Agent panel at Colorado Gold – agent tips and secrets

by Janet Lane

RMFW (Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers) annual conference offers a wealth of educational workshops and editor/agent panels to help aspiring writers get published. Go to rmfw.org and click on 'conference' to learn more about next September's conference.

Agents at the RMFW conference this year gave us insight and tips that may change the way you target agents, and when and how you query.

Agents on the panel:

Rachelle Gardner, Wordserve Literary Group

Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency

Rebecca Strauss of the McIntosh & Otis, Inc. Literary Agency

Sandra Bond of the Sandra Bond Literary Agency

Here’s a peek into the Q&A session.

 Don’t get caught doing this!

When asked what not to do when sending a query, Rachelle Gardner advised that you don’t start with a rhetorical question, or try to be cute. Follow the submission guidelines for that particular agent.

Sara Megibow suggested that you don’t sub in a genre she doesn’t represent.  Write a blurb that will make her want to read the book.  “I want your query letter to sound like the back cover of the novel,” Sara said.

When trying to suggest an audience for your work, Rebecca Strauss suggested you avoid saying, “I’m the next Faulker.”  Instead, try some content comparison with a known author.  Example:  “My work is along the lines of  X Author.” She said it helps to research what the agents represent. Her example:  “I enjoyed Tempest Rising, and my book is similar to that.”  That, Rebecca said, will make her love you.  “Our books are like our children.  If you compliment them you compliment us.”

Does location matter?

Located in New York, Rebecca is in contact by email and phone, but enjoys the convenience of meeting with editors.  “It’s fun to get drinks with them.”  With personal meetings, she feels they open up more about their editorial needs.  She meets with editors once or twice a week.

Sara’s son loves the New York taxicabs. She travels there for business but “I don’t wine and dine editors in New York.  You can live in the North Pole, but what you want to ask, if you are offered representation, is, ‘Will you represent my book and get it sold?’ Not, ‘Do you buy editors beer?’”

Rachelle loves being able to live here and do her job. She sells mainstream fiction to general markets and to Christian publishers. There are four major Christian  publishers in Denver and in Nashville.  She attends conferences and meets editors there. “When I pitch a book, the main thing is will it get read?” she said. “I don’t have any editors ignoring me.  It won’t be based on where I live.  If I were having trouble getting an editor to pay attention to me that would be a problem, but it’s not.”

Sandra noted that agents live all over the place, and editors know that. “Your job is to target the appropriate agent who is right for your book and our job is to target the right editor for your book,” she said.  “It doesn’t matter where we live.  We do also attend many conferences and meet editors, and go to New York and meet with the editors when we need to.  I have specific editors with whom I want to meet.  But I’m also very good at phone relationships.  Authors, too, are all over the place.  I have authors I haven’t met before.”

 E-publishing – panacea, or the death of publishing?

E-publishing is, they agreed, another format of a book, like an audio book.

We may have fewer printed books, but they’ll never ever go away. Yes, there’ll be lots of e-books, but it’s still a book.

Rachelle noted that everyone in the industry is trying to discover how all who are involved in publishing are going to continue to make money from the written word. We can try to re-invent the wheel every day but we still don’t know the answer to that question.  How much readers will pay for the written word is the new question.

Sara agreed.  “The question is: an author may have 25 rejections and ask, ‘Shall I self-publish?’”  Avoid making an emotionally based decision (To heck with you, I can publish and make my millions without you). Don’t e-publish because you don’t like New York, or don’t like not having control of your career.  “Be careful.”

Rebecca observed that we’re all trying to figure it out every day, trying to guess how we’re going to stay in business, all working hard to get negotiating language in contracts which limits time, where standing royalty rates are in effect and re-evaluate in two years.

Coming next:  bidding wars, age discrimination and surprising insights

Colo Gold Conference: Editor panel reveals submissions process

by Janet Lane

RMFW’s conference burst at the seams this year with informative workshops and panels.

For those of you who couldn’t attend, here’s an update.  Enjoy and employ these tips!  –Janet

The editor panel this year featured–

Moshe Feder, Consulting Editor for Tor Books

Latoya Smith, Assistant Editor for Grand Central Publishing

Angela James, Executive Editor of Carina Press (Harlequin digital)

Brian Farrey, Acquiring Editor for Flux, Llewellyn’s Young Adult (YA)

Lindsey Faber, Managing Editor for Samhain Publishing.

Where does your genre fit?

If you write Young Adult (YA), your work will be welcome with Brian Farrey.  He’s looking for YA stories that feature urban fantasy, straight up fantasy, teen romance, and sci fi, but no space opera or high fantasy. He would like to see more realistic books with no fantasy, just teens trying to relate to each other & themselves.

If you write mystery, Carina Press does digital imprints of all genres of adult fiction, so consider querying Angela James when your book is ready to market.  They’re big on mystery among other genres.  Latoya Smith is interested in all adult, commercial fiction.

If your pen produces romance or women’s fiction, your work may find a home with Latoya Smith at Grand Central Publishing.  She’s acquiring romance (mainly paranormal and romantic suspense), women’s fiction, and erotica and African romance, across the board.  Angela James’ Carina Press is also big on romance, as is Lindsey Faber of Samhain.

If Sci Fi’s your genre, do not pass ‘go’ and run directly to the post office (or computer) and send your ready-to-market query to Tom Dougherty of Tor in hard-copy or Angela James at Carina Press, where you can launch your career in digital format.

At the panel, Moshe pointed out that Tor publishes more Sci Fi per year–150 new titles per year—than anyone else.  Their stories run the gamut: epic, high, sociological SF, space opera, military adventure, paranormal romance.  Each of Forge’s three seasons includes 50 sci fi titles and 20 of all other titles.

Have a thriller to market?  Try Carina Press or Grand Central Publishing.

 What they can offer you

As authors, we’re concerned about being lost in the cracks, especially with a debut novel.  Are the publishers too small to afford any promotion?  Will we have to do it all ourselves?  If the publisher is large, are all their promotion dollars used on established authors?  The editors addressed these concerns during the panel.

Latoya Smith mentioned promotional themes and making good use of the online department at Grand Central. “Who are your contacts? How can we combine efforts to make a strong promo effort?”  The author will pay for some of it. “We usually focus efforts on bookmarks, postcards. Most all books get galleys and ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies printed at no cost to the author) to send for blurbs. Some authors go on tour. We offer all of our authors  an on-line blog tour and Twitter parties.” Grand Central also hosts a Forever Fan Page where authors can speak to readers during hour-long book club sessions.

Moshe Feder mentioned Tor’s large PR department.  “Every book has someone in PR who’s associated with it, arranging reviews, interviews, book stores placement.  Tor encourages our authors to participate in the website activities.  They do tour their authors extensively.”  Tor is large, but small, Moshe said.  “We are a family run company who happens to be part of a large corporation.  We work on an informal, friendly basis; no editorial board that has to be run through.  We have strong personal relationships with our authors.”

Lindsey Faber noted they use print, advertising, media, blogs, horror magazines and conference sponsorships to promote their authors.  They do banners and giveