Back to the obligatory pit of author despair known as Query Hell. In other words, everything is back to normal.
Except for me, it's not really all that hellish anymore. I've done it too long. I've been at this game, off and on, for the better part of several decades. To put it in perspective, when I submitted my very first short story to a magazine, skinny ties, pastels, and leg warmers were in style - everybody wanted to look like they'd come straight off Miami Vice. The publishing world looked much different than it does today, mainly because of the online accessibility of information to authors.
Back in the day, I'd get out my well-worn Writer's Market guide and pour over it 'til I was half blind. After compiling a number of submission-worthy candidates, I'd carefully print out the material I'd polished and crafted, stick it carefully inside a Manila envelope with an S.A.S.E., and take my submissions down to the post office. Then I'd go back to writing, and one by one, the rejections would trickle in. It was always an adventure getting the mail, wondering if that would be the day I'd find an actual acceptance. I usually didn't, and became quite calloused to getting rejections. I filed 'em all away, collecting them like trophies, keeping the giant stack like some badge of honor. I figure I have well in excess of a couple hundred now. I did get an acceptance finally, got the galleys and everything. And then nothing. Don't know if the magazine abruptly folded or what, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
Of course, there were times, jetting around the world courtesy of Uncle Sam, that this just wasn't possible. It's hard to mail submissions out and collect rejection slips if you're not home. Long hiatuses from the submissions game have been pretty much the norm.
And things have gotten much easier with the advent of e-mail submissions. A whole lot easier! I never query via regular mail now. I have no reason to. Yes, there are still agents out there who do not accept e-queries, but at this point in time, wouldn't you be a little hesitant of an agent who hasn't caught up with technology enough to operate that way? Hell, a lot of agents accept only e-queries.
It's far easier, too. There's tons of information on agents out there. What they're looking for, how to query them, what to include, pretty much anything an author would want to know. It's a lot quicker, too. No complicated envelope, S.A.S.E., trip to the post office, and waiting on the postman. Just zip it off and watch your e-mail. You already do anyway. Now there's more time for writing.
Except that there's not. That time has been replaced by blogging, and tweeting, and all the other endless forms of social media out there. Most agents want an author to have a good online presence. They want to see the author is engaged himself, has worked to market himself as much as possible already. It makes their job all that much easier.
Looking back, things haven't gotten any easier, but I've gotten better at it. The one thing that jumps out at me right away is how much better I understand the publishing industry. Publishing Separate Worlds was a tremendous learning exercise for me. This blog has been too, especially with all the research I've put into the Literary Agents tab and sidebar. I know better how to find what I'm looking for, and how to write better what they're looking for.
So it's back to the trenches for now, writing, editing, pouring over submission guidelines and then trying not to mix 'em up with I send the queries out. It's still frustrating at times, but I've gotten as jaded to rejections as literary agents are to bad queries, so it's all cool. And hey, it's not personal, it's the way things are.
Showing posts with label Submissions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Submissions. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Future of Querying
I just had a random thought, inspired partly by author and former literary agent Nathan Bradsford's recent post on query critiques. It got me wondering, with the recent surge of query critiques, how will that affect the query process in the long run?
Let me explain. Starting few years ago and continuing today, we have seen the emergence of the query critique, with agents such as Janet Reid critiquing them with Query Shark and her main blog, BookEnds, LLC's agents doing the Workshop Wednesday posts, Kristin Nelson posting advice in Pub Rants. The list goes on and on. I could post more, but you get the idea.
The good news is there's plenty of advice - solid, real advice from those in the industry - we struggling authors can find and use. Unless you're this guy, you probably have a pretty good idea on how to structure a decent query. Bad news is, so does everybody else out there. This means that aside from the folks who just aren't ready to begin querying yet, you're competing on a pretty even playing field with queries. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of queries over the next few years will be formatted correctly, spell-checked, and contain at least a semblance of personalization and professionalism.
