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Good writing music :)

escapes for when you feel anxious

exploring a flowery town with cute villagers

drinking a milkshake in an empty diner at 3am

real life that feels dreamlike

cute sunflower field dates

in love with the universe

softest love songs

living inside an 80s tv show

drinking tea on a cozy raining morning

you’re an angsty teen in a coming-of-age film

summer road trip in the west coast

vacation in san francisco

living in an old French film

stargazing and contemplating the meaning of life

late night drives in a 90’s movie

watching a beautiful sunset over the beach with someone you love

feeling dazed and drifting off under dreamlike sunlight

going to the beach in a camper van in 1960′s california

collecting whimsical music-boxes and taking pictures of clouds in paris

falling asleep on the moon

city lights at midnight

half dreaming,half awake in faded 60s sunlight

remembering someone else’s memories like they’re your own

being the guardian of a snowy forest who befriends wolves and takes care of baby fawns

being in a vintage fairytale

wandering the avenues of vintage New York City

living in a cinematic landscape and watching over a magnificent scenery

falling in love in a coffee shop

exploring an art museum

eating fruit in a small italian seaside town

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A Semester in Review: My Last Week at CMA

Spring seems to finally be on its way, finals (and graduation!) are approaching perhaps a little faster than I would like, and the semester is winding down to its close. That means that, though it’s hard to believe, my internship with Creative Media Agency will be coming to a close at the end of this week. As such, this Wednesday’s post will probably be my last. I wanted to take the opportunity of my last blog post to survey the whole experience from afar, try and take it in in its entirety. What have I learned? How has my outlook on writing, and on the publishing industry, changed since my first day on the job? And -- what now?

Over the course of the past fifteen or so weeks, I’ve read probably thousands of pages of submitted manuscripts. I’ve written up countless dozens of reader reports and rifled through at least twice as many queries. And, as of the writing of this post, there have been 386 CMA-related emails sent to my gmail account -- and that number will probably not stop going up until the very last day of this internship. I think the biggest takeaway I have from this internship has been the sheer volume of it. Since January 1st, Paige has requested perhaps three dozen first-three-chapters from authors who have queried, and from there, requested only two full manuscripts. Of all the hundreds of queries she’s received this semester, she hasn’t agreed to represent a single one. There have been a few projects here and there that have been sent to us that were (before Paige or us even saw them) had already been accepted for publication by another editor and house. But overall, that magic moment of finding a diamond in the rough and rushing it to the presses hasn’t happened. Perhaps it will in the coming months -- there’s at least one manuscript excerpt we’ve received I am really rooting for to get to the next round -- but not yet. I knew people said all the time that it’s hard to get noticed as an author because publishing houses and agents are so inundated with submissions. Being the one going through each and every one of those submissions has definitely cemented the reality of this!

It can be tough, sometimes, when you’ve got seven manuscripts to read in one day to give them each your full attention, as they deserve. But, conversely, it also becomes much easier after a while to be able to spot a "No” manuscript from one that has promise. At the beginning, I would read through the whole thing before evaluating. Now, I have a good idea within the first few pages. I’m much more selective with every “Yes” that I give out to manuscripts than I was at the start of the semester. It’s a skill that’s helped me in my duties as an intern, but also as a writer myself -- I’m able to compartmentalize and look at my own creative writing as if I were an agent considering the manuscript for representation. It’s a very different way of reading, even different from the critical reading I’ve done in writing classroom roundtables.

One of the most personally helpful and enlightening parts of this internship has been my work on the Contacts team. Each week, I’m responsible for digging up the contact information of about fifteen publishing industry professionals, imprints, and houses and formatting them for Paige’s easy access. For a graduating senior trying not only to learn about the publishing industry but also join it, this was a very helpful tool. It’s definitely illuminated my understanding of “the lay of the land” so to speak -- how big the industry is, and just how many houses and editors and niches there are. At the beginning of the semester, I was pretty convinced that I would have to move to New York in order to get a job. I knew only about the big five publishing houses that own most of the industry. Now, I’ve had the chance to see many various smaller houses in cities all across the country, from Michigan to Florida to Oregon. Based on that research, I now think my job search has definitely shifted to applying to these smaller publishers rather than the big New York one. It’s a minority of the industry, sure, but it’s very possible -- and I would never have known about all this myriad of smaller  houses, both in terms of the interesting niche work they are doing, and as lower-key job options, before this internship. 

Overall, my time at CMA has forced me to read more, research more, and learn more about the publishing industry than I ever would have done (or had time to do!) of my own volition. Therefore, my #1 piece of takeaway advice to anyone pursuing a similar career in publishing would be: get in there. Find an internship opportunity, even an unpaid one -- it’s great research for when you’re preparing for the real thing. Tthe only way to truly know how this industry works, and whether it’s the right career for you, is to immerse yourself in it. It’s like learning a language: you can do it with a textbook and a couple YouTube videos, but there’s no substitute to travelling to the country itself and immersing yourself completely. This internship was tough, and a lot of work and time, but I’ve also learned so much by cutting off my lifelines and totally diving into it.

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What’s in a Name: Publishing Imprints

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Do I Really Need An Agent?

