ll need it for… well, for selling copies to people you meet on elevators. Seriously. I have also seen published authors make plenty of spur-of-the-moment sales with just a backpack full of books and a solid elevator pitch.

That’s it?

That’s it… Except that it’s not.

Paring it down to the basic components like this leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Questions like, “What do publishers mean when they say ‘Don’t try to impress us’?” and “How long should I wait before sending a polite follow-up?” are important, too.

Stay tuned: I’ll address those questions and more, on Monday.

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Querying and Submissions

Posted October 5, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

This week, Michell Plested and I met up for another interview over on Get Published, talking this time about query letters and the submissions process.

It’s a great interview, even though I’m a little sniffly in places. We aimed to cover a lot of the questions that writers have when they start to send out their work. Talking with author friends and clients, I’ve realized that while there are some standard things that every publisher/editor/agent says on the issue, writers may not necessarily know what we mean by them, so I try to explain why we say what we say, and what we mean by what we say, in simple and friendly terms.

Sending out queries is such a source of stress for writers because you don’t really know what someone wants or whether you’re hitting the mark. It can be a very long time before you get a response, and even when you do, it may not include any feedback on whether you’re doing things right.

Today I’m going to post about the groundwork and the preparation. In Thursday’s post I’ll go more specifically into the features of a query letter and what I look for. Keep in mind that all editors, agents and publishers are different and we all have different preferences, but it all comes down to promoting yourself professionally and using some common sense. If you do that, you’ll have the core of it down. The rest is just details.

Decide who to query.

The first step to sending out a query is deciding where to send it. Do your research. Whether you’re submitting to agents or publishers, everyone has their specific genre or style preference. Do your homework and only send to people and places that express interest in the sorts of things you write.

How do you submit something that’s outside a particular publisher’s realm?

You don’t. Dragon Moon Press, for example, publishes fantasy, science fiction and gentle horror; adult or “YA friendly”. They’re not going to publish your nonfiction, your biography, your children’s picture book, or your modern-day urban romance, no matter what you say in your letter. Even if it’s good. It’s just not the sort of book they print. You can put different slants on your paranormal mystery thriller to pitch it to a fantasy press or a mystery press, but don’t bend the truth so far on your genre to get it onto someone’s desk that you misrepresent your story. You’re just wasting your time, and theirs.

Send your query to the right place.

Once you’ve chosen a target, do more research and make sure you’re sending your query to the proper address. My recent post on Proper Channels covers this in more depth, but to sum it up: use the front-door, approved channels when submitting. Sending a manuscript to an alternate address, someone’s home address, etc, may feel like a shortcut to bring it to their attention, but it only makes your submission more likely to fall through the cracks. A system is in place for a reason. Show your respect for the people you want to work for by working with their system, not against it.

Solicited vs unsolicited manuscripts

A solicited submission means a publisher invites you to submit. An unsolicited submission means you send a query letter with no prior negotiation.

If a publisher is closed to unsolicited submissions, there’s a reason. Either the schedule is full and there’s no room to accept more books, or there’s no one available to read submissions, or the reading list might be backed up, or maybe there are enough solicited submissions coming in to keep them busy. “I’ll be the exception to the rule and beat all the odds!” is great in fairy tales and Broadway musicals, but in reality it rarely works that way.

Unsolicited submissions may be fairly low on the priority scale, even if they’re welcome. It’s like going to a busy restaurant without a reservation. People who are expected are given higher priority, and everyone else is seated as time and space permits.

How do you get your submission solicited?

Getting an agent is a good way to get that reservation, but it’s not the only way. Networking and legwork can also get you introduced to the right connections.

You can ask an author friend of yours to mention your manuscript to their agent or publisher.

You can approach an editor or a publisher at a convention — if they’re there, they’re probably there to network just like you are, and they might be receptive to hearing a pitch. Just remember that this person’s time is precious and may already be spoken for. Keep aware of their body language and if they start edging toward the door, let them go. Don’t corner them to pitch to them in the restroom or when they’re obviously busy, and don’t take it personally if they don’t have the time.

In business, as in your personal life, it’s a bad idea to make an editor (or anyone) feel like you’re just using them for their connections or for what they can do for you. Even online, you can start making insightful comments on someone’s blog and draw positive attention that way, or friend them on twitter or facebook and do the same.

Keep in mind that a contact or a personal friendship will only give you the opportunity, nothing more. Ultimately, your manuscript will still have to stand on its own merits.

Even if someone directly asks you to send them your manuscript, still send a query letter with it. It shows that you’re professional, it helps them remember why they asked you for the manuscript, and it provides all your info and credentials in a single place — especially helpful if you’re sending things to an agent who’s going to want to hype you to publishers.

One final note: it is never a bad idea to hire an editor to make sure that your manuscript is as clean and polished as it can be before you start submitting it to publishers and agents. But keep in mind that your editor’s responsibility is editing the book, not being its agent. That doesn’t mean a freelance editor deliberately avoids talking up their projects, but it isn’t what you’re hiring them for and it shouldn’t be assumed that they’re obligated to throw it in as a service. That sort of word of mouth can happen, but it is fairly rare and it shouldn’t be expected. An editor is not an agent or a publicist, and you’re not hiring them to do an agent’s or a publicist’s job.

Ready to go?