Now I've seen a recent post from an agent who ranted there were plenty of chuckleheads out there still throwing astoundingly awful queries out there, but for the life of me, I can't find it again. I wanted to link it here, because it's a good read. Oh well.
I think though, in spite of the fact that some people just aren't going to get it right, the majority of authors will continue to hone and fine tune their queries to the point where the queries will be a good deal better than the actual manuscript. I think that while it'll make agents' jobs much easier to a point, by culling out the obvious bad ones, it'll make it a lot tougher by masking some of the bad ones with good queries. And I don't know how many of the bad ones will be that much more obvious than before. Bad writing is bad writing, and a failure to follow submission guidelines has always been a huge strike against anyone doing it. The fact that there is more contrast between bad and good queries today doesn't make it any easier than it already was to discard the bad ones.
Of course, that's just my musings. I could be wrong. I don't know. I write about the future; I don't predict it. But I think this push by agents to educate authors on how to write a proper query will certainly affect a resonant change in the way the query business is done. Couple that with the changing face of e-publishing, and we have the makings of a giant shift ahead.
Let me explain. Starting few years ago and continuing today, we have seen the emergence of the query critique, with agents such as Janet Reid critiquing them with Query Shark and her main blog, BookEnds, LLC's agents doing the Workshop Wednesday posts, Kristin Nelson posting advice in Pub Rants. The list goes on and on. I could post more, but you get the idea.
The good news is there's plenty of advice - solid, real advice from those in the industry - we struggling authors can find and use. Unless you're this guy, you probably have a pretty good idea on how to structure a decent query. Bad news is, so does everybody else out there. This means that aside from the folks who just aren't ready to begin querying yet, you're competing on a pretty even playing field with queries. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of queries over the next few years will be formatted correctly, spell-checked, and contain at least a semblance of personalization and professionalism.
Now I've seen a recent post from an agent who ranted there were plenty of chuckleheads out there still throwing astoundingly awful queries out there, but for the life of me, I can't find it again. I wanted to link it here, because it's a good read. Oh well.
I think though, in spite of the fact that some people just aren't going to get it right, the majority of authors will continue to hone and fine tune their queries to the point where the queries will be a good deal better than the actual manuscript. I think that while it'll make agents' jobs much easier to a point, by culling out the obvious bad ones, it'll make it a lot tougher by masking some of the bad ones with good queries. And I don't know how many of the bad ones will be that much more obvious than before. Bad writing is bad writing, and a failure to follow submission guidelines has always been a huge strike against anyone doing it. The fact that there is more contrast between bad and good queries today doesn't make it any easier than it already was to discard the bad ones.
Of course, that's just my musings. I could be wrong. I don't know. I write about the future; I don't predict it. But I think this push by agents to educate authors on how to write a proper query will certainly affect a resonant change in the way the query business is done. Couple that with the changing face of e-publishing, and we have the makings of a giant shift ahead.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Right Format for your Manuscript
First of all, there is no 'right' format for a manuscript. Everyone says something a little different. No one wants it exactly the same as anyone else. Let me say that right up front.
Let me also say that I'm not the expert here. I'm trying to figure things out just like all the rest of the starving authors. But I have learned a few things along the way, and I figured I'd share them with you. For what they're worth.
So while there are no absolutes in what agents and publishers want from an author in the form of a manuscript, there are some basics, some standards, and some general rules of thumb that you'd probably do well to follow.
Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford wrote a really nice blog entry on the topic, as did Moira Allen in her article on Writing World. Chuck Rothman, writing for SFWA wrote an excellent article on the subject. Daily Writing Tips has even more advice - sixteen manuscript formatting tips, to be exact. And if you read down into the comments of that article, you'll find people divided all over the place on the 'right' way to do things. And this just scratches the surface of the subject. A little more research will provide you with additional voices, each with their own advice on how they think it should be done, or what the 'right' way of formatting is.
The agent or publisher wants to be able to read your manuscript easily, make notes where necessary, and not have to work around excess garbage to do it. It's their job to read manuscripts. If they read everything in 10-point Lucida Calligraphy, they'd be blind by the end of the week. Even reading something only slightly difficult to read puts a tremendous strain on a person. Which is why they have guidelines for the type of formatting they'd like to see.
Font is the first major bone of contention. Some folks say Times New Roman. Some say Courier New. Others are less picky, and include fonts like Arial, which is a sans-serif font. Advice I've seen says that most editors don't like those fonts. Generally, the two most preferred fonts are Courier and Times New Roman. Now you may have some folks who mandate one or the other - and I've seen examples of each - but they're both simple and easy to read. And you're probably not going to receive a rejection based solely on font choice. Change the font to whatever the agent's stated preference is and send it to them. If they don't say, I pick either one of those two and roll with it.
As far as layout goes, almost everyone agrees on some standards here. Generally they want to see your manuscript double spaced, printed on one side of the paper only, left justified, with one inch margins. Again, you're going for 'easy to read' here, not 'looks like a published book'. It's your job to provide content, the actual words written down on the page. It's the publisher's job to provide style, what they actually look like when it's finished. You may be adamant in your ideas of how you want it to look, but frankly, they really don't care about that. It's supposed to look like a manuscript in the manuscript stage - they want something they can work with. Remember, you're paid for your ideas and how eloquently you put them into words. They're paid for how the book looks when it's sitting on the shelf in Borders.
Avoid the cutesy fancy stuff. Just open up the word document, set the spacing and margins and font and begin typing. That's all you need to do as an author as far as formatting goes. You may think it looks cool to try and give the story a more interesting font, or that it helps with the theme of the story to provide it with an appropriate title font. You may think it helps with your creativity and ability to get the words down on paper. Whatever. If it works for you when writing, knock yourself out. But when you format it to send to the professionals, it needs to be professional too. And that means you axe the Comic Sans for Courier, and take out the extra spaces and neat characters that signify the end of chapters.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of neat characters, almost every piece of advice I've heard says to simplify here too. Lose the 'smart quotes' feature, the 'em' dash, and any other auto-formatting feature, especially when e-mailing your submission. Characters like that tend to lose something in the translation of documents, and you really want them to see what you wrote, not some squiggly messed up character that converted wrong from ASCII. This is especially true when sending work via e-mail.
The only formatting an editor generally wants to see is for words you want italicized. The catch is, they almost never want you to italicize them. They'd rather you underline them instead. In the publishing world, underlined text is almost always understood as italicized.
It all boils down to presenting an easy-to-read document that conforms to general industry standards. It's a simple matter of making their work easier for them, and thus making it more likely they'll want to work with you and publish your novel. Find out the particular way a particular agent or publisher wants it and give it to them that way. If they're not specific enough in their submission guidelines, follow as close to a standard format as you can and you should be fine. The more professional your work is, regardless of how close it looks to a 'real book', the better your chances are to turn it into a real book.
Let me also say that I'm not the expert here. I'm trying to figure things out just like all the rest of the starving authors. But I have learned a few things along the way, and I figured I'd share them with you. For what they're worth.
So while there are no absolutes in what agents and publishers want from an author in the form of a manuscript, there are some basics, some standards, and some general rules of thumb that you'd probably do well to follow.
Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford wrote a really nice blog entry on the topic, as did Moira Allen in her article on Writing World. Chuck Rothman, writing for SFWA wrote an excellent article on the subject. Daily Writing Tips has even more advice - sixteen manuscript formatting tips, to be exact. And if you read down into the comments of that article, you'll find people divided all over the place on the 'right' way to do things. And this just scratches the surface of the subject. A little more research will provide you with additional voices, each with their own advice on how they think it should be done, or what the 'right' way of formatting is.