The short of it is: yeah, pretty much. But why? The latter is actually an interesting question to ask. Its answer can tell you a lot about how the publishing industry works, how it’s changed over the years, and what’s the best fit for your specific style as an author.

It used to be that you didn’t really need an agent. Once upon a time, almost all publishing houses accepted unsolicited manuscripts, and regularly signed authors themselves. Now, however, most of the larger publishing houses get so many submissions that they don’t even read them unless they are represented by agents. The industry has become more businesslike, and in order to navigate the book business, authors can find a great deal of help by teaming up with an agent. Who is an agent? Essentially, the middleman and book-businessperson who sets up and negotiates all aspects of the book deal between the author and the publishing house. But there’s a lot more interesting stuff to it than that.

One reason it’s very beneficial to have an agent is because it’s an agent’s job to know the industry. An agent is responsible for forging professional relationships with editors from all kinds of publishing houses, big or small. They know what types of books editors like to buy, and are confident in those editors’ skills, both in editing the manuscript and making sure the final product is a big hit. When you submit your manuscript to an agent for review, an agent is already thinking of a dozen different editors for whom this manuscript would be a great fit. So querying an agent is kind of like submitting your manuscript to a handful of the most perfect editors, without you having to do the research first.

And, since most publishing houses do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, working with an agent means that you now have access to tons more editors and houses than you had previously. While it’s true that smaller houses often cheerfully accept stories from unrepresented authors, bigger deals with larger companies tend to happen when there is an agent involved. And that’s great, since while in drawing up contracts and book deals, a publishing house looks out for their own interests, an agent always works for the author. Your agent knows the language of book contracts, and will know how to best represent your interests when negotiating the sale of your book.

Finally, it’s true that an author will have a good working relationship with both their editor and their agent. But especially in Paige’s case, the relationship between editor and author often runs much deeper. An editor’s job is to work the author’s manuscript into the best form it can possibly be, editing and revising it into a finished product ready to be sold. After the book is published, however, the editor’s work is done. Agents, on the other hand, make a more committed decision not just to take on a book, but to take on the author as well, possibly for many years and projects down the line. As I’ve mentioned before, Paige’s business model is based on author name-recognition, rather than finding the next, newest book ideas; she has worked with many of her clients for decades, and gotten to know them as well as old friends. When an agent takes on an author and their book, her main responsibility is not the manuscript, but to take care of the author and represent their business interests to the best of her ability. In short, an editor works with the book; an agent works with the author.

So, those are a few reasons why it’s easier and a bit more professional to try and find an agent to represent your work before seeking out a publishing house. You’ll have a much better chance of your work actually being read and reviewed, and even if you don’t get any bites on your line, you may get some personalized feedback from an industry professional about how best to revise for your next go-around. But, of course, I work for a literary agency -- so I might be a little bit biased!

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The Anatomy of a Query Letter: Part 2

Welcome back! Today, I wanted to show you an example of what makes a good query letter, as per the parameters I outlined in last week’s post. Owing to the confidentiality agreement I signed at the beginning of this semester, I can’t show you any of the queries Paige’s office has received, but I’ve mocked up a brief sample one that I believe exemplifies all the best qualities of a good pitch:

           A DESPERATE AFFAIR is a harrowing neo-noir crime thriller set on the mean streets of New York City in the 1950s. Complete at 75,000 words, it is similar in tone to John Grisham’s novels.

           JOHNNY RIGHT, ace detective, think’s he’s taken his last case. That is, until gorgeous femme fatale LANA VALENS walks into his life. Although Lana initially hires Johnny to solve the murder of her ex-husband, Johnny quickly learns there’s more to Lana’s story than she’s letting on – and her mysterious motives are deadly.

           The novel alternates between Johnny and Lana’s perspectives as they each play a game of cat-and-mouse. The two prove to be evenly matched: as the battle of wits escalates and several “accidents” lead to deaths and near deaths, Johnny and Lana plot, blackmail, and unravel each other’s secrets, revealing that their shadowy, violent pasts are more intertwined than we once thought.

           I am a ten-year veteran of the NYPD with almost five years’ experience working as a senior detective. I have a BA in Criminal Psychology, and recently earned my MFA in Creative Writing from Prestigious University. My fiction has been published in Popular Literary Magazine, Underground Indie Lit-Mag Monthly, and won the 2017 MacArthur Prize for Awesome Writing.

           I have included the first five pages below, and would be pleased to send you additional chapters upon your request. I’m a great admirer of the Pete Watts thrillers you’ve published before, and believe A DESPERATE AFFAIR will make a great addition to your roster.

Sincerely,

Your Name.

           Let’s examine what this query does well.

1.    It is short and to the point. The language is intentional, every word chosen for maximum effectiveness. The short paragraphs make it easy for the reader to keep their attention focused.

2.    It begins with a brief overview of all the important factoids the agent wants to know: the title, genre, word count, and short introduction. It also includes a comparison to another bestselling author, which lets the agent know that this project could be marketable based on that similarity.

3.    Paragraph two is where you should delve right into the story. One good way to do this, as this query does, is by introducing the main characters. Other effective lead-ins will introduce the main ‘hook’ of the story, or the plot event around which the novel will revolve around; many queries also begin with a “what would you do if?” question.

4.    Paragraph three teases at the details of the story, using language that’s designed to pique a reader’s curiosity – remember, that’s all you need to do – rather than bog down the proposal with needless details or specifics. The mysterious, intriguing note at the end of this paragraph (who are these characters? What is their true past together?) interests the reader enough to ask to read more.

5.    The author’s biography shows relevant life experience related to the subject of the novel, and proves their credentials as a writer.

6.    The author also includes a sentence that shows he or she is familiar with the agent’s past projects and preferred style. This short bit shows that the author has done their research, knows what the agent likes, and that his or her novel is a good fit for that agent. As in any business writing, it’s good to make every query seem personal to each specific agent, rather than cookie-cutter.

This isn’t the only way to pen a query letter; as I discussed in last week’s post, I like to think of it as a set of effective aspects that can be arranged and rearranged in a number of different ways, depending on which elements are strongest/most intriguing. Ultimately, query letters, just like creative writing, are a subjective art. And, at the end of the day, it’s the story itself shining through that is going to get an agent interested in your project. A well-polished query letter is all about getting that story across in the most effectual and interesting way.

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The Anatomy of a Query Letter: Part 1

Welcome back from spring break! I had quite a busy one, because over the break this year, Paige decided to give the interns another regular task to complete: reviewing query letters. It’s been a crazy, hectic experience sorting through all of these proposals (there are a zillion) and I’ve learned a lot about what makes a good one.

As you’ll remember, a query letter is what an author sends to an agent when he or she is ready to find representation for their book. It’s a very vital part of getting your book published, because you’ve got such a short time to catch an agent’s eye and make them want to ask for more of your manuscript. It’s also the very first thing an agent is going to see of your project; and if he or she isn’t interested, they will pass on reading the full thing – so no matter how great your manuscript itself is, if you can’t sell it well in the query, it won’t ever get read. To top it all off, Paige gets up to 40 queries in a day. So it’s crucial that your query be polished, intentional, intriguing, and in short, the best it can possibly be.  

Remember that a query letter is basically a brief “advertisement” for the book. Although all agents are different, Paige likes to receive an intriguing summary of the story – like the back of a book jacket – the first five pages of a manuscript, and a brief bio of the author, including any relevant job experience, accolades, and other published works. How you structure it, what you emphasize, is up to you. There’s lots of room for variation in this format, which is great, because you have the opportunity to play your strengths and choose what will work best to sell your specific manuscript.

Usually an author will start off with their summary, and end with their biography. However, if you’re a two-time published author who’s got a storied magazine writing career, you might want to put that part first, before your summary. Chances are, you’re not quite as qualified as that (yet), and you’ll want to put your biography at the end. Do, however, think about anything in your background that might make an agent think you’re the best writer for this job. If you’ve got a few writing awards or a few short stories published in a school literary magazine, mention it! Agents are looking for authors who are authorities on their subjects: if your story takes place in Hawaii, and you’re from Hawaii, that’s a big selling point! If you’re writing a book about a skateboarding competition, and you’ve been skateboarding since you were old enough to stand, an agent will see you know what you’re talking about. Many of Paige’s authors write stories inspired by their work lives – police officers, coast guard officers, and park rangers have all come to us with thrillers and mysteries based on these exciting occupations. Red Sparrow is up on the NYT Bestseller list right now, and it’s written by an ex-CIA agent with more than 30 years of experience. That’s definitely something to make him stand out from all the other spy novelists out there.

But the bulk of what we’re all interested in is your story. Your synopsis has to grab the agent immediately. Much like marketing copy or the back cover of a book, every word should be intentionally chosen so as to keep the reader reading. Remember, an agent is reading 40 queries a day, so no long paragraphs. Keep it brief and easy to skim through. Think about your elevator pitch: the thirty-second description that briefly tells your story’s premise, tone, and characters, and gets a reader intrigued. I find the most effective queries lead into their summaries with an interesting tagline, something that immediately grabs the reader’s attention: When Bob Smith found out his wife was having an affair, he thought everything was going downhill… or perhaps your novel is more introspective: What does it mean to lose someone you love? Silly examples, but I hope you see the point. Once you’ve piqued the agent’s interest, you can go into a little more detail – but don’t spoil the ending. This isn’t a complete summary; it’s meant to get an agent interested enough to ask for the full story.

Your query should also, of course, mention the title, genre, and word count. Let the agent know whether the manuscript is complete, and if it stands alone or is the first in a series (the publishing industry likes series potential – many authors say their manuscripts stand alone, but sequels can be added if desired). For reference, and if applicable, you can also tell the agent your manuscript is similar in story/style to another bestselling book. Stay gracious and brief – thank the agent for their time, and if you save them some reading time, they’ll thank you, too.

Owing to the confidentiality agreement I signed at the beginning of my internship, I can’t show you any of the real query letters Paige’s office has received as examples. So, next week, I want to sit down and mock up a few samples -- mish mashes of what I believe are some of the best elements of a successful query letter, and also provide a few examples of what to avoid. Stay tuned!

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Letters of Interest: Getting Agents to Come to You

There’s this common perception that agents and editors can afford to be as choosy as they like to be when it comes to the projects they pick up, simply because of the sheer incredible volume of manuscripts that they receive, unsolicited, every day. This is certainly true – the flow of new work is endless – but since I started work at CMA, I’ve learned that even though there’s no shortage of people coming to Paige with their ideas, it’s also common practice for agents to work the other way around: seeking out new authors and book ideas themselves. Today I wanted to talk about what types of qualities make a potential author or project attractive to an agent, and how they go about the process of recruiting those people/ideas, because – who knows? – you may have something in your arsenal that could get an agent interested in you without even having to submit to the “slush pile.”

Every other week when we do our Intern Academy phone calls, Paige asks the interns to do three things: discuss with her the manuscripts we’ve all read that week that she sent us, discuss one book from the bestseller list that we’ve read or are reading, and prepare one potential book idea and run it by her. A book idea can be lots of different things, depending on what research we’ve done or simply on what we’re interested in that week. The general idea is to come up with an idea for a book that we believe would sell well, and find a potential author who would be a good fit to write that project.

For instance, one of my fellow interns shared an idea for a YA dystopian novel with all of us that she had come up with. She then suggested one of Paige’s authors, who has written YA in the past. Then, we all discussed whether we liked the idea and thought it would be viable. If Paige decides that we ought to go through with a project idea, she’ll ask us to write a letter of interest -- a professional inquiry, addressed to the author from Paige herself, explaining the idea and encouraging the author to work with us in writing the book. If the author accepts, a contract will be brought up. Fiction pitches like these will usually go to an author who has already been published, and who knows the genre well. These sorts of pitches are based more on the idea for the book instead of the person who writes it; they usually come about when an agent realizes that there’s a niche for a good story in the market that she wants to fill.

However, potential book idea pitches can also be much more focused around the name recognition of the author. This often means a celebrity author, commissioned to write a memoir, joke book, cookbook, you name it – whatever fits their personality best. Increasingly over the past couple of years, with the rise of social media celebrities, agents have also been getting interested in online personalities. These people are a pretty good bet for a business venture such as a book deal, because they already have an audience who would be interested in the book, and usually have a recognizable brand/niche that we can match the subject to. For instance, a YouTuber who vlogs her kids as they grow up might be good for a parenting book or perhaps a cookbook. An Instagram personality who shares body-positive beauty and lifestyle advice might like to pen a memoir about finding confidence in one’s self. If it’s possible to find someone who has a good following online, but isn’t yet represented, an agent will want to jump on that chance! We’ll write a letter of interest explaining which of the author’s talents or interests would make the most compelling book.

I’m sharing this in my blog post today because, in today’s fast-moving media culture, writing books can tend to feel archaic, or even worse, left behind as other forms of media grow in popularity. It’s certainly no easy feat to become internet famous, but I want to stress that, to an agent, any form of author visibility is an asset when it comes to finding the next great book to publish. If there’s any way to get your name out there and known in whatever other fields besides writing you may be passionate about, go for it! You may not have realized – I certainly didn’t – that following your other passions (say, blogging about your pet) can actually be the thing that ends up enabling you to open the door to getting a book deal.

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Great Online Resources for Publishers and Authors

I wanted to take today’s blog post to point you toward and talk about a couple of really useful online resources, used by both publishing professionals and authors wanting to get ahead, that you may not have known about – I didn’t before I started this job, and now I check them almost every day. Some are considered essential resources for those working in the publishing industry, and offices purchase monthly subscriptions for their premium services, but there’s still a lot that you can get out of the free versions – whether you’re looking to get a foothold in the industry or figure out the best place to send your manuscript.

Publisher’s Marketplace (https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/) is probably the most important online portal for publishing professionals. It’s essentially a database of everything someone working in the industry needs to know about what’s happening in the industry – it holds the contact information of tons of agents, editors, and publishing houses, which is very important, since publishing is all about contacting people and making connections. It also gives a brief report of all the major publishing deal made each day – the name of the author, a sentence or two description of the plot of their book, which editor/publishing house it’s sold to, and which agent sold it. If you search for a specific agent or editor’s contact information, you can see on their profile not just their contact info, but all of the different deals they’ve been involved in over the years. This is super useful information to have as an agent, because you can tell what projects editors like, and therefore figure out if they might be interested in the manuscript you’re looking to sell. At $25.00 a month, it’s likely not an essential investment if you’re not employed in publishing, but as a guest viewer, you can see publishing news headlines, publishing job listings, and check in on the Deal of the Day to see the most important book sale of the day. Instead, I’d highly recommend signing up for the daily Publisher’s Lunch (https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html) emails they send out, which will deliver a daily e-mail newsletter and help you keep up on what’s happening in publishing.

Buzz Books (http://buzz.publishersmarketplace.com/) is another great resource. It features free downloadable PDFs that include sample chapters of the most popular and talked-about books that are soon-to-be published, organized by genre – there’s one for YA, Romance, and General fiction – and by publish date, fall/winter and spring/summer for each year. It’s a great way, if you don’t feel like buying a PM subscription, to get a sneak peek at what’s going to be published before it comes out, ergo, what editors are interested in buying. This way, you can keep up on trends much faster than waiting until each book hits shelves. Pay attention to what house picks up what types of projects – it’s always useful to see who’s interested in what, and send your own manuscripts to the place where it’ll have the best fit.

