Tag Archives: Advice

September 15, 2012 · 2:35 AM

Some Things to Keep in Mind BEFORE Querying an Agent (Part 2)

It’s time for more whirlwind advice from a lowly literary intern.  Today we’re going to look at a couple big DON’Ts, and maybe a DO if we have time.  Let’s get to it!

#4 – Don’t ramble on and on! (I know, I should take my own advice, right?)

We get lots of query letters and emails.  Hundreds a month.  And we’re one of the smaller agencies out there.  It’s our job to read and respond to all of those queries as quickly as possible.  This means that we do not have time to read your life story.  Your query should tell us exactly what we want to know – and nothing more.  This usually includes a brief synopsis of your work, a breakdown of what categories your work fits in to (Young Adult/Adult; Fiction/Nonfiction; etc.), word count and assurance that the manuscript/proposal is complete, and a little bit about yourself.  If you’ve been published before, have an MFA in Creative Writing, whatever, we do want to know that.  We may even want to know how you heard about us.  What we don’t want is:

Hi there, agents!  How are you today?  I’m doing fine, thank you.  (I just assumed you asked me how I was back)  I heard about you on Writing Website and then I read all of the novels you’ve represented and I decided we just had to work together.  Please consider my novel, Hitting on Dummies.  It’s kind of a Satire-Meets-Parody-Meets-Film Noir type deal.  Now let me provide you with a three-page synopsis, the first seven chapters, and my life history…

Did you get bored reading that?  Maybe not, since I tried to make it funny, but things like this do happen.  My coworkers and I often sigh in frustration as we mutter to the computer screen, begging the email to somehow produce the vital details that we’ve desperately been searching for through all the fluff.

I’m not saying you should be curt or rude, or risk cutting down your synopsis for the sake of brevity, but when querying an agent, believe me – less is more.

#5 – Do your research!

I’m putting this in here because it ties in to the previous point.  I know doing research is a bore, but it’s necessary.  Each agent has different specifications for queries – some aren’t accepting unsolicited queries at this time, some only want a synopsis and a brief bio, others want you to include some sample chapters with your query (usually in the body of the email, when sent electronically), and some will specifically state that they don’t represent certain genres – and that genre might be yours!  (We have received several queries for children’s picture books, which we simply do not represent.  End of story.  Aw, crap, I’ll leave that in, but no pun intended.)  Others still will tell you that they don’t accept snail mail queries, and some others even want you to spell their name right.  Yes, as I’ve said, we’ve seen some interesting variations of our boss’ name.  If nothing else, please make sure you get the name and sex/gender/pronouns of the agent you’re querying right.  And do try to make it personal.  Chances are, your query isn’t going to be read by the agent him/her/themself, but address it to them anyway.  No “To whom it may concern” or “Dear Sir/Madam.”  I’ve seen both, and it made me feel like the author couldn’t be bothered to look up who they were writing to.  This also leads me to…

#6 – Your query will most likely not be read by the agent you’re addressing.

Did you see what I said up there about the hundreds of queries a month?  Did you note that I’m an intern?  That’s because there is just no way that one person could possibly handle that influx of queries – not to mention other business information.

So don’t kid yourself.  An intern or an assistant is probably going to be reading your query first, but they are just as important as the agent, if not more.  In order to get the agent to take notice of your work, you first have to impress the intern.  So listen to the advice I’m giving, because this is the kind of stuff I pay attention to before telling my boss she should look at a book.  And don’t be offended by the idea that the agent probably isn’t going to even look at your query letter.  First try to answer 150 emails a day, 5 days a week.  Then tell me you don’t want interns reading your query.

Finally…

#7 – Don’t ask us to recommend other agents to you if we reject you.

We’ve gotten this a few times:  We send out a rejection, and the author writes back thanking us for our time, and asking us if we could maybe possibly recommend some other agents that they might maybe possibly be able to query.  Here’s why this is bad:

Remember the “Do your research” advice up there?  Remember the “We get a ton of emails every day that we have to answer”?  We’re not going to do your research for you, Lazy McGee.

And we’re certainly not going to give you other agents’ names, because it’s possible that you might then write to that agent saying, “I got a glowing recommendation from this other agent, and he/she/they said that you’d probably be really interested in my work.”  That’s not what we said, but you could certainly lie, and we wouldn’t be able to stop you.  And then our reputation would be on the line.  So don’t ask us, because we won’t tell you.

That’s all for now!  I think I’ll dedicate one more post to this subject, and then I’ll be done with it.

Word of the Day: Ignoramus (n) – an extremely ignorant person.

(Hint: Don’t be one of those)

Also, this XKCD made me think of, well…me.

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September 12, 2012 · 4:21 PM

Some Things to Keep in Mind BEFORE Querying an Agent (Part 1)

Working at a literary agency has really given me some new perspective on how dense authors can be (myself included).  While I am in no position to share any specific examples to back up what I am about to say, for the sake of the authors’ privacy, I believe I have learned quite a few things that can help aspiring authors (and screenwriters I suppose) to present the best possible query.  The result will be this blog post, and probably one other, if not more.  It depends how well I stem my urge to ramble.  Spoiler alert: I probably won’t do so well.  I’m already failing, and I haven’t even started yet.  So…without further ado, we begin the list!

#1 – Your book is not your baby!

This bit of advice is something that will help you not only in the querying stage, but also beyond that, when editors start to take a look at your work.  The fact of the matter is, if you want your book to get published (or your screenplay to be taken seriously), you are going to have to accept the fact that many people are going to read it, and they are all going to have their own opinions.  Those opinions will largely affect how your finished book looks when it’s finally there, in all its hard-covered glory, on the shelves in the store.  And if you want to see that happen, you have to remember that these people’s opinions aren’t things to be taken lightly or ignored – these people are professionals.  They know what they’re doing, and – just in case you don’t believe me yet – their paycheck also depends on your book being bought by more than two people who only bought it by accident because their grandmother recommended The Setting Sun and your book is titled The Setting Son.  So you better believe they’re going to do their damndest to make it the best, most marketable thing out there.  Hence Twilight.  And if you’re sitting there kvetching and whining, saying things like, “But I can’t change that part!  Jill’s encounter with the Yeti is a crucial subplot that plays a vital role in the development of the Yeti’s character!”  then say goodbye to that book deal, and the shelf space at the Barnes & Noble.

In conclusion, yes, it’s your book.  You created it.  But don’t be like the one guy who queried us and then, upon receiving a request for the first fifty pages of his manuscript, sent in the entire self-published book because he “couldn’t bear to cut up his work.”  That there is a warning sign right off the bat.

#2 – Proofread your query letter and your manuscript before submitting them.  This includes having someone else read them.  Someone who doesn’t fear incurring your wrath should they offer a suggestion for revision.

This one seems like it should be obvious.  It isn’t, apparently.  I have had people write in with missing punctuation and misspelled words and proper nouns.  Even my boss’ name has been misspelled a couple times, and you’d think that’d be the one thing people would make sure to get right.  Nope.  Proofread your work, people.  Then have someone else read it.  Someone who knows what they’re talking about would be best.  And, just a side note, if they start laughing from reading your query – and it’s not supposed to be funny – maybe go back to the drawing board.  I have to admit that I have encountered quite a few queries that – for one reason or another – have brought a chuckle out of me.  Either because the writing is poor, the plot is shaky, or the grammatical errors are so egregious.  So really, really look at your query and your manuscript before submitting it, and if someone else reads it and offers you their thoughts, don’t get defensive.  They could be on to something.

Which leads me to…

#3 – Learn to take constructive criticism 

I won’t spend too long on this, because I pretty much already said what I need to say for this in item #1.  If someone gives you a suggestion for how to revise, or how something might be improved, don’t get haughty.  If it’s good advice, take it.  Sure, that’s up to your discretion, but also take into account whom you receive the advice from.   As I said above, literary agents and editors want your work to sell just as much as you do, so if they send you back some form of a critique, pay attention to it.  Even if it hurts your pride.  Because, again, your book is not your baby.  If someone tells you your son can be improved by removing his right arm and replacing it with a fire extinguisher, feel free to ignore them.  If someone tells you that your main character seems a little one-dimensional, roll with it.  Maybe they have a point, and you should try to fix it.

That’s all for today!  Tune in next time for more  of my expert advice!

Word of the Day: Haughty (adj) – disdainfully proud; snobbish; scornfully arrogant; supercilious

And, for your edification (and mine, since I didn’t know this): Supercilious (adj) – haughtily disdainful or contemptuous, as a person or facial expression.

Oh all right, this one too: Egregious (adj) – extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant

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February 11, 2012 · 9:50 PM

The Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Done

So the reason my computer was running so slow turned out to be… something.  It was running at 100% CPU usage, which, for those of you who don’t speak Computer, is way too much.  In light of that, I called my father, the computer guy, and asked him to help me fix this problem.  After hours and hours of searching through my computer, he failed to identify the source of its slowness, i.e. the thing that was making it eat CPU for breakfast.  Then I took a look through the programs it was running and saw something titled “Bing Bar.”  I assumed this was Bing as in that search engine no one uses, but it might have been a virus.  At any rate, I uninstalled it.

The good news is that my computer stopped running at 100% CPU.  The bad news is…my computer broke.  My father looked at it again, and eventually decided there was nothing more he could do and that I’d have to take it somewhere to get someone to look at it.  Luckily for me, we have Information Technology Services (ITS) right on campus.  So I took my computer to them, and they fiddled with it, and then they decided that the only way to fix it would be to restore it to factory settings.  Gee, I thought, I’m so lucky that my computer is still mostly functional.  Now I’ll be able to back up all my files and not lose absolutely everything I ever lived for.

That night, I plugged in my external hard drive and did some dragging and dropping of files.  My dad gave me the sage advice of checking to make sure everything backed up properly by plugging the hard drive in to another computer.  I thought this advice was good, but (and here’s the important part) I never actually went through with it.  Even though I was suspicious of how quickly everything had “backed up,” I still never got around to checking that everything I lived for was okay.  I have no idea why that didn’t fly to the top of my priority list, but I’m kind of scatterbrained.  Especially when it is least convenient for me to be so.

Skip forward to after my computer has been wiped, and ITS nerd guy plugs in my external hard drive to retrieve all of my everything.  Can you guess what happened?  That’s right.  He looked at me and said slowly and quietly, in the tone of someone admitting to the fact that they just ran over all of your pets and your grandmother, that I had not backed up a thing.  All I had done was copy shortcuts from my computer to my hard drive, which does absolutely nothing.  Then, for about ten seconds, I had to live with this fact.  Ten seconds to try and wrap my head around the fact that I had lost everything, and that this problem could have so easily been avoided.  Then Mr. ITS said, “But…” and I perked up my ears.

Thanks to sheer luck, the damage was not too bad.  Mr. ITS installed a program on my computer that had the potential to recover documents from my computer’s hard drive.  It did this quite well.  So well, in fact, that it brought back Word documents that I had deleted years ago.  But I still thought I’d lost a lot.  None of the JPEG files could be recovered, which meant that I’d lost London.  Remember how I was abroad for a semester?  Maybe you don’t.  But I thought I’d lost that.

NOPE

Apparently, at some point I backed up all of my files, including my pictures from London and my books, onto my flash drive!  I couldn’t fit all the pictures, so I lost Dublin, but I can get pictures of that from my best friend who accompanied me on that trip.  I’m certainly not complaining.  Not only did all of my books get saved and my pictures from London, but the recovery program found my completed version of Grotesque, the only book that had not been recently backed up.  Considering how stupid I had to be to get myself into this situation, I am incredibly lucky that pure serendipity got me out of it, despite the fact that I probably didn’t deserve such a nice bail-out.

At this point, you might be wondering why I’m telling you all this.  Aside from the fact that it’s funny in a “Ha ha, I almost lost my entire reason for living” sort of way, it also pertains to this blog.  See, I recently acquired a Wacom tablet, which I was using to draw funny little cartoons, if you’ll recall.  Unfortunately, I lost Photoshop Elements when I wiped the computer, as well as all the things I drew using it.  This means that I lost an entire artistic series of pictures I drew based on those iconic, red phone booths you see in London.  Hours and hours of work.  Gone.  I will redraw them anyway, and maybe share a few, when I’m able to reinstall Elements.  The only problem is that the CD to restore it to my computer is somewhere back in California, in a large cardboard box maybe.  (We just moved)  So it looks like I won’t be able to illustrate my blog for a while.  Not until that CD or some other solution is found.  My only other option is MS Paint, and well…

…I just don’t think that would work out so well.

That’s all I have to say for today.  Somehow I will persevere.  I’m lucky that I got back what I did, even though I still lost many things that were important to me.  Obviously, I learned to be more careful with my files.  I’ve already gone back through and properly backed them up again.  I also learned that there is no point kicking myself forever about this mistake, because it’s in the past.  Yes, I had every opportunity to prevent it, but I didn’t.  And nothing I say or do is going to change that.  All I can do is deal with the consequences and try to learn from it.  I’d like to say I already have learned a good deal.  Only time will tell if this lesson will stick, but I have a feeling it will.

My father will probably be somewhat peeved when he reads this, so let me just say: I’m sorry, Dad!  I know I should have listened to you.  Thanks for all the help, though.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Word of the Day: Serendipity (n) – The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident.  Also, the fact or an instance of such a discovery.

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