Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent

This Week in Publishing

2009-11-20T11:33:00.000-08:00

Lots of links this week, so let's get to it.

First up, there has been a huge controversy sparked by Harlquin's announcement that they would be forming a self-publishing arm called Harlequin Horizons. Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware wrote a very helpful initial roundup of the plan and controversy, Kristin Nelson wondered if it was exploitation or empowerment, and How Publishing Really Works had similar questions. Following the uproar, the Romance Writers of America took the pretty drastic measure of revoking Harlequin's "recognized publisher" status, and Harlequin announced that they are dropping the Harlequin name from the self-publishing program in order to distinguish the two.

Setting aside this controversy for a moment and the specifics of Harlequin's operation, let me just say that in principle I don't think publishers facilitating self-publishing is necessarily such a bad thing. However, there should be complete transparency, fair pricing, total disambiguation between traditional publishing arms and self-publishing arms, and every good faith attempt made to educate writers about the difference between the two. This industry obviously needs new revenue streams, and provided that the publisher's program is genuinely nonexploitive and transparent I don't see the problem, and I don't see why publishers should continue to cede ground to self-publishing companies when they have every capacity to provide the same service. It just has to be done correctly.

Now then. Other news!

Mike Shatzkin has one of the most brilliant blogs on the future of publishing out there, and this week he had a great post about some conversations he's had with agents about how our role will be changing in the new publishing landscape. He explores a possible change in the way agents earn money, the challenge of facilitating self-publishing, and his opinion (which I share) that "power is moving from 'control of IP to control of eyeballs.'"

In e-book news, the NY Times noticed that quite a few people are reading on their smart phones, and raises the question about whether the future of e-books is with dedicated devices or devices people already have (my guess: a mix of both). And in gadget news, a (satiric?) beta tester of Apple's iTablet spilled the beans to HuffPo/blew my mind, and Engadget released a helpful holiday gift guide for all the different e-readers.

My awesome colleague Sarah LaPolla passed along a really cool ode to the e-book in comic form. And HarperStudio posted a video ode to making a physical book.

Meanwhile, with all of our recent talk about efficiency and self-publishing and e-publishing, Rachelle Gardner had a really interesting post that worries about what will happen if every novel ever written is published.

Over at Upstart Crow, Michael Stearns noticed an interesting thing about the new Stephen King book UNDER THE DOME: it doesn't have any jacket copy. He sees this as a sign that instant word of mouth is quickly becoming paramount, and it's eliminating the browsing process.

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Oprah is ending her daily talk show, which had quite a few book people gasping with panic. C. Max Magee at the Millions has a terrific recap of the history of Oprah and books.

Reader Eric Laing pointed me to this amazing post by Lynn Viehl where she shares her ledger publicly and shows the financial reality of a NY Times bestseller After taxes, commission, and expenses, Lynn made about $24,517.36 on her mass market bestseller TWILIGHT FALL.

Brace yourself for a month of decade retrospectives and best of lists. Quickly out of the gate is the Times UK, which has a list of the top 100 books of the decade, which is, incredibly annoyingly, spread out over 17 pages. Geez louise, Times UK, I don't need to click 16 times to know that Cormac McCarthy won.

The National Book Awards were held, and congrats to the winners! And, your nominee for best sign of the times: Google sponsored the after-party.

For all of you needing help with your last NaNoWriMo push, there's a pretty hilarious widget called Write or Die that punishes you in various forms when you stop typing. (via Neil Vogler)

And finally, as I'm sure you know the second Twilight movie New Moon came out this week. Writing in the Millions, Emily Colette Wilkinson examines the role of wealth aspirations in the TWILIGHT series. io9 has a pretty unreal gallery of the worst/most disturbing TWILIGHT products, and the Daily Beast has a gallery of the best TWILIGHT tattoos, including one of a woman who had an entire paragraph tattooed on her back. Wow. I'd just like to say right now that if anyone gets a tattoo of a corndog I'll send you a signed copy of JACOB WONDERBAR.

Have a great weekend!

Efficiency Wins in the End

2009-11-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm completely obsessed with efficiency. I try to be as ruthlessly efficient as I possibly can, simply because I want to get as much done as possible. If there's a new system that saves me time, whether it's accepting e-queries, embracing Google docs so I can work anywhere, getting an e-reader so I can read anywhere, you name it, I'll do it.

But I'm also obsessed with efficiency in a broader sense as well, because I think it is something critically important to society and history and technology. We humans, whether we're conscious of it or not, are all obsessed with efficiency.

Nearly every single thing that has ever been invented and achieved mass adoption has one thing in common: it's an improvement in efficiency.

Whether it's speech, writing, the postal service, telephone, or e-mails, we have been moving closer and closer to efficient, instantaneous communication across vast distances.

Whether it's domesticated animals, chariots, railroads, cars, planes, we have been moving closer and closer to efficient travel across vast distances.

Whether it's fire, windmills, steam engines, or the internal combustion engine, we have been moving closer and closer to the most efficient energy production possible.

And as we decide whether to adopt or dismiss a new inventions, nearly every consideration other than efficiency (usually) dwindles in importance.

Cars aren't as safe as railroad travel or walking (or at least walking where there are no cars), but we're willing to make that sacrifice because cars are efficient. Every energy technology seems to pollute more than the last, but we make the tradeoff because the other technologies are less efficient. Nothing can compare to the experience of listening to live music or, barring that, vinyl records, but we'd much rather listen to music on mp3 players because we can listen to music whenever we want.

Human beings are always scurrying around trying to find more efficient ways of doing things and freeing up time for the things we'd rather be doing. Efficiency allows us to be more productive and relax more and spend time creating still more efficiency.

And this is why I believe e-books are going to win in the end, and probably sooner than we think. It's simply vastly more efficient to download any book you could possibly want instantaneously and read a book on a screen (even better if it's a screen you already have, hello smartphone) than to cut down a tree, make paper, print ink on it, bind it, ship it across the country in a plane or a truck or both, and make someone walk or drive to a physical store (who may or may not have the book they want) every time they want to read a book.

I think we'll look back on the print era and marvel about all those people who were responsible for delivering all these individual printed objects, kind of like how there used to be a fleet of milk men in every city rather than one guy driving a truck to a couple of supermarkets.

To be sure, no technology disappears completely - people still ride horses, go to plays, type on typewriters, listen to record players, and send handwritten letters. And printed books aren't going to disappear either. All of these technologies have advantages and an associated nostalgia that people will always want to preserve and experience. There will still be printed books and physical bookstores, even if there are far fewer of them.

But things tend to move in one direction: toward greater efficiency and productivity. There's always a delay as people adapt to the new technology, but prices come down, the technology gets better, and the efficiency spreads.

Printed books have their advantages, but they don't win where it counts. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but human nature abhors a bottleneck.

You Tell Me: Why Are So Many People Writing Books These Days?

2009-11-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

I don't keep precise statistics on how many queries I receive each year, but it sure seems like there are more of them every week. I'm at 16,600+ e-mails sent this year, and the vast majority of those are responses to queries. Just about every stranger I meet who finds out what I do for a living has a book they want to talk about. Writers are filling chat rooms and discussion boards, discussing their work and trying to get a leg up.

Is it just me or are there more writers out there than ever before?

And if you agree with the premise that there are more people writing (me = guilty as well).... why do you suppose that is? What's behind it? I mean, it sure doesn't seem like there are vastly more people reading books than before, and it's never been more difficult to find a traditional publisher.

Is it the meteoric success of prominent authors hitting pay dirt? Is it the economy? Is it a cultural moment, kind of how everyone learned how to Swing dance in the 90s? Is it the Internet and computers and the new transparency of the publishing industry, where it's easy to figure out who to query and who publishes what? Is it the self-publishing boom?

Very curious to see the responses.

The Waiting is the Worst Part

2009-11-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

When JACOB WONDERBAR went out to editors I really thought I was going to be completely cool about the submission process. I'm an agent! I've seen this before! I've sold projects that were out on submission for six months and even a year! How hard could it be?

So. Being a Big Bad Experienced Agent, how long did it take me to crack?

A week and a half.

A WEEK AND A HALF.

That's how long it took before I woke up in the middle of the night to check my e-mail, woke up my poor wife and said, "It's not going to sell! It's not going to sell. I can't believe it, it's not going to sell."

Now, bear in mind that I know that even when books sell they almost never sell in a week and a half. I know that!! A book selling in a week and a half is almost unheard of. But for some reason everything I knew went out the window. It's like I turned into a doctor who's afraid of needles.

Luckily I was able to keep my panic within the walls of my apartment, but all the same: the experience gave me a huge new respect for just how hard it is to be waiting to hear about your manuscript.

Writing is hard. It's hard, it's time-consuming, it's solitary... it's hard. But at least it's within your control. You can change things, you can work harder and revise more, and it's all within your reach. Writing is the fun part.