The agent or publisher wants to be able to read your manuscript easily, make notes where necessary, and not have to work around excess garbage to do it. It's their job to read manuscripts. If they read everything in 10-point Lucida Calligraphy, they'd be blind by the end of the week. Even reading something only slightly difficult to read puts a tremendous strain on a person. Which is why they have guidelines for the type of formatting they'd like to see.
Font is the first major bone of contention. Some folks say Times New Roman. Some say Courier New. Others are less picky, and include fonts like Arial, which is a sans-serif font. Advice I've seen says that most editors don't like those fonts. Generally, the two most preferred fonts are Courier and Times New Roman. Now you may have some folks who mandate one or the other - and I've seen examples of each - but they're both simple and easy to read. And you're probably not going to receive a rejection based solely on font choice. Change the font to whatever the agent's stated preference is and send it to them. If they don't say, I pick either one of those two and roll with it.
As far as layout goes, almost everyone agrees on some standards here. Generally they want to see your manuscript double spaced, printed on one side of the paper only, left justified, with one inch margins. Again, you're going for 'easy to read' here, not 'looks like a published book'. It's your job to provide content, the actual words written down on the page. It's the publisher's job to provide style, what they actually look like when it's finished. You may be adamant in your ideas of how you want it to look, but frankly, they really don't care about that. It's supposed to look like a manuscript in the manuscript stage - they want something they can work with. Remember, you're paid for your ideas and how eloquently you put them into words. They're paid for how the book looks when it's sitting on the shelf in Borders.
Avoid the cutesy fancy stuff. Just open up the word document, set the spacing and margins and font and begin typing. That's all you need to do as an author as far as formatting goes. You may think it looks cool to try and give the story a more interesting font, or that it helps with the theme of the story to provide it with an appropriate title font. You may think it helps with your creativity and ability to get the words down on paper. Whatever. If it works for you when writing, knock yourself out. But when you format it to send to the professionals, it needs to be professional too. And that means you axe the Comic Sans for Courier, and take out the extra spaces and neat characters that signify the end of chapters.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of neat characters, almost every piece of advice I've heard says to simplify here too. Lose the 'smart quotes' feature, the 'em' dash, and any other auto-formatting feature, especially when e-mailing your submission. Characters like that tend to lose something in the translation of documents, and you really want them to see what you wrote, not some squiggly messed up character that converted wrong from ASCII. This is especially true when sending work via e-mail.
The only formatting an editor generally wants to see is for words you want italicized. The catch is, they almost never want you to italicize them. They'd rather you underline them instead. In the publishing world, underlined text is almost always understood as italicized.
It all boils down to presenting an easy-to-read document that conforms to general industry standards. It's a simple matter of making their work easier for them, and thus making it more likely they'll want to work with you and publish your novel. Find out the particular way a particular agent or publisher wants it and give it to them that way. If they're not specific enough in their submission guidelines, follow as close to a standard format as you can and you should be fine. The more professional your work is, regardless of how close it looks to a 'real book', the better your chances are to turn it into a real book.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Timing a Manuscript Submission
Much has been said about submitting a manuscript to a literary agent or publisher, but I've seen less written about the timing of a submission. Obviously the best time to submit is when your manuscript is fully edited and polished to the best of your ability. That is not what I'm talking about here. I'm referring to timing a particular genre to a point in time when its chances of being picked up are the highest.
We've seen the incredible boom of zombies and vampires, especially young adult vampires, recently. The market is teeming with those books now. Even a few years ago there were far less of this type of book than now. Agents actively look for certain hot topics because that is what sells at the moment. It's their job to time a publication to catch the wave of public popularity. These types of books may or may not interest you, but they're what is selling at the moment.
But when there is a lag time of at least a year, and usually much longer between the submission of a novel and publication, how does one gauge what's going to sell when submitting a manuscript? When the lag between finding the perfect idea, writing the first draft, editing, editing, editing, submitting it, and finally getting published is far longer than that, it's almost impossible to predict. An author would have to be precognitive almost a decade into the future to get it absolutely correct.