Bookateria (http://bookateria.publishersmarketplace.com/) will give you lots of useful listings of best-of and recently-published books. There’s best-of-the-year lists picked by Publisher’s Lunch and LibraryReads, Amazon, B&N, and Indie best books of the month lists, and latest releases lists organized helpfully by genre.

Obviously, the New York Times Bestseller List (https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/) is quite important to keep an eye on, as it’s the most prestigious and definitive list of the nation’s most popular books. Check in every week, and try to do two things: take note of how long a book stays on the list (not just at the top), and brainstorm about why each story has sold so well – is there something in the cultural zeitgeist you think a book might be tapping into (think Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, which has been topping the list for weeks for reasons you can probably deduce yourself)? Is it a first-time or well-known author? What popular titles is it similar to? Thinking critically about the kinds of stories that are really lighting up large amounts of people can help you tap into the kinds of ideas that might be really resonant in the current moment.

Finally, Manuscript Wishlist (http://www.manuscriptwishlist.com) is an incredibly useful resource, and one I think is most applicable to the needs of the aspiring author. It’s a database where editors and agents can create profiles telling the world what books they love to read and what stories they’re really hoping someone will send them next. It’s essentially a help wanted for publishers. You can search keyword phrases on the site search bar on the right, say, “time travel,” if you’ve got a novel about time travel, and find somebody who’s looking for exactly that kind of story. You can also go onto twitter and search the hashtag #MSWL – or read the ticker on Manuscript Wishlist’s site – to find publishers who have tweeted about a story idea that they really want to see. Not every editor and agent has a profile on Manuscript Wishlist or uses the hashtag every time they have a story idea, so I recommend going out and doing some further digging for people who might be interested in your work, but this site is an incredibly convenient first step that can potentially match you with the perfect person to represent your book.

As an author, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the creative process, so much so that you ignore the reality of the business. While you should never sacrifice your own creativity just to write whatever you think will be the post commercially popular in any given moment, it’s always good to keep an eye on what’s selling, what editors want to publish, and what’s happening in the industry while you write, so you can find the best balance between writing a manuscript that speaks to your muse while appealing to what publishers will be really excited to represent.

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What Does an Agent Look For in a Manuscript?

It’s been a month or so now since my internship at CMA started, and I’m blown away by how quickly it’s gone by – more specifically, by how quickly the way I think about both writing and the publishing world have changed. I really do look at things so much differently now, whether I’m sitting down to write one of my own projects or to read someone else’s, than I did before I started this journey.

Things have finally settled in, and I like to think that I’ve got a good working knowledge of all of my tasks and duties, and how to perform them effectively. I feel like I’ve developed a groove when it comes to how I evaluate manuscripts, and that’s what I wanted to share with you today: the signs I’ve learned to look for (both good and bad) in every manuscript that pops up in my email, and what goes into my decisions when it comes to giving a Yes or a No.

Performing a critical evaluation of someone’s writing is very different as a literary agent than, doing the same thing for a classmate’s writing in your creative fiction class, which is how I was used to doing this sort of thing before I started working at CMA. At a creative writing roundtable, the goal of your discussion is not just to analyze the piece for its merits and faults, but talk about ways in which it can be improved. When you’re vetting manuscripts for publication, there’s not really any way to have a discussion about improvements with the author, and there’s not much sense in accepting a piece on the condition of improvement. There’s just a choice – Yes, this just HAS to be published, or No, it’s not quite ready yet.

The Easy No’s make up probably 95% of our submissions. They’re manuscripts I can pick up, quickly recognize problems in, and write a reader report expressing pretty-much certainty that it still needs more work in order to be publishable. What do these manuscripts usually look like? Unfortunately, it’s very easy for just one small element to tip the scale into a No. Situations might not feel real or believable. Characters might make decisions that don’t make logical sense, or come across as unlikable to the reader. The writing style might feel clunky, or rely too much on introspection without dialogue to break it up, or vice versa. These are things that you’re probably skilled in avoiding or correcting in your own writing. But did you know that there are certain elements that publishers consider far more important than others when accepting or rejecting a manuscript?

For instance, one of the most common problems, and most common reasons I reject a manuscript, is because I found it difficult to get invested in the characters and care about them enough to know what happens next. Getting your reader to connect with your characters – especially your main character – is a difficult and subjective thing to accomplish when writing, but it’s also one of the most important. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if the prose style isn’t too interesting, or the plotline feels a bit cliché; if I see characters that can get readers hooked, I’m much more inclined to overlook those other flaws (which can be ironed out once we set up the author with an editor) and give the manuscript a Yes based on character alone.