The frustrating thing about submitting to agents and editors is that there's nothing. you. can. do. about. it. Once you hit send you're at their mercy. The stress of always wondering if today is the day you're going to receive good or bad news, of always sneaking peeks at your e-mail, and trying to be cool and composed in front of the people who are invested in your work, and hearing all those nos before you get your yeses.... it's a steady stress that wears you down.

Everyone has their breaking point. Turns out mine is embarrassingly short.

Now that I've gone through this myself, I really really try as much as I can to avoid keeping people waiting. I try so hard to keep waiting to a minimum. At the same time, a certain amount of time is just built into the process simply because it takes a long time to read a lot of different projects.

How do you cope with the waiting?

What I Learned About Writing While Watching Reality Television

2009-11-16T13:34:00.000-08:00

As longtime blog readers know, I have a bit of a reality TV habit. I still watch Survivor (I know), I was a habitual The Hills watcher before our messy breakup, and I would very much like to be friends with Phil Keoghan from the Amazing Race, who seems like the type of person who would tell great stories at a cocktail party and then somehow convince everyone to join a contest to eat the most pretzels.

You might mistake this for idle time! No no no. I wasn't frying my brain and/or wasting my time watching these shows. Not. At. All. I was learning precious writing techniques. I was studying. Learning!

Behold: The things I learned about writing while watching reality television...

1. Overconfidence is your greatest adversary

How do you know when someone is about to get themselves kicked off a reality TV show? When they stare into the camera with a smirk and talk about how they have it in the bag. Then they inevitably end up getting voted off Tribal Counsel faster than you can say "Jeff Probst."

Overconfidence causes authors to just send out queries with a few dashed off words of explanation, trusting that the genius of their manuscript will shine through. Overconfidence blinds authors to the changes they need to make to their manuscript, and makes them deaf to good suggestions.

When overconfidence enters the picture authors can turn into their own worst enemies. It didn't work for the Four Horsemen of Survivor Fiji, who entrusted their plans with someone who called himself Dreamz. By choice. It doesn't work for writers either.

2. Don't mess with the host.

Did it pay for Kenley to antagonize poor Tim Gunn on Project Runway? No, it did not.
Did it pay for Chima to antagonize the producers of Big Brother? No, it did not.
Did it pay for Tiffany to talk back to Tyra on America's Next Top Model? No, it most definitely did not.

In the publishing game, agents and editors and publishers are your hosts. You may not like the rules of the game, but you won't get anywhere making enemies with the people running the show.

3. Pay your taxes.

Don't let this happen to you.

Read Kristin Nelson's essential post on the things you should do when your book sells. Remember, your advance will come to you as untaxed income, just like winnings on Survivor. Get a good accountant, pay your taxes immediately, and invest your windfall wisely.

4. Be a student of the game.

The best contestants on reality TV shows are often the ones who have lived and breathed a show for its entire existence. This season, the otherwise contemptible Russell from Survivor Samoa knew enough about the show to keep hunting for hidden immunity idols even though he didn't have any clues, simply because he knew that the show often places hidden immunity idols around camp. Sure enough, it worked! And anyone who has watched America's Next Top Model knows that when in a tough spot the best strategy is to break down in tears and plead for Tyra's mercy.

Study the publishing game. Learn it. Breathe it. There may not be any hidden immunity idols (at least, not until I'm in charge), but the name of the game is survival, and it pays to know everything you possibly can find out.

5. Play nice.

On reality television, a contestant will inevitably show up and wag their finger and shout, "I'm not here to make friends!"

And that person never wins.

This Week In Publishing

2009-11-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

Would you believe that there wasn't any earth-shattering publishing news this week in publishing? WalMart didn't slash the price of hardcovers to 99 cents, a new e-reader didn't debut, and we're all still here. Thank goodness there are still links:

GalleyCat asked the provocative question Do Authors Really Need Agents? For the most part the answer was, "Um... yes. They do."

In e-book news, Amazon announced that they created a PC Kindle app (link via Greg Peisert), so you can now read your Kindle books on Kindles, iPhones, and your computer. I'm told you can also still read books on paper, but I haven't been able to confirm that rumor.

Editorial Anonymous has a great response to a reader who wonders if editors (and presumably agents) know they are dream crushers. EA makes a crucial distinction: we hold your work in our hands, not your dreams. No one should be able to crush your dreams with a rejection. She writes, "dreams are achieved through your hard work, and not through the miraculous intervention of others." Word.

A former vice-presidential candidate has a new book out, and the Associated Press got their hands on an early leaked copy (Palin reportedly is none too happy about the leak and the review). Sarah Weinman, writing for Daily Finance, took a look at the economics of the book advance and calculates that Harper would have to sell around 400,000 copies in hardcover to break even. Is that a safe bet? The Millions' guess (and mine as well): you betcha.

In The Rejectionist news, Le R. announced the winners of her form rejection contest, which had such hysterical entries I don't know how she even picked winners. She also took note of this week's query trend: angels. Particularly angels tempting girls with their "smoking hot bods and snowy snowy wings." Wow. Heaven help us all. (get it??? get it???)

@lilliamr noted a PW article about a new query service making the rounds that would pre-screen queries for agents to make sure that they conform to their guidelines and genres of interest before the agent sees them. Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware sums up the mixed history of these types of ventures. I won't be signing up, but all you have to do is take a look at Jessica Faust's rapturous post about her query holiday to get a sense of how much of a strain it is these days to keep up with the query pile. Yes, aspiring authors are busy too and all that, but the time it takes to read them all (let alone respond) may be approaching a point of unsustainability.

Twitter lists are fast becoming the hot new thing in the Twittersphere, and thanks very much to GalleyCat for including me in their Best Agent Twitter feeds list. I've created some nascent lists of my own that will continue to grow, including my clients, editors, writers, publishers, agents, and other non-editor publishing types.

In self-publishing news, Andrew Sullivan announced that he is working with Blurb.com to create a self-published coffee table book version of his View From Your Window posts, and is crowd-sourcing an estimate of what the initial print run should be. An interesting experiment indeed.

HTMLGIANT notes a Cormac McCarthy interview wherein he suggests that the days of the 700 page MOBY DICK-style literary doorstopper are completely over: "Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different."

And finally, can I get a NaNoWriMo status update? How are all the Word Marathoners doing out there?

Have a great weekend!

Moving the Needle

2009-11-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, this was originally posted yesterday in the Huffington Post, where I will be blogging from time to time. I thought I'd re-post it here.

During my meetings with editors, agents, sales assistants, marketers, and other assorted publishing types in New York this past week, there was a common theme that kept cropping up again and again:

Moving the needle.

(That's "making an impact" for those of us not fluent in Corporatese.)

Editors want to take authors to the next level or make a splash with a debut. Publishers want to gain traction with new electronic formats. Sales and marketing teams want to make a splash. Everyone is desperate for a hit.

At the same time, along with this overwhelming drive to move the needle came an almost equally universal feeling of uneasiness: it's harder to move the needle than ever before.

One of the big recent surprises in the industry, according to a few different people I met with, is a newfound difficulty making a splash even with adult nonfiction. Now, to get an idea of what a huge problem/challenge/earthquake this is, bear in mind that for many years adult nonfiction was the bread and butter workhorse of the industry. Fiction, except for very very established authors, has always been regarded as something of a crapshoot. Nonfiction, on the other hand, was a source of relative stability, and publishers had gotten reasonably good at guessing at the size of the market for a project, giving authors a reasonably appropriate advance, and bringing in healthy margins.

Not so much anymore. Everything is difficult to break out.

What's happening?

Yes, book sales are down, but it's not as if they've fallen off a cliff. And there are still books that are wildly, hugely successful. But why is it that certain books are taking off seemingly out of the blue where other seemingly sure bets aren't doing so well?

One guess: the industry has gone from pushing the needle to being pushed by the needle.

Before the Internet, the publishing industry was one of a few powerful forces that helped shape the cultural zeitgeist - their choices of what to publish and what to market had a reasonably solid effect on what we consumed as a culture. Up until the Internet era, zeitgeist-shaping was much more of a top-down phenomenon. There simply wasn't much of an alternative to the books/movies/music/TV shows that major publishers/studios/labels/networks decided you would like. Your choice in zeitgeist was prescribed and proscribed in advance. Want to read something other than what the publishing industry decided to put in the bookstore? Good luck, pardner!

Not to get all Y2K on you, but the Internet has changed all that. Now we are positively besieged by an infinite number of stories and videos and Tweets and blogs and Gosselins and quizzes competing for our atten... OMG did you see that kitten video?

And holy cow almost all of it is free. People are deciding what media they want to consume out of a bewildering array of choices, and the ground is constantly shifting.

The competition for eyeballs is fierce, and the traditional tools at publishers' disposal aren't as effective as they used to be: Review space has all but completely disappeared, bookstores are closing and taking with them the precious hit-making front-store real estate (which publishers pay dearly for), advertising is costly and sporadically effective, and some (but not all) publishers have been slow to adapt to the potential of the Internet and especially social networking. In other words: their ability to move the needle has flown out the digital door.