Once you’ve got a manuscript to submit and people to query, you’re ready
to send your letter. On Thursday, I’ll discuss the essential parts of the query letter, what I do and don’t like to see, and what editors really mean when they say “don’t try to impress me.”

If you can’t wait that long, you can always go and listen to my discussion with Michell Plested on the subject.

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Shortcuts to Success

Posted October 1, 2009 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

Here’s the only thing you need to know about shortcuts to a successful writing career: There aren’t any.

There are alternatives to the traditional process. Lots of them. But none of them are shortcuts.

Let’s look at a few.

1. It’s who you know.

Connections, as I mentioned in my post on Dealing with Rejection, will open a door for you, but that’s all they’ll do. They won’t walk you through it and they won’t guarantee what will happen on the other side. Networking can absolutely make you in this business. It can open opportunities you wouldn’t have dreamed of… but only if your product is good enough to stand on its own. Someone might take a chance on you as a favor, but not if it’s a losing proposition that might hurt their own reputation. Nothing’s going to happen for you unless you’ve already put the work in, developed your craft, and built the kind of credibility that will make your contacts proud.

Also to consider: Networking opportunities cost money. Even if you can write off your workshop or convention airfare and hotel as a business expense, you’ve still got to have that money on hand to lay out. There are a lot of networking opportunities happening around the world every year and it’s not realistic to go to all of them. You’ve got to pick and choose them carefully. And conventions, when you attend them as a professional, are work. You’ve got to have your networking persona on 24/7, have your pitch always at the ready, and still maintain the charisma and control not to come off as unfriendly or desperate. Then there’s the researching and preparation for your panels and the bookkeeping that follows up on the sales you make. The time you spend at conventions and conferences also needs to be balanced with your day job, your family time, and your writing time.

2. Self-publishing

Self-publishing isn’t a shortcut. Don’t listen to the people who tell you it is. Yes, it’s a shortcut to getting a bound copy of your work, but it’s not a shortcut to success. All you’re doing when you self-publish is trading the long hours and hard work of submitting to agents and publishers with the long hours and hard work of tirelessly marketing and self-promoting. You won’t have any support system to sell and distribute for you, it’ll be all you, all the time. You will have to eat, sleep and breathe book just to break even on your print costs, and even then you’ll be fighting against an enormous handicap. You’ll have a very hard struggle ahead of you to get taken seriously by publishers and booksellers, and your opportunities for distribution will be extremely limited. You’ll be selling from your website and from the trunk of your car, and your most important challenge will be finding creative marketing strategies that make people look beyond the “self-published” label and actually read your writing.

Don’t confuse small press with self-pub. Small presses are still legitimate publishers and their place in the market is growing. To print with a small press, you still have to submit your manuscript, get it accepted, get a contract, and then the publisher prints the book.

Self-publishing is where you go out and pay a printer yourself. There’s no acceptance procedure, just a simple business transaction. You hand over your money and your file, and you get books.  The bias against self-publishing exists because of that lack of acceptance procedure. Self-pub does away with the gatekeepers — the agents, the publishers — who weed out the stuff that’s not up to professional standards. Thus, a lot of the material that’s self-published is of amateur quality and really isn’t ready or suitable to be published at all. That’s not to say that it’s all amateur. It isn’t. But there’s a popular perception that it is. If you’re throwing yourself into that pool, it doesn’t matter how good your book is, the struggle to distinguish yourself is going to be very hard work.

3. Podcasting

Recording a podiobook isn’t a shortcut to success any more than self-publishing is a shortcut to success. These writers aren’t circumventing the hard work that goes into landing a deal with a major publishing house; if anything, they’re working harder. While traditional paths to publishing deals involve sending and keeping track of a lot of mail, creating a professionally polished podcast with top-notch editing and mixing is a much harder and more time-consuming endeavor — even moreso if you’re determined to do a release with a full voice cast and ambient music and sound effects. Doing it for free in hopes of gaining some devoted fans and the ear of a publishing executive is really nothing more than a labor of love for the craft. It requires a lot of skill-learning and a serious investment of time.

A growing number of writers are finding success through podcasting their fiction. The podcasters who produce the high-end podiobooks that earn attention, really earn the attention they receive. They put out excellent, polished books with excellent, polished production values. On the down side, many of them will tell you that the editing and mixing takes up a large portion of their time, and that means that it takes time away from their writing, too. On the up side, fan feedback and praise can be a great boost to balance out the sting of rejection letters while you work on getting your novel noticed by people in high places. Is it a viable avenue to a print publishing deal? Definitely. You can even do it concurrently with the traditional query and submissions route. But it’s not, by any stretch, a shortcut.

—–

The point I’m making here is that, no matter what, your product has to stand up for itself. It has to meet a standard of quality and it has to be something people want to read. There are less-traditional paths toward publication that are open to you, but they’re no less work, they’re only a trade-off in terms of how and when you do the hard work.

You can do the legwork up front and send out hundreds of submissions to get yourself an agent or a publisher, go to a ton of conventions and workshops to make good contacts, or you can put the product out first and do the legwork afterwards in the form of tireless promotion and marketing. One form of work may be easier or more natural for you than another depending on your personal skillset and situation, but the amount of work is still the same.

The success stories that you hear about aren’t fairy tales that prove that shortcuts exist; they are examples of what can happen when top-notch talent and determination meet in the right place at the right time.

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