Broadly speaking – and especially in my own corner of the industry, as Paige does much of her business selling commercial romance and mystery novels – people read books for the characters. They’re not looking to be dazzled by the most intelligent or philosophical themes or beautiful prose. They just want to be taken on a fun ride with lots of twists and turns, alongside characters they come to love. Your prose doesn’t necessarily have to stand out alongside Shakespeare and Milton, and you don’t always need to layer in complex themes or moral messages. Heck, there’s lots of books on the bestseller lists that are pretty poorly written – but they have engaging plots that keep readers turning pages, and that’s why they’re up there. So I definitely take that into consideration – the “hook” of the plot is much more important than the writing style. Projects that can be easily explained in a sentence or two that sounds so interesting that you just have to read the rest tend to have the most viability.

This ties well into narrative momentum, which as I mentioned a few weeks back, is also hugely important. You can have the most interesting premise and most lovable characters in the world, but if it starts off slow, readers won’t bother to continue. All the finer points of a manuscript’s pacing and plot structure – how well the author intercuts dialogue, action, exposition, and introspection; which unexpected twists and turns come when; the amount of descriptive prose vs. action/events – come into play here. It’s definitely tricky, but when you lay out everything just right, un-put-down-ability becomes the #1 strength of a manuscript.

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The Basics of the Nonfiction Book Proposal

It’s been a busy, busy week for me at CMA. I am one half of the Contacts team, and our big new project – an enormous master spreadsheet of all of the names, contact info, and preferred genres of the many freelance editors & writers with whom Paige maintains business contacts – is due this Friday. For me, that’s meant a lot of digging online for email addresses and phone numbers, and it’s taken my headspace away a little bit from our manuscript evaluations, which by now I’ve learned to get through a lot quicker than when I started.

However, I did get the chance to view a couple of nonfiction manuscripts this week, which shook things up a little bit. I was surprised to find out that nonfiction queries are actually very different from fiction queries – and they also tend to be much more popular and make more money overall than fiction. While many of you may think of yourselves as strictly fiction writers, I wanted to take a post to go over the basics of how to send out nonfiction queries, because there are plenty of ways to write nonfiction (specifically in narrative nonfiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir genres) that feel just as creative and narrative-based as straight fiction books do. Books like Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, for instance, become very popular because they feel almost like fiction. Who knows? You may discover something in your own life that makes a great nonfiction story and still utilizes all of your fiction-writer talents.

The first major difference between a fiction and a nonfiction query is that authors of nonfiction do not actually need to have the whole book written before they float out their ideas to agents. Instead, they send a proposal, summarizing the book’s plot, its tone, approach, and the market to which it’s geared. If it’s a book about gardeners, the proposal should include a well-researched and well-cited section informing the agent that gardening is the number one hobby in America; that there are a number of gardening magazines whose readership might be interested in this project; and other things of that nature – basically, an explanation of why this book would be really popular.

Then, the author has to convince the agent that they specifically are the most interesting, most qualified person to write a book on their specific subject. Do you run a popular gardening Youtube channel? Did you grow the world’s largest rutabaga? An author’s name recognition matters quite a good deal in nonfiction.

Following this section, the author should detail his or her plan to promote their book. While a fiction author may be signed on by their publishing house to go on a book tour or signings to promote their novel, nonfiction authors are expected to be proactive and promote their work themselves in whatever ways they can. You could say that you’ve scheduled speaking engagements, are ready to promote on social media, and mention that you’re a syndicated columnist and that you can talk about your book there. It’s especially important to show the agent that you’ve already laid the groundwork to promote your book by ticking a few of the boxes that you’ve mentioned before you send out your proposal.

Finally, include a chapter by chapter outline, and a few sample chapters that show your unique, engaging voice. A project that gets accepted will have a good market, a qualified or notable author, lots of ways to publicize and promote, and a unique spin on a classically marketable subject.

Many of you reading may be fiction authors, but I hope that the information on nonfiction is useful to you. It’s definitely a more business-centric way of pitching a book to an agent than a fiction query is, and I certainly thought that for me, an author of primarily fiction, learning to think about the process in this way was very helpful. We authors tend think of ourselves as artists, and I know that we all write because we love to be creative. Agents, editors, and publishers are creative people, too, but they’re also business people – and thinking about your manuscript not just as a passion project but as something that can be marketable and viable in addition to being an outlet of artistic expression is a great mindset to be in when you first sit down to that blank page.

[jjmbooks]

Hello! I am a student in Castleberry's Advanced Creative Writing class. I submitted a question earlier but I do not think it went through *gasp*! Anyways, I was curious as to how exactly you began in the publishing business? What were your first steps? How did you learn about those companies? How might others begin their careers/start in the publishing industry? Thank you!

Hello! Good question! Like many fields, as you may have guessed, a lot of the best employment opportunities in the publishing industry come down to who you know and how well you can network. I was lucky enough to have a friend at William and Mary who let me know about CMA’s internship program. I’ve never been the best at networking, so I know it can be really tough, but it’s the most important skill when finding a job so it pays to really improve it! I recommend you try and search around for any opportunities you can, whether it be though people you know, your school’s programs, or good old online digging. For instance, I’ve attended W&M's biannual Ferguson Blair Publishing Seminar and had a great time -- many College alumni come back to speak about their experiences in a variety of publishing jobs, and there’s a chance to network over lunch. When it comes to searching for opportunities online, larger companies like Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins have more visible and more structured internship programs with online applications -- but these are of course incredibly competitive. I recommend searching online for smaller agencies and houses in your local area if you are just starting out. It may take some cold calling or some serious google searching, but you’ll probably have a better chance this way -- plus, a smaller environment might be a better pace for your first experience in publishing. Hope that helps!