To be sure, there are publishers who are still able to consistently generate hits, whether it's Penguin's remarkable run of trade paperback bestsellers or Hachette's stable of suspense writers, among others. And there are still hits happening, even if they seem to be increasingly starting modestly and then taking off through rabid word of mouth.

But if publishers feel unable to "make" a book and increasingly depend on word of mouth and the new bottom-up zeitgeist it will surely complicate a publishing business model that makes massive bets on progressively fewer books in the hopes that those books reach the "phenomenon" status that pads margins and launches careers. Will publishers continue to pay a premium for the privilege of taking an increasingly uncertain risk? Will authors be depended upon to bring their own celebrity/platform/253,078 Twitter followers to bear in order to make a hit for the publisher?

Unless the industry finds a better way to minimize their massive risk-taking or find new tools to move the needle, publishing will continue to bow before the increasingly fickle whims of the zeitgeist and the Internet hive. And the only thing worse than failing to push the needle is accidentally sitting on it.

You Tell Me: How Much Would You Pay for a Dedicated E-Reader?

2009-11-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

With nook (yes, no definite article and uncapitalized. That's how you know it's cool!!) arriving on the scene, there are now quite a few e-readers to choose from, and even more questionably named devices arriving imminently.

And though I tease the (whoops! Silly me, using the definite article) nook, it's only because I want one.

Seriously: want.

But how much would you pay for one?

For the purposes of this discussion, let's call our hypothetical e-reader the Wonderbook. The Wonderbook is much like the devices currently on the market: it has e-ink (no eye strain!), 3G wireless, and has a library of hundreds of thousands of titles to choose from, which you can buy for about $9.99. In other words, the only difference between the Wonderbook and the devices currently on the market is that it has a better name.

How much would you pay for the Wonderbook? $50? $100? $150? Nada?

Click through for the poll! If you already own a dedicated e-reader please click the price that's closest to the amount you paid:

Also, if you haven't had your fill of e-reader polls today, Eric at Pimp My Novel is also having a poll about why you haven't bought an e-reader yet. Check it out!

Get the Big Stuff Right

2009-11-10T12:50:00.001-08:00

As I was brainstorming about what to blog about today I was thinking I'd discuss how if you just familiarize yourself with agent blogs and use your best judgment and act in good faith and send the best query you can you're going to be fine and there's no need to sweat the tiny details. And then lo and behold I come across an identical post by Michael Bourret. Already written! Today no less!

Between this and Holly Root's recent post, both of which I agree with, clearly there is a feeling among agents at the moment that we have sufficiently terrified authors that it is now necessary to reassure them that we are not going to send them packing at the first sign of a typo or query faux pas.

And Michael's right. It's not about the details.

Only.... it kind of is.

I mean, it is and isn't.

It isn't in the sense that there really is no such thing as an instant rejection if you make a query faux pas. We're going to take everything into account when making a decision, and just because you, say, started with a rhetorical question doesn't mean I will automatically reject you. It just means you will have tried my patience to the breaking point argh don't do it to me!!

It is about the details in the sense that we are actually making a decision based on a short letter and maybe some sample pages and so of course it's about the details.

But which details to sweat and which details to not sweat?

Here's my sweat list:

Overall look - Around the right length, a reasonable font, 10 or 12 point font, broken into reasonable paragraphs, no fiddling with margins, pictures, indenting, colors, etc. Just a clean, professional-looking letter. Don't sweat if it's a little long or a little short, and definitely do not start messing around to try and make it look creative or different. When it comes to letters, "creative" tends to look "insane." It's like showing up to a job interview in a clown costume. When you're formatting your query: wear a boring suit.

The description of your work. Get. This. Right. Get it right. Get it right, get it right, get it right. Get it right. Sweat this. This is what we care about. We're looking for a good story idea and good writing, and you want both to jump out in the query.

Annnnd, we're done!

All that other stuff like credits, genre, word count, series, etc. etc. etc.? Sure, great if you can sort through our pet peeves and get yourself in the ballpark of the right genre, and every little bit helps if you can show that you're cool and professional and know what you're doing. If I didn't blog about that stuff people would still ask, and hey: I'm much more comfortable when I feel like I know what I'm doing, so I try to bore down and help people out with the little stuff too.

But when it comes down to it: use your best judgment and get the big stuff right. All the rest is gravy.

Comparing Your Book to Other Books in the Query

2009-11-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

One of the very most common questions I receive: how/whether to compare your book to another book or books in the query.

I personally don't mind at all if you compare your book to another book or author or two to put me in the right frame of mind. This is completely optional, so don't feel as if you have to, and honestly I'd just use your best judgment about whether you think it would be helpful.

The only thing I would suggest is that you don't compare your book to 1) a megabestseller or 2) something extremely obscure.

Because:

1) We agents get zillions of queries that declare themselves to be the next DA VINCI TWLIGHT POTTER SECRET, and trust me, you don't want to be in the company of those queries. Honestly, people, what megabestseller is anything like the last megabestseller?

2) If the reference is too obscure you are risking that the agent is going to be all, "Dear god man, I haven't read everything."

At the same time, the right mix can indeed put an agent in the right mindset. So compare away! If you like.

This Week in Publishing

2009-11-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

What a week! It's not often you visit New York and arrive on Halloween, see marathoners running by on Sunday, have the Yankees win the World Series in the Bronx on Wednesday and eat way, way more pizza than should be humanly possible (oh wait, that's every time I come back to New York). I'll probably be posting a bit about my NYC publishing impressions next week, but in the meantime, there was a week in publishing and I tried to keep up:

As of this writing you still have a few hours to enter the Rejectionist's most amazing/hilarious form letter contest. The entries so far are incredible.

More on the WalAmaTargEars discounting battle, this time from one of my new favorite stops in the Interetosphere, Mobylives, the blog of indie publisher Melville House. In a recent post, Dennis Johnson notes that the drastic price slashing that the major corporations are currently engaging in wouldn't happen in, say, Germany, where certain laws (egalitarian/socialst/un-American/sane/anti-corporate depending on your political leaning) prevent discounting on books for 18 months, thus allowing independent booksellers and publishers to compete on even footing with the larger corporations.

Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph UK, book apps have overtaken game apps on the iPhone. The kids are alright! Now please keep it up.

In further electronic news, Simon & Schuster has unveiled an e-galley program, which will be compatible with some e-readers and will save on printing.

And the Millions noted an article in the Bookseller about how the environmental benefits of e-readers might not be quite as clear cut as they're made out to be.

So remember a little over a year ago how I mentioned I was suddenly getting lots of women's fiction queries featuring overweight protagonists who are perfectly happy with their bodies? A year later, guess what's the new trend in chick lit.

The Wall Street Journal featured an interesting article this week on how different authors write. Some notables: Junot Diaz writes in the bathroom, Richard Powers speaks his into a microphone while in bed, and Nicholson Baker wakes up at 4 am, writes for a while, goes back to sleep, and then wakes up again to edit.

In agent advice news, Holly Root has a great reminder that agent advice is meant to help aspiring authors, not to terrify them. She writes, "I have heard from so many writers who are terrified of “offending” agents or breaking some rule. Nothing about this process should be anywhere near that scary, and shame on those of us professionals who have made it so. It’s publishing—not nuclear disarmament. I am an agent, not Emperor Palpatine." I knew there was a reason I can't shooting lightning from my fingers. Yet.

And in social media news, HarperStudio VP and marketing maven Debbie Stier, who I had the pleasure of meeting in person yesterday, has a great post in HuffPo about whether Twittering and social networking can sell books. As their big success CRUSH IT! goes to show: yes, it does help.

In case you haven't heard it's pretty tough out there for debut authors, and two very established authors feel your pain. In a recent interview, John Irving was extremely sympathetic about the challenges facing aspiring authors, noting, "If I were 27 and trying to publish my first novel today I might be tempted to shoot myself." But even though he doesn't really think his first novel would be published today he doesn't believe the book is in danger.

And though he doesn't personally suffer from the WalAmaTarGears heavy discounting, John Grisham has spoken out forcefully against the practice. He notes, "If half of us are going to be doing it, then you’re going to wipe out tons of bookstores and publishers and we’re going to buy it all online. I’m probably going to be all right — but the aspiring writers are going to have a very hard time getting published."

Very kind of the big guys to stand up for the little guys.

And with that, I shall bid New York adieu and see you back in California.

Have a good weekend!

[blank] Are the New Vampires

2009-11-05T08:26:00.001-08:00

Come on, you know you want to try it. Insert your own guess in the comments.

I'm going with fallen pirate apocalyptic ninja angels as the new vampire.

You Tell Me: Can Anyone Be a Good Writer?

2009-11-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday of my New York adventure/whirlwind and wow is it great to be here. New York! Must you be so awesome and tempt me back every time I visit you?

Meanwhile, this topic has been percolating in some of the recent posts and we addressed a variation of it in the past, but I thought I'd raise it here.

Can anyone with enough practice be a good writer? What about a great writer? Is there a part of writing that is innate or can it be learned by anyone?

NYC!

2009-11-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

It's always great to be back in the city that supposedly never sleeps, although by the end of every day I'm so exhausted I never seem to have any problem falling asleep. It's kind of amazing to visit the city in regular intervals and see what changes and what stays the same.

New: tall shiny buildings that weren't there before!
Old: Katz's, now under the shadow of a tall shiny building!

So far on this trip it's also been interesting to meet with editors on both the children's and adult side. On the adult side: people are feeling a little beaten down, they're not going to lie. But on the children's side they're riding high and feeling like they made it through the worst of the recession in really good shape. Maybe more importantly, they feel like the lower price points and more varied product on the children's side is a more sustainable model for the future.

It's also fun to play the "[blank] is the new vampire" game, although several people I've talked to feel like vampire is still the new vampire.

This Week in Publishing

2009-10-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

A heads up: I'll be in New York next week so blogging will be sporadic.

But this week!

People are still working their way through the week that shook publishing, with WalMart slashing prices and all kinds of e-readers debuting, and are digesting what it all means.

First up, some people have noted that with WalMart, Amazon and Target drastically slashing prices on some upcoming bestsellers and taking losses it may make sense for independent booksellers to just go ahead and stock their books by ordering direct from WalAmaTargEars, thus getting their books more cheaply than they would be able to from publishers and ensuring that WalAmaTargEars take as many losses as possible for this stunt. Smart, right?

Well... not so fast. First, WalAmaTargEars are onto you and are limiting how many discounted books you can buy. And at the WordHoarder blog, a bookseller cautions against the WalAmaTargEars end-around as a long term strategy. According to the post, sales reps for indie booksellers are already dwindling, and such a move hurts distributors, whom indies really need. (via Booksqure)

Meanwhile, Mike Shatzkin surveys the landscape and considers the implications of a gradual publishing transition to smaller print runs and greater electronic market share. This transition is already rocking the newspaper world, and publishers, bookstores, and the entire print distribution chain will all be challenged by this transition because they require a certain critical mass to be sustainable. The winners according to Shatzkin? Agents and the top 500 authors, who will be able to sell e-books directly because of their personal brands.

And how is all of the pressure on publishers trickling down to the editorial side? As Kristin Nelson says, agents and authors on submission are hearing these frustrating words a lot these days: "I just don't see how I can break this out in a big way."

Oh, and Philip Roth thinks novels are going to have only a cult following in 25 years. Who's feeling the optimism???

Perhaps exhausted by the last couple weeks of news, Publishers Weekly decided to go ahead and just call it a year and released their top books of 2009. Sorry books published between now and the end of the year! (via Scribbly Jane)

But with all of this big and slightly unsettling news, let me just say it now: don't panic. Things are changing, it's going to be an interesting/challenging couple of years as we gradually succumb to our coming e-book overlords, but it doesn't mean the novel is going to disappear or that we're all going to hell in a handbasket. Things aren't going to be worse (at least in the long term), they're just going to be different. And in 50 years when we're making the transition from reading e-books on screens to having them beamed directly into our heads we'll wax nostalgic about the charming blink of electronic pages and the smell of plastic and people will get angry about the change and say that you can pry their e-books from their cold dead hands.

Also there's more news! Martin Amis has taken aim at popular British author and model Katie Price/Jordan for, among other things, being, shall we say, cosmetically enhanced. He even memorized the poem she read at her ill-fated wedding. A case of hating the player instead of hating the game? Or is Amis himself such a high level player that he is playing the game and the press fell for his trap? (via Greg Peisert)

Over in the Huffington Post, Rob Asghar thinks self-publishing has an image problem and wants to rebrand it "indie publishing." Interesting, but..... aren't there already independent publishers, i.e. strong non "Big 6" houses like Soho and Kensington?

Reports of VS Naipaul's death have been greatly exaggerated. Um. BY THE FBI.

My awesome client Natalie Whipple has written an instant classic post just in time for NaNoWriMo: advice on writing a first draft. First and most importantly: don't worry about how others write, write how YOU write. SO TRUE.

Janet Reid passed along her outline on a class she gave on writing effective queries.

Almost finally, via Jeff Abbott, a patron of a library in Maury County, Tennesee has taken upon him/herself to black out the curse words in mystery novels. Because with so many problems in the world, if there's anything worth spending your time on it's surely blacking out naughty words. Way to save America! Anyway, I would say that the newscast on the incident is priceless, but that would be a complete understatement. It's amazing.

And finally, this video is just.... I mean..... love love love:

Have a great weekend!

The Reverse Snobbery of Low Literary Aspirations

2009-10-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

First of all, the title of this post is admittedly hyperbolic, which was necessitated by my desire to echo Michael Gerson's famous line about "the soft bigotry of low expectations," as delivered by our 43rd president.

And such a hyperbolic title necessitates the caveats up front. If people are setting out to write pulp and pure entertainment: more power to them. I think that's great. Not trying to criticize pulp. There are people who call their books "trashy" with pride, and I think that's awesome. Fun/unpretentious books = cool by me.

Transition.

A funny thing happened with my post on Tuesday about themes: people agreed with me. And the more people agreed the more I started having this weird feeling like, "Wait. Stop. Don't agree! Stop agreeing!!!" And then I found myself nodding along with some of the dissents.

What happened in the comments thread is that people took my caution against writing queries like English class-y term papers and my opinion that the marketplace is moving toward accessible literary fiction, and then some used that as ammo against what they perceive as a culture of snobbish literature that is difficult to understand.

As I mentioned in the comments section, I think we're in a cultural period that celebrates mass appeal and democracy and devalues experts. I'd bet that more people read Amazon reviews than the New York Times Book Review. More people check Yelp for restaurant recommendations than a city's local restaurant critic. People don't particularly listen to the judges when they vote for their favorites on American Idol and they certainly don't listen to movie critics when they decide which movies to see. The Internet has opened up all kinds of ways for the crowd to be king.

And I think this has resulted in a cultural moment that celebrates mass appeal rather than the elite. Which definitely has its benefits: I happen to really like literary fiction that is both meaningful and accessible, such as KAVALIER AND CLAY, and I don't know that bringing literary fiction down from a lofty perch is necessarily a bad thing.

At the same time, there is definitely something that is lost in the over-celebration of mass appeal and the lowest common denominator and the dismissal of experts, and I really think it can be taken too far. What about aspiring to create something that is great, rather than merely popular? What about pushing the envelope even when it's not what's currently in fashion? What is wrong with being elite and appreciated by experts if not by the masses?

And when writers start thumbing their nose at dense and challenging literature solely because it's hard to read it really starts verging on reverse snobbery.

I understand that everyone has different tastes, but there is no pride in ignorance of literary fiction. Genre writers can learn from literary fiction, just as literary writers can learn from genre fiction. There's a middle ground.

Now. Does someone who wants to crank out genre novels need to spend all of their time reading Proust? Probably not. But to thumb one's nose at literary writing because it's hard to understand is to stop learning about what is possible with words.

Writers ignore good writing at their peril. In order to have a book published it doesn't have to be literary literary literary, but the writer has to do something very well. While there is an insanely common sentiment in the comments section that so many books published are trash and oh well anyone can do it: that's really not the case. You may not like it, but quite a few people along the way did in order for it to find its way to the bookshelf.

Not every talented writer is a published author, but (nearly) every published author is talented. Even if you think they suck.

For now, in order to have your book published you're going to have to impress the experts, i.e. the literary agents and editors who demand a certain level of quality in the writing. And the current culture that treats everyone as an expert shouldn't be taken too far: Not everyone is an expert.

You Tell Me: How Can You Tell if You Have Writing Talent?

2009-10-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

One of the very most difficult parts about the writing process is knowing whether you have "it," as in the talent that it takes in order to have a book published.

This is one the biggest challenge in battling the "Am I Crazies." How in the heck do you know if what you're writing is actually good?

Sure, your friends and family might think you have a talent, there may have been a teacher who was supportive, but they're often biased. So how do you really know?

I know there are writers out there who would stop now if they knew for sure they'd never find publication. But should they? How can you tell?

Themes Schmemes

2009-10-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

I have reached some sort of blog milestone in that I was halfway through writing a blog post about some writers focusing too much on the themes of their book in queries before I realized..... something felt a little familiar.

Then I realized: I'd written the exact same post before. Right down to the blog title. Whoops! Luckily I remembered before I unconsciously plagiarized myself.

Here is the original post, from March 29, 2007, which most definitely still applies, this time with feeling:

So you know how you spent four or more years in college learning about what books mean and how to analyze novels for hidden meaning, and where you learned that the best books are the ones with subtext upon which you can write a twenty page paper on the use of metaphor as an elucidation of the philosophical constructs of the protagonist's society?

Yeah. Forget all that.

I get quite a few query letters that sound like this (btw this is made up, I will never make fun of your query letter in this space, agent's honor):

"My novel explores themes of love and themes of passion. The protagonist fights against the evils inherent in our society and must come to terms with his inner sense of frustration and futility. But ultimately the novel is about how we as human beings must develop a sense of self and prevail in the face of society's obstacles."

No offense to myself for writing that, but that does not exactly make me want to read more of my own writing.

It's really the oldest writing advice in the book: Show don't tell. College teaches you to tell. It teaches you to look for subtext and it conditions you think you should pack your novel full of references and themes so future scholars will have a job. And then people write their query like it's a term paper.

I'm not (praise Tyra) planning on writing a twenty page paper on your novel, so don't tell me what your novel is about. Tell me what happens. And hopefully you've written a novel in which things actually do happen. Because I like novels where things happen. Happening is good.

To expand further on this topic, I recently attended a football game, (chronicled hilariously here by my friend Holly), and we were talking about how much some aspiring authors want to leave behind books with artistic integrity that they're proud of even if they don't sell, and I definitely respect this. (What else would you talk about on the way to a football game??).

At the same time, it got me to thinking: are writers artists or artisans?

I think the drive to write Literature/art sometimes leads some very talented writers, especially young ones, to write books that as an agent I can't sell because there's too much attention paid to the themes and the subtext and the meaning and other English-class-type concerns, rather than the narrative and the plot and the craft and other sausagemaking-type concerns. And this is reflected in how they think of and describe the work: these types of novels tend to correlate with queries that read like the aforementioned college papers.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with artistic integrity and thinking deeply about the meaning in your book and writing books that are dense, weighty, and/or wildly experimental. But particularly in this day and age, the audience for novels where too little attention is paid to narrative and plot and storytelling was already small and seems to be shrinking by the moment. There are definitely a few places that still are open to this type of writing, but they tend to be small presses/collectives and you don't necessarily need an agent to find them.

I also think that some of these writers have a bit of a mistaken belief about the books that are published these days that are instant Literature, like GILEAD and ATONEMENT and OSCAR WAO. These books have plots. They are not impenetrable. The narratives are complex and they flow. Yes, the writing is beautiful and meaningful and there's so much to take away, but Robinson and McEwan and Diaz also not only prose artists, they are fantastic storytellers and craftsmen who keep their readers spellbound.

Please know that I'm not making value judgments about writers as artists vs. artisans - I love all types of books and they all have their place. But as an agent, I have to follow the market. If you want to write Literature and also be published by a major publisher, these days it's rare to find a book that just has deep themes in an otherwise impenetrable book. It also takes a story that people can't put down. While there are some exceptions, for better or worse mainstream literary fiction is increasingly found at the intersection of quality and accessibility.

Can I Get a Ruling: Twenty-something

2009-10-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

Greetings! It's another edition of Can I Get a Ruling, aka that time when you vote on whether my pet peeves are signs of prescience or insanity.

Next up: twenty-something. Or thirty-something, forty-something, or a hundred-and-forty-something. As in a character is "[age in factor of ten]-something" years old.

I have to admit: when I see the phrase [number]-something my brain kind of shuts down.

Here's why (I think). It's just so unspecific. There's a huge difference between a twenty-one year old and a twenty-nine year old. I suppose twenty-"something" is supposed to be somewhere in the middle, but why not just say how old they are? "Something" is longer than every number from one to ten, so it's not as if you're saving characters.

At the same time, maybe saying "twenty-seven" is too much information and the specificity is somewhat distracting?

If you're reading this by e-mail or through an RSS reader, please click through for the poll:

This Week in Publishing

2009-10-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

This (crazy) week in publishing...

For a rundown of the really big news in publishing this week, please see yesterday's post.

But there's more!

Jofie Ferrari-Adler continued his series of fascinating/awesome/cool interviews with publishing people, this time with Twelve editor Jonathan Karp. Among the nuggets: some great anecdotes about CB clients and NURTURESHOCK co-authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, a really interesting take on the author/agent relationship, and the publishing philosophy that led him to create an innovating imprint.

In political book news, LA Times' book blog Jacket Copy (which is awesome, please check it out) noticed twin Sarah Palin books, one called GOING ROGUE the other called GOING ROUGE, both featuring covers of Sarah Palin staring purposefully off into the distance. Only: ROGUE is subtitled "AN AMERICAN LIFE" and is the actual Sarah Palin autobiography. ROUGE is subtitled "AN AMERICAN NIGHTMARE." Annnnnnnnnnnnnd.... cue the political anons in the comment section.

The New Yorker's Book Bench blog linked to a rather fascinating and thought-provoking post in Seed Magazine about how we humans are writing more than ever before, and are verging on a future of potential universal authorship. What I want to know is: if everyone's busy writing, how are they going to have time for reading?

INDEX//mb left some serious bait for Eric from Pimp My Novel: an argument against book sales forecasting (via @chriswebb). INDEX believes that sales forecasting is at the minimum useless because it ignores the likelihood of unforeseen random events (aka "black swans"), and argues instead that publishers should focus on being agile and responding more quickly to swings in demand rather than trying to be overly accurate with initial forecasts. Your move, Eric.

Meanwhile, the INTERN has wrapped up her stint at a NY publishing house and rounds up what she learned. Very interesting topics from someone on the inside.

In contest news, recently crowned stupendously ultimate first paragraph winner Travis Erwin is having a contest to celebrate Agent Appreciation Day on November 1st. Very nice! And my very excellent client Natalie Whipple is having a Halloween fiction contest. Very spooky!

National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, is coming up, in which people frantically attempt to write 50,000 word first drafts (hear me: FIRST DRAFTS) in one month. Lots of people ask me how I feel about NaNoWriMo, and basically, I agree with agent Kate Schafer Testerman. Some great first drafts of successful novels have arisen out of NaNoWriMo. Remember: Thanksgiving is for ignoring your family members and cranking out a first draft, December is for ignoring your family members and cranking out the first of many revisions that you will probably need until March at least to polish. Cool? Cool.

Even though I don't rep picture books, I get this question a lot: do you need to find an illustrator for your picture book ahead of time? Editorial Anonymous says: FOR THE LAST TIME: NO! (that's a direct quote).

You may have been wondering how the new FTC guidelines about disclosing free stuff is going to affect book reviews. My very awesome client Jennifer Hubbard (author of THE SECRET YEAR) recently attended a session at the Kidlitosphere Conference with FTC representative Mary Engle, who clarifies that the FTC should not affect book review blogs. Whew! Jennifer also recapped the conference for Shrinking Violet Promotions.

Jessica Faust at BookEnds checked in with a great reminder for all authors out there: we agents do the things we do for a reason, and if you don't like or aren't good at writing queries/synopses or revising: well...... it's basically your job to be good at it.

In posts about the writing life, Alexander Chee wrote a moving article about taking a writing class with Annie Dillard, which has some truly fantastic writing advice (via John Ochwat), and Cynthia Leitich Smith has a post with advice for debut authors on dealing with nasty reviews.

And finally, the Onion checked in with a local San Francisco author who is at this moment writing very deep thoughts in a Moleskin notebook.

Have a great weekend!

And Then Everything in Publishing Changed All At Once.... Or It Was More of the Same

2009-10-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

It was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks....... and no one knew which.

This was, quite simply, a massively huge week in the publishing industry. All of the various pressures on the industry seemingly came to a head: the steady rise of e-books, downward pressure on book prices (due to bad economy/presence of e-books/competition with free content/used books/inevitability), the rising clout of e-tailers, an increasingly difficult landscape for independent bookstores, and the industry's creeping dependence on a small handful of mega-bestselling authors.

First, several new e-readers are giving the Kindle a run for its money in both its functionality... and its bizarre name. Meet the Alex (yes, THE ALEX), the Que (yes, THE QUE) and the Nook (yes, THE okay that one doesn't bother me so much). Also: I call dibs on ¿Qué? jokes for the next five years.

The Nook is perhaps the most notable of all as it is backed by Barnes & Noble, features wireless that you can use in a physical B&N to read/preview basically anything, and also allows you to "share" a book with a friend for 14 days, during which you can't actually read it. Kind of like a real book.

It remains to be seen how popular all of these devices will be, but certainly e-book adoption is moving ever closer to the mainstream.

Meanwhile, WalMart dropped a megaton bomb more faster than you blink and sparked a ruthless price war with Amazon by announcing that they would sell 10 hotly anticipated titles for $9.99 through WalMart.com. Amazon quickly matched and announced same-day delivery in 7 cities, then WalMart countered by lowering the price to $8.99, which Amazon also matched. Then Target jumped in the fray, and so did Sears, who announced that if you by a $9 book from Amazon, Target or WalMart they will reimburse the entire amount if you buy something on Sears.com and spend $45. So, basically, you can get a free book when you buy your dog a pirate costume (come on, you know you want to click through to see that one).

Where does this end?

Where indeed.