One of the ways to deal with this is to have a few different titles ready to go. If you have for example, a horror story, a paranormal love story and a science fiction romp all ready to go, you'll have your bases covered better than if you have only a single novel. After studying the market and needs of agents, you'd soon realize your horror novel just might have to be shelved while you actively market your paranormal work because that is what is currently selling. And when, in a few years, horror explodes back into the spotlight, you'll be ready for that too.
The best way to time a manuscript publication however, is to do your research. Don't settle for the first or second agent that lines up with your genre and call it good. Study what agents are currently accepting. Find out what they've been selling. Find out what genres their client authors are writing and what titles are forthcoming. Look as far into the future of the industry as you can. This helps you catch market trends early on and allows you to get in on them while they're booming.
Submitting a novel is tricky business. There is so much to be put into it in order to find an agent and actually get your book into print. Obviously delivering a finely tuned query that introduces a polished and well crafted novel helps, but it's important to study all the different factors that influence what works and what doesn't. I feel it takes almost as much time and effort crafting a query, synopsis and studying the market for a submission as it does to write the first draft. Authors tend to concentrate more on the writing and less on the marketing aspects of being an author, and thus tend to present a submission which is less appealing than it could be.
Once the novel is written, it's time for the hard part of being an author. It's time to really sit down and do your research. You've done the research needed to set a believable and colorful plot. You've studied how to craft your words to say what you're trying to express. Now you have to put in an equal amount of work studying how to market your novel and get it onto bookshelves and e-readers around the world. It's not an easy task, but knowing what is selling and what gives your novel the best shot at success is a great first step.
We've seen the incredible boom of zombies and vampires, especially young adult vampires, recently. The market is teeming with those books now. Even a few years ago there were far less of this type of book than now. Agents actively look for certain hot topics because that is what sells at the moment. It's their job to time a publication to catch the wave of public popularity. These types of books may or may not interest you, but they're what is selling at the moment.
But when there is a lag time of at least a year, and usually much longer between the submission of a novel and publication, how does one gauge what's going to sell when submitting a manuscript? When the lag between finding the perfect idea, writing the first draft, editing, editing, editing, submitting it, and finally getting published is far longer than that, it's almost impossible to predict. An author would have to be precognitive almost a decade into the future to get it absolutely correct.
One of the ways to deal with this is to have a few different titles ready to go. If you have for example, a horror story, a paranormal love story and a science fiction romp all ready to go, you'll have your bases covered better than if you have only a single novel. After studying the market and needs of agents, you'd soon realize your horror novel just might have to be shelved while you actively market your paranormal work because that is what is currently selling. And when, in a few years, horror explodes back into the spotlight, you'll be ready for that too.
The best way to time a manuscript publication however, is to do your research. Don't settle for the first or second agent that lines up with your genre and call it good. Study what agents are currently accepting. Find out what they've been selling. Find out what genres their client authors are writing and what titles are forthcoming. Look as far into the future of the industry as you can. This helps you catch market trends early on and allows you to get in on them while they're booming.
Submitting a novel is tricky business. There is so much to be put into it in order to find an agent and actually get your book into print. Obviously delivering a finely tuned query that introduces a polished and well crafted novel helps, but it's important to study all the different factors that influence what works and what doesn't. I feel it takes almost as much time and effort crafting a query, synopsis and studying the market for a submission as it does to write the first draft. Authors tend to concentrate more on the writing and less on the marketing aspects of being an author, and thus tend to present a submission which is less appealing than it could be.
Once the novel is written, it's time for the hard part of being an author. It's time to really sit down and do your research. You've done the research needed to set a believable and colorful plot. You've studied how to craft your words to say what you're trying to express. Now you have to put in an equal amount of work studying how to market your novel and get it onto bookshelves and e-readers around the world. It's not an easy task, but knowing what is selling and what gives your novel the best shot at success is a great first step.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)