[jjmbooks]

Catching an Agent’s Eye: How to Get Published

Last Thursday we had our first Intern Academy session, in which Paige hosted a conference call with all of the interns and discussed a lot of different aspects of our work from a more explanatory/educational standpoint. In this first session, she talked a little bit about a book’s journey from idea to manuscript to representation by an agent. While she focused more on the agent’s perspective of this process, I thought it would be very valuable to you all to hear more about the details of what’s going through an agent’s head when they are looking at your queries, so that if/when you decide to try and get your work published, you can put your best foot forward.

But first, a caveat. One of the most important parts of getting your piece published is finding the right place to send it, because every agent is different. Each person has different taste in what they like to read, and every agent has a slightly different way of doing business. Paige tends to work with authors for a long period of time once she picks them up. Her business model is less hunting, jumping as quickly as possible on the next big thing, but maintaining clients and growing their brand. She asks for only a few chapters at first; some other agents may want the whole manuscript right away. Do your research – make sure the agent you’re looking at prefers to buy the same sort of work that you’re writing, and that you’re following all their guidelines correctly.

So: say you’re an author with a newly completed book on your hands. Congratulations! That’s a big accomplishment, but it’s only half the effort. You want to get published.

Very few publishing houses, unless they’re on the smaller side, accept unsolicited manuscripts; they won’t read them unless you are represented by an agent. Agents act as intermediaries between authors and publishing houses. You do the writing, and they help you polish the work to make it marketable, and find you a good deal to sell for publication at the best house with the best editor for your piece. Literary agents are also the ones whose offices tend to read most or all of what’s sent to them, solicited or no, so you’ll want to start here.

Do some research online: find out what each agent likes to read and tends to buy. An agent has to really fall in love with a book in order to be able to sell it to editors – so if you’ve got a romance, find an agents who love romances and sells a ton of them.

The second step is to send out query letters to as many agents as you can – the more, the better. A query letter is a cover letter for your work. It explains the title, word count, and genre, and describes the plot (briefly!) in such a way that grabs the reader in, so that the agent will really want to read the rest.

When an author initially reaches out to Paige, she likes the first five pages of the manuscript along with the query letter. For that reason, the beginning of your manuscript is absolutely, absolutely, the most important part of the whole thing. Something in that very short snippet has to really grab an agent’s eye – make them say, I’ve got to see more – because they know that any reader picking up your book off the shelf at the bookstore or library will put it right back if they aren’t grabbed right away by the first few pages. If your story is off to a slow start, even if you know it’s going to get better later, it doesn’t necessarily matter to an agent, because they know a reader will pass before they ever get to the good part, and the book won’t sell. So write yourself a great beginning – that’s the best advice I can give to getting yourself a book deal.

Now let’s imagine the agent looking at your email: query letter and first five pages.

The first thing Paige looks for when she reads a query is what genre your manuscript is. Fiction, nonfiction? Memoir, children’s book, thriller, YA? An agent wants an author who knows the markets well enough to recognize what it is that they’re writing, and where it will be shelved in a bookstore. Lack of a clear genre demarcation means an author doesn’t know the business, and they’re harder to sell, so an agent is more likely to pass.

Paige also looks for word count. You may not realize how important this is, but each and every genre has its own set parameters for word count that it’s expected to fall into in order to be marketable. If you say you’ve got a mystery/thriller novel, but it’s 110,000 words, already Paige is ready to say “No.” It’s the author’s responsibility to already be well-researched in terms of marketability, and to send Paige a manuscript that reflects that – because if a manuscript needs substantial work, even if it piques an agent’s interest, she’s likely to pass on it anyway, because she doesn’t have the time or money to spend on it.

Then, finally, Paige looks at the story. The number one qualities agents look for are narrative momentum and characters. The ultimate purpose of a book is to get a reader hooked, turning page after page – if it doesn’t, it won’t sell. If the plot races along, keeping you glued to the page, or if the characters are so likable that you just have to see what happens to them, an agent will pick up your book – because they know readers will – even if the writing style is not the greatest in the world (though of course it still matters a great deal!)

If Paige likes the first five pages of your manuscript, she will ask for a (still brief!) synopsis of the full story, a (brief!!!!) author bio, and the first three chapters. Usually, this brief excerpt is all an agent needs in order to know if your book is a “Yes” or a “No,” another reason why your beginning is the most important part of your story. Some agents will ask for the full manuscript at this point; everyone’s process is different.

I haven’t been able to get very far into the details of what happens when Paige is making her final “Yes” or “No” decision – no longer a “should I ask for more material?” or not, but “should I choose to represent this author and fight for this book’s publication?” – purely because it happens so infrequently. I have done some work with some of the authors that she’s already represented for a number of years, but so far, nobody new has joined the team, and may not at all this semester. Paige receives about 25-30 manuscript submissions per day, which, as you can imagine, is a heck of a slush pile. But don’t let that discourage you – agents (or their hardworking, unpaid intern staff) look through most or all the submissions they get, at least a glance. Everybody has that one glance, that one opportunity to catch an agent’s eye and get them interested in reading more. No matter how good your manuscript is, the process begins there, and it could be the difference between a “Yes” and a “No!”