Right now, even as WalMart, Amazon, Target and Sears fight it out for e-tailing primacy, publishers are still receiving the standard amount for every copy sold, or roughly 50% of the hardcover list price, meaning WalAmaTargEars are the ones taking a loss. So, assuming the deep discounts spur sales, in the short term this has turned into a huge cash cow for the few publishers/mega-bestsellers WalAmaTargEars have chosen.

But who loses? Well... potentially just about everyone else. In the words of literary agent David Gernert:

If readers come to believe that the value of a new book is $10, publishing as we know it is over. If you can buy Stephen King’s new novel or John Grisham’s ‘Ford County’ for $10, why would you buy a brilliant first novel for $25? I think we underestimate the effect to which extremely discounted best sellers take the consumer’s attention away from emerging writers.

And as Eric at Pimp My Novel notes, this could have huge impacts on independent bookstores, who simply can't compete with the discounting. He also notes that if a few e-tailers cement their dominance over the bookselling market, they could have increasing clout to dictate terms and discounts.

There are some who are cautiously optimistic about the price war. An anonymous publishing executive told the Times: "If this is a short-term statement to let hundreds of millions of people know that they will be able to buy books from Walmart.com, it’s a good thing."

But surely this isn't temporary. These trends have been in the makings for years, from deep discounts (now something everyone takes for granted) to competition with other cheap media to the rise of e-books to the industry's shedding of mid-list authors, their simultaneous aversion to small risks and dependence on big risks, and their increasing reliance on bestsellers, who they often overpay.

This doesn't have to mean the end of publishing as we know it. As former editor Marion Maneker writes, this could spur publishers to reevaluate their deals with their top sellers, and he also notes that people are already accustomed to paying more for different products. Just because James Patterson's latest is selling for $10 doesn't mean someone won't pay more for a book by someone who sells less.

But it looks as if book prices are coming down, one way or another. And that shift is going to send major shockwaves through the industry. Already Stephen King, an early e-book champion, announced that S&S will be delaying the release of the e-book edition of his new book, citing a desire to help bookstores, while simultaneously expressing concern that the deep print discounting "threatens the industry's pricing structure."

So is it the best of times or the worst of times? It's too soon to know. Lower prices don't have to be a bad thing provided people buy more books. Smaller authors don't have to lose out provided consumers don't flock en masse to the deeply discounted bestsellers.

But things are changing very, very quickly. The longtime trends that have been shaping the industry are only accelerating, and everyone in the business is holding on for the ride.

You Tell Me: When Is Writing Unhealthy?

2009-10-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's discussion about writers and sensitivity, Gordon Pamplona left a comment that stuck with me:

"...a lot of times the sensitivity about the writing is a stand-in for sensitivity about something else: you spent so much time chasing this pipe dream that you lose your job, your marriage, your kids; your kids don't respect you because you didn't write Harry Potter or Twilight; you charged a lot of money on the credit card for conferences and classes with no tangible results, and now the family is eating beans and rice. For many of us, writing is an addiction, no different from alcohol or drugs or gambling. And maybe people who are angry, bitter, stressed out, or despondent should take a hard look at whether this is something they should be doing--if it's gone from a hobby to something that's ruining their lives and their relationships with others."

As a society, we often celebrate tortured and struggling artists who finally make it big despite their obstacles, and yet we don't often examine the flip side of this, which is that the vast majority of tortured and struggling artists don't actually make it. We tend to encourage everyone to write (Person 1 tells an interesting story, Person 2 says "Wow, you should write a book about that"), and there are very few people out there willing to tell any writer they don't have what it takes and should probably try pursuing something else with their time. I'm guilty of this as well - who am I to say whether or not someone will or won't be published?

But is this the right approach? Is writing, especially when the odds are long and the cost to a personal life is high, sometimes akin to addiction? When does it cross the line from hobby to "habit?" And should we be encouraging everyone to write?

Writers and Sensitivity

2009-10-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

One of the many things I have discovered in the course of being a blogging agent is the intense sensitivity of many writer types.

And actually, the mere fact that I typed that sentence will probably get legions of anonymous commenters up in arms about my gross insensitivity. Steel yourselves, sensitive writers! Steel!

To take the most obvious example, there's a proud and distinguished history of authors losing their minds over bad reviews and acting badly, to the point an author has to really, really act badly for anyone to surprised anymore (but writers also happen to be inventive types and manage to find new ways).

To take another example, I can't count the number of times in the course of writing this blog I've been accused of hating writers or looking down on writers or otherwise being reflective of all that is wrong with publishing today. Even aside from the fact that I'm actually a writer in my spare time, why in the world would I spend my time blogging about writers and books if I hated them? Why would I have spent seven years in this business to begin with?

Now, to be clear and fair, I've written a lot of words on this blog and anyone who spills this much e-ink is going to misspeak or state things inartfully from time to time. So I'm not criticizing people for taking offense occasionally. I also don't intend to absolve agents everywhere of bad behavior or attitudes that don't deserve to be absolved.

But still, there's a small, vocal portion of the Internet writing community who will seize upon any teeny tiny perceived slight and use it as proof that agents really truly are haters of writers/scum of the earth/enemy of Literature with a capital L/Philistines/Luddites/Carthaginians (is that a thing?)/you name it.

It's worth remembering during these times: agents have devoted their working lives to writers, they have typically worked their way up for years while living in expensive cities and making less than some part time temp workers, and they often work for hours on end with writers whose books they can't sell, for which they receive absolutely no compensation. I've never met a single agent who is in this business for any reason other than the fact that they love writers and they love books.

But there's just something about writing, where it's almost as if writer types feel things more deeply and need a channel for that passion and the inevitable frustration that comes with the business. And frustration really is inevitable. No matter how successful you are there are always going to be challenges, needlessly personal bad reviews/rejections, and any number of road blocks along the way.

Channeling it into frustration with the business side of publishing, against literary agents, editors, reviewers, bookstores... you see it so often, and yet it's just so clearly not the most productive way to be.

Anecdote.

Michael Jordan is the one of the most notorious competitors and cataloguer of slights of all time. Rumor has it he never missed an opportunity to feel slighted. The sensitive soul of an artist!

And yet: he didn't complain (at least not publicly) when he was supposedly frozen out when he was a young All Star or when the Pistons created the "Jordan Rules," which basically entailed knocking him senseless at every opportunity, or about the height of the rims or the length of the court or David Stern or fans or anything else. Instead he set about destroying the competition on the court.

This is probably some of the most obvious advice you've ever seen on the Internet, but still! I think it's worth remembering that if you're a writer you are most likely also a sensitive type who must steel yourself from time to time and remember to channel your passion into the proper vessel: your writing.

The Winner Is... (And Thoughts on First Paragraphs)

2009-10-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

The..... winner...... is...... atthebottomofthispost.

But first, I promised to discuss more about what went into my decisions. And before we begin delving into the ins and outs of first paragraphs, I think I should probably state this up front for the record:

It's just a first paragraph.

Lots of really great books have very quiet and/or unremarkable first paragraphs. Your book is not going to succeed or fail based solely on its first paragraph. While I do think a good first paragraph can help grab a reader, I hope the takeaway from this contest isn't to elevate the first paragraph more than it deserves or convey that it's essential to cram the entire plot into the first paragraph or to make it overly clever or to treat it as anything but it what it is: your reader's first impression of the book.

I also want to emphasize, as I did in the last contest, that I think I read these first paragraphs differently as an agent than a lot of readers do. Lots of people look at the paragraphs and think, "Is this a book I want to read? Am I hooked? Would I buy this?" When I'm reading a paragraph (or a partial), I'm looking for execution more than I'm looking for whether there's a catchy plot introduced right off the bat. If the writing isn't there it doesn't matter how much I like the concept.

Also, have I mentioned how hard it was to choose the finalists? It was hard. In order to show you the kinds of decisions I was making as I was whittling the 2,500 down to the longlist and the longlist down to 10, I thought it might be helpful to discuss some of the honorable mentions, both to give them credit where due for being awesome, and to show the kind of hairsplitting I had to engage in to reduce the list to just the ten finalists.

There were paragraphs, like John Askins', where I really loved the concept. What isn't there to like about a novel opening with a toilet-trained monkey in some bar in Guadalajara? But I felt that the transition between the second sentence and the third was a little choppy, and I didn't feel that "potty trained" needed to be repeated in two sentences in a row and instead thought those sentences could be combined. Like I said, splitting hairs.

There were paragraphs like Jenny W.'s, which opens up such an appealing world. I love the idea of a man casually shooing away a monster going to the bathroom in the front yard. But while at first blush it read so smoothly and has such a great voice, there was a contradiction in the paragraph that I couldn't quite get over - if it was the narrator's first time seeing the monster, why were they on a first name basis and seemed so familiar with each other? It seemed like the catchy first line contradicted the rest of the paragraph.

There were other paragraphs, such as L.T. Host's and Vanessa's, where there's a high concept hook right off the bat. These are classic "I want to know more" openers, and seriously, I really want to know more please e-mail me. But in a competition for best first paragraph, I had to leave out ones that had an interesting, straightforward concept but mainly left it at that. I really liked these paragraphs and don't want/need a paragraph that's overwrought or needlessly florid, but I couldn't help but feel that there could have been something just a little bit more to invite the reader a further into these worlds even if there's a high concept idea introduced right away.

Can you tell how subjective this gets when you're choosing between 20-25 of the best written paragraphs? It is.

Now. Circling back: do I have an overarching philosophy when it comes to first paragraphs?

Sort of.

I was pretty surprised at the specificity of many of the people who weighed in on the You Tell Me on what makes a good paragraph, not to mention how contradictory many of the opinions were. Some people only wanted in media res, some hate in media res. Some want description, some don't. Some like beginning with dialogue, some hate beginnings with dialogue. Some want to be grabbed by the throat, some want to be led in gently. Some want spare, some want florid. It definitely explains why there are such wildly divergent opinions about the paragraphs.

I don't have any set preferences when it comes to structure and approach. frohock left a great comment that sums up my feeling about first paragraphs almost entirely. Essentially, I think the first paragraph has three important functions: it establishes the tone/voice, it gets the reader into the flow of the book, and it establishes trust between the author and reader.

The concept of flow and rhythm is especially important. It's hard to begin reading a book. The reader is starting with a blank slate and doesn't have much context for understanding what is happening. It takes a lot of brain power to read the opening and begin to feel comfortable in the world of that book. So even if the novel starts with action, or especially if it begins with action, it's very important to draw in the reader methodically, with one thought leading to the next. The flow of the words and a steady building goes a long way toward hooking the reader. Quite a few paragraphs jumped around or felt scattered, and it made it difficult to stay engaged.

And on the trust issue: I shy away from anything that feels like a gimmick. A novel is simply too long for gimmicks. Not only do they get exhausting, anything that is clever merely for the sake of being clever comes at the expense of trust between author and reader. To put it another way: if a first paragraph is how an author makes their first impression, using a gimmick in the opener is kind of like going to shake the reader's hand while wearing a hand buzzer. There might be a quick thrill, but they're probably not going to trust you after that. There was a feeling of forced cleverness in many of the entries where I wasn't able to lose myself in the paragraph and forget the hand of the author who was writing it.

In any contest where someone is reading 2,500 paragraphs basically in one setting, originality is probably more important than it would be normally. While there were plenty of openings in this contest that were very good, there were stretches where things kind of blended together. The ones that were different tended to stand out in the contest, even though I fully recognize that you can write a perfectly competent but unremarkable first paragraph and still write a very good book.

Lastly, I would urge everyone to read as many of the entries as possible. There really is no substitute for reading them until your eyes bleed and see what begins to jump out at you once they've begun to blend together. Manning a slush pile is a tremendous learning opportunity for any writer, and reading a couple thousand of these is the closest approximation.

And speaking of blending together, here are some of the things I saw a lot of as I read through the entries. Bear in mind that I'm not saying you can't use any of these elements in your first paragraph. Anything can be done well. But these are common tropes that I picked up on:

- There were quite a lot openings with setting/rising suns and characters bathed in red colors, as well as moons and characters bathed in twilight.
- Girls looking in mirrors/brushing their hair/looking in mirrors while brushing their hair
- Holy cow, or should I say Holy Dead Bloody Cow were there a lot of corpses and blood in the first paragraphs. "Blood" was used 181 times, and that doesn't count the euphemisms. Not necessarily a bad thing (and one of the bloody ones made the finals), but wow.
- You wrote a lot of paragraphs in the second person.
- One common trope involves a person who is dying but feels all detached from the experience. Sort of like: "I am dying, but I feel nothing but a bemused disinterest about it. Isn't it curious that I'm dying? I suppose I should be scared right now. This is peculiar indeed."
- Waking up/waking up in a panic/waking up in a burning down house/waking up from a really good dream/waking up from a really bad nightmare/waking up and not wanting to wake up/waking up and realizing actually dead.
- Gripping the steering wheel tightly
- Contemplating the depth of an important moment, especially: "If only this one thing hadn't happened, then everything would have been different." "It was just like any other day, only then this one thing happened." "This was the precise moment when everything changed."
- The pull the chair out from under the reader several times paragraph, like this: "Statement. Well, it wasn't that per se, it was somewhat like this. Or should I say rather more like this. Still, it was indeed kind of like that original statement. Only kind of not really."
- Common phrases: "consumed with fear," "last thing I/he/she wanted/expected, "washed over me/him/her, "top of my/his/her lungs," "farthest thing from my/his/her mind," "(blank) - literally," "they/my mom/my grandmother say(s) that (aphorism)."

Like I said, any of these things can be done very well, and I'm not trying to say you shouldn't use any of them. It's just difficult to make something unique out of elements that are very common, and I think we're all generally drawn to something that feels different.

For instance, someone along the way pointed out that SATURDAY opens with the protagonist waking up. So it can be done, particularly if your novel takes place over the course of one day and particularly if your name is Ian McEwan. And if anything, the same trope in the beginning can result in wildly different results. "Dark and stormy night" can lead to WRINKLE IN TIME or it can lead to this paragraph from PAUL CLIFFORD, originally written by the long-dead Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the inspiration for the bad-writing contest of the same name, which I assume someone entered in an attempt to trick me.

Heh.

Here is why I ended up choosing these ten finalists:

Josin L. McQuein pulls you in with the geometry-teacher-as-devil idea, and then keeps it going with a great punch line. I really love "I want to strangle myself with a hypotenuse," not only because it's funny, but it's geometrically accurate! Great voice.

Alanna. Confession: I am not generally a fan of the second person. But I thought the writing and the concept here are quite spectacular and I didn't hesitate to include this paragraph as a finalist. I thought it was moving to have the action going in reverse, the prose was top notch (love: "The dust falls out of the beam of light from your window and settles back on the scarred wooden floor"), and I found the interplay between the writing and subject very evocative. I might have liked it even better if it were third person, but this is some serious raw writing talent on display.

K and A. What I love about this paragraph is how fully-realized this world is and how effortlessly the details are melded into the paragraph. I was drawn in by the list of people and how they aren't what they say they are, but what really drove this paragraph home for me was that the new arrival shows up with a protest sign that says "Peace not plasma." K and A didn't stop with the plot concept, there are small details throughout that creates a very convincing and interesting world. This is a great example of how a world can come alive with small details.

M has an instantly memorable setup: a protag with a changed name on the run from some murders. But it's more than just an interesting concept, there's a great voice too. I love that the character is looking out for the reader. Now. Is Mara the culprit or a witness? I guess we'll have to read on to find out.

Jackie Brown. I really liked the interplay between inside and outside in this paragraph. At first it seemed like the child was perhaps dangerous (she's wearing a mask and we see her staring in the door and is compared to a ghost), but then the action subtly shifts and we're seeing things from the perspective of a very human-like child staring inside at a mysterious veiled figure. I found the experience of reading it very unsettling in a good way, almost like, "Hey, wait, my brain was just in that house what in the heck is in there?"

miridunn. I thought this paragraph had very strong writing, great rhythm, and it's about a very wrenching subject. Quite a few people who read the first couple hundred paragraphs mentioned this one as a standout, and I think it's a reflection of how gripping it is right away.

Travis Erwin. The humor and sense of place just shine right through. The joke about the titles of other coming of age stories is hilarious and instantly memorable. Very clever and very funny.

Simon C. Larter. This is another paragraph that combines great rhythm with great details, which suck the reader into the story. I thought the writing was smooth and the tension palpable.

Lisa Marie gave an immediate, gripping sense of grief, and I thought the contrast between the precision with which the protagonist moved on and the mystery of the note was interesting and moving. A very nice progression throughout the paragraph.

Maya. There were a whole lot of paragraphs that began with a character outside in nature and contemplating where they are in life and thinking about what's next. I chose Maya's to represent this group because I thought the different elements came together very nicely - the pomegranate juice, the sound of the orchard, and the bark in her back all meshed with what she is thinking about her past. I found it to be an elegant and nicely balanced paragraph that appealed to all of the senses and evoked a place.

Congratulations to all of the finalists!

And now...

I have tallied the votes.

The four runners-up are....

miridunn
M
Josin L. McQuein
Alanna

Congratulations! Please e-mail me about your query critique and signed THE SECRET YEAR bookmark.

And now, the author of the stupendously ultimate winning paragraph and the winner of a prize of his choosing and a galley and our undying admiration is....

TRAVIS ERWIN!!!

Congratulations to Travis, and thanks so much to everyone who participated!

The Finalists! (as announced by Dwight Schrute)

2009-10-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: VOTING IS CLOSED!!

Hey all, if you don't watch the American version of The Office then this might not make sense. Thanks to Cory Clubb for inspiring the idea.

Greetings. I am Dwight K. Schrute, Assistant Regional Manag... fine, Assistant to the Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin Scranton.

I have been... you haven't heard of Dunder Mifflin? Ugh. Hello? It's only the third largest paper supply company in the Northeast Metro Region. Have you heard of paper? You probably don't even know the difference between a dagger and a throwing knife.

I have been asked how a human being could read over 2,500 paragraphs in a few days while also having a job.

FACT. I am not a human being. I am the Scranton Volunteer Assistant Deputy Sheriff.

Okay, fine. I'm human. But soon I will officially be a wizard in training. I recently accepted an invitation to attend wizard school, and it was left on my desk by Dumbledore's apprentice himself. All I have to do is make my own wizard costume and wand and arrive at work to be transported to Hogwart's for training. The first spell I will learn is demoting Jim to Assistant to the Assistant to the Regional Manager. The second spell I will learn will be to turn my hands into claws.

Choosing these paragraphs was difficult. Very difficult indeed. None of the paragraphs involved Battlestar Gallactica and I was forced to rely on other criteria. Such as: perfection. Or as close to perfection as a paragraph could be if it's not about the different species of bears and their genetic superiority to humans.

Writing a good paragraph is much like making a lovely beet stew. It must have the right amount of spice. It must not be overcooked or undercooked. Too much blood can overwhelm the natural umami of the beet. It must bode well for the roast rabbit entree and make you hungry for more. It must feel authentic and have a fine consistency. No one likes instant beets or other cheap tricks.

While judging this contest I made a unilateral decision to announce the individuals who made the longlist with their first paragraphs. These individuals win a free night's stay at Schrute Farms and honorable mention (in chronological order):

David Kubicek
L. T. Host
T. Anne
Chuck H.
mythicagirl
Barbara Sissel
Miss Tammy
Jenny W.
John Askins
Bill Baynes
John UpChurch
Kate Johnston
Billy
Henriette Power
Kerri Ladish
Cat_d_Fifth
Vanessa
atsalem

Congratulations. I will spare you the next time Michael lets me fire someone.

The ten individuals below are the finalists. They win a weekend's stay at Schrute Farm, a year's supply of beets, and a 90 minute Swedish massage by my cousin Mose. He's practicing for his massage license.

In order to vote for the winner, please leave a vote in the comments section of this post. You will have until Sunday 6pm Pacific time to vote. Please not e-mail me your vote.

Also: No campaigning for yourself or your favorites out there on the Internet. Don't make me bring out my nun-chucks.

Because I expanded the number of finalists, I'm afraid only the top four runners up will receive the prize of query critique and signed THE SECRET YEAR bookmark (if you're in the US). The grand prize winner will receive their choice of a query/partial critique or phone conversation, and a galley of the incredible THE SECRET YEAR. When I read it I cried. Then I captured the tears and dried them to use for Schrute Farm table salt.

Anonymous comments have been closed.

The finalists (in no particular order):

Josin L. McQuein:
Time works different in purgatory. I'm absolutely certain of this. Sure, they call it Geometry and there's a man in slacks at the front of the room instead of some red guy with a pointed tail and pitchfork, but it's still torture. And after forty-one minutes of equilateral something-or-others getting mixed up with isosceles what-cha-ma-call-its , I want to strangle myself with a hypotenuse.

Alanna:
You imagine time flowing backward, back upstream. The apartment door swings open and the messenger from the lawyer’s office comes into your living room, loads up the boxes onto a dolly, and leaves with them. The dust falls out of the beam of light from your window and settles back on the scarred wooden floor. The boxes wait again in the corner of the lawyer’s office. In the hospital, long wiry hairs suddenly lift up from the musty pillow, reimplant themselves in your mother’s dented skull. (The abiding image, for some reason, is her hair at its healthiest: dark glossy coils of it. You had a dream recently that you came home and found it winding like a rope around dream-lengthened hallways, and you followed it with the growing sense that what it would ultimately lead to would be unfamiliar, not really your mother at all, some demonic reverse Rapunzel, and yet nevertheless propelled forward, as though someone were tugging at the other end.) Eventually she sits up, combs her long hair, more hairs returning from the brush to her head. Doctors remove the morphine drip. Her flesh puffs back into firmness. She leaves the room, sucking the sick air into herself, drives to the office to retrieve the boxes. At home, she opens one and takes a sheet of paper. Ink flows from cramped cursive on the page into her pen; words into her brain. Her thoughts curl once more inside her, unform themselves into vague image, memory, piled heavily atop each other like drifts of snow. As you back into her house at the end of your visit, she tells you she thinks it will be all right. That you can go.

K and A:
Adelaide walked swiftly along the street, past the pirate who didn’t own a ship, and the Scot who’d never been to Scotland, and the librarian whose home didn’t hold a single book. Contemplating her own strange circumstances, Adelaide realized she was absently twisting the ring on her finger. As she gazed thoughtfully at it, a bright flash of light reflected off the largest diamond. Turning to the source of the illumination, Adelaide watched warily as the light began to fade, and finally blink out, leaving in its place a New Arrival. The young woman, not distant in age from Adelaide, wore a tight body suit of unearthly hues, and clutched a sign that read, "Peace Not Plasma!" But it was the woman’s eyes that captured Adelaide's full attention, for they were bewildered, confused… and fearful. Adelaide understood; she had worn the same expression herself—the day she'd Arrived.

M:
My name is not Mara Dyer, but my lawyer told me I had to choose something. A pseudonym. A nom de plume, for all of us studying for the SATs. I know that having a fake name is strange but trust me, it's the most normal thing about my life right now. Even telling you this much isn't good for my case. But without my big mouth, no one would know that a seventeen-year-old who likes Death Cab for Cutie was responsible for the murders. No one would know that somewhere out there is a B student with a body count. And it's important that you know, so you're not next.

Jackie Brown
The masked girl was back at the screen door. The smooth mahogany full face mask was sculpted to her face, its carved slots allowing her eyes access to witness what sat before her on the other side of the door. Like a small brown-skinned ghost, she had appeared and disappeared throughout the long day, each time pressing her hands and hidden face against the ragged screen straining for a better view, each time stinging her fingers on the sharp shards jutting out around the holes in the sorry screen. She snatched her hand back when pricked, shaking it in a finger-whipping motion, sucking the offended fingers to lessen the sting of the tiny wire splinter, all the while never taking her eyes from the small veiled figure sitting in the middle of the floor.

miridunn:
Her mother told her a bed was for three things: loving, sleeping, and birthing babies. She had not warned her that a bed is also for holding new babies, cold and blue, against an aching breast, moving them from the safeness of the womb to the frigid air they will never learn to breathe. She did not warn her that in her bloodied bed she would witness the worst kind of death – the death of her soul; the loss of her children. But now she knew -- for the third time.

Travis Erwin:
Coming-of-age stories are often fraught with symbolism, hidden metaphors, and a heaping mound of other literary devices. Not this one. I came of age while working at a dusty, Texas feedstore. A place where To Kill a Mockingbird involved a twelve-year-old and a BB gun. Of Mice and Men was a problem easily solved with rat poison. And David Copperfield was nothing more than a dude that made shit disappear.

Simon C. Larter:
It was one of those painfully trendy restaurants staffed by skinny hipsters in tight jeans and shirts that left nothing to the imagination, and she had brought me here because she knew there would be many opportunities to make me uncomfortable. We were seated by an effervescent pixie of a girl with long blonde hair and a bright smile who asked if we were from the area or just visiting. Margot said that we lived in the area but had heard nothing but good things about the food here and simply had to try it for ourselves. “My husband likes his food, as you can tell,” she said, and laughed. The pixie’s grin froze on her face. She wished us a good evening then pressed through the crowd of bodies at the bar and headed back to her station by the front door. I didn’t watch her go. Margot was looking at me with a smile on her lips that could have chilled every martini for a three-block radius. Her eyes were bright and very hard, and it had been three days since she found out about my addiction.

Lisa Marie:
Philip had cleaned and put away the wine glass that had her mauve lipstick print. He collected the half used make up jars that littered the bathroom counter and recycled the glass and plastic containers. He donated her clothing to Goodwill and dispersed her jewelry evenly between their two daughters. He even gave her African violets, in their cheery hand painted terracotta pots, to their neighbors. Yes, Phillip had removed nearly all the remnants of his deceased wife from their home. He hoped that the great cleaning, as he referred to it, would ease his depression and overall feelings of despair and hopelessness. Yet there still remained the grocery list on the refrigerator. Her loopy cursive letters in black ink floated on the page like a secret poem he could not decipher. The list had items that Phillip did not recognize. What on earth was she going to make? He needed, more than anything, to find out.

Maya / מיה:
The pomegranate seeds burst between my teeth, releasing tart-sweet juice. The wind licked my eyelids, and the orchard rustled and creaked. I relaxed into the fork of the tree. In that moment, nothing mattered-- not marriage, not exile, not my mother's pursed lips. Persia became smaller than the nub of bark digging into the back of my leg.

Congratulations to the finalists. Almost as impressive as achieving a purple belt in Goju-Ryu karate.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to set off some fireworks.

More about the picks and thoughts on first paragraphs on Monday!