[jjmbooks]

Learning the Ropes: One Week on the Job

Hello! Welcome to my internship experience blog, the Bibliophile’s Blog. My name is Jessica Molz, I’m a fourth year English major, and I’m working this semester at Creative Media Agency, LLC. This is my first experience in the publishing industry, and I’m excited to get down to business and see how it all works.

If you’re here reading from Professor Castleberry’s Advanced Fiction class, welcome! I plan to update with a new post every Wednesday. Please don’t hesitate to ask me anything or make a comment on my post – you can use the Ask page at the top of my blog. I’ll be checking messages throughout the semester and will be happy to answer any questions you might have about my experiences. I’m an aspiring author myself, and so my goal with this blog for both you guys and for myself is not only to talk about my job responsibilities and learn more about this corner of the publishing industry, but to explain what you as a writer need to know about the way the submission process works – so that you can come across professionally, write to your strengths as well as what’s marketable, and stand out as much as possible.

That being said, let’s get started!

I’ve learned a lot in my first week as an intern about how the publishing industry and manuscript submissions process works. I won’t get into too much detail right now – there’ll be plenty of time for that later. For the first post, let’s start with an overview of what my job is and what my basic responsibilities are.

Creative Media Agency (CMA) is a small company, featuring Ms. Paige Wheeler, our literary agent, Ana-Maria Bonner, our office manager, and nine interns, including myself. The bulk of my responsibilities will be taken up by manuscript evaluations: writers will contact Paige with a brief pitch and about five pages of their completed manuscript. If she’s intrigued, she’ll ask the author for a full-story synopsis, an author biography, and the first three chapters of their work. Then, she sends it over to us interns.

Each of us read carefully, and if we decide we like it, we write back to Paige that the manuscript is a “Yes:” we recommend that she should ask to read the work in its entirety. If it’s a “No,” obviously, we recommend that she pass. After taking our thoughts into consideration – usually on a majority vote – Paige makes her final decision.

Whether we give it a “Yes” or a “No,” we still write a two-paragraph reader report for every manuscript we receive. One paragraph briefly summarizes the piece, and the other offers a critical critique, much like the comments you all would give each other’s work in a creative writing workshop: comments on tone, style, characters, pacing, etc – what worked and what didn’t.

Occasionally, we’ll get longer projects. We write editorial letters whenever one of the authors Paige is already representing completes a new manuscript. We read the whole book, then write a one to two page letter to the author highlighting the piece’s strengths and suggesting ways it can improve. I’ve already had the opportunity to do one of these already – it’s very neat to read a book before it’s gone to print! For the next step in the process, we write pitch letters – basically a sales pitch advertising to editors why they should take up our author’s book as their next project. There’s also letters of interest, which seem like an intriguing reversal of the usual process: sometimes, Paige will decide she wants to pursue a certain book idea, and we will write to potential authors we think would do a good job. So, you never know – a book deal might just come to you, if an agent already knows and likes your work!

In addition to reading manuscripts, Ana-Maria also split the interns up into several teams: Contacts, Social Media, Film, Foreign/Audio, eBooks, Publicity, and Client Press Kits. Each team covers some of the many different business responsibilities of a literary agency. I work in Contacts, Film, and eBooks, which means that big part of my job is maintaining contact information & relationships with other professionals in the publishing industry, and keeping on top of the different deals that are struck between authors and agents, agents and publishing houses, and houses and film studios – IP rights change hands every day, and it’s Paige’s responsibility as an agent to stay on top of different trends in the industry (what sorts of projects are selling well? Are movie studios interested in adapting YA novels? Are they mostly films or TV series?) and to keep tabs on the people she needs to contact when she’s ready to strike a deal herself.

My job for the Film and eBooks team involves scanning sites like Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and Publisher’s Marketplace (one of the most important sites for publishing professionals – lots more on that on another day) for agents, producers, and publishers with whom we’d like to get in contact. Once I find a new name, I’ll add it to one of our many masterlist-contact-spreadsheets (there’s so many), and then start my work for the Contacts team: looking up not only their phone, email, address, photo, job title, and company, but researching what projects they like to buy/are interested in. The latter is very important information for Paige, who must match the right manuscript to the right editor or film studio. I keep this information up to date so that, if one of her authors has given her a romance manuscript, she’ll be able to pitch it to someone who mostly buys romance novels and know they will probably be interested.

Finally, Intern Academy conference calls take place once every two weeks, a really nice and quite unique offering that CMA has, in which Paige takes an hour to focus on the interns and teach us a bit about how the publishing industry works. We’ll all discuss reading assignments, bestsellers, and book ideas. I can’t wait for the first one tomorrow.

These are the main responsibilities I’m going to be taking care of as the semester gets into gear. I’ve already learned so much just in my first week, and I’m excited to dive even deeper into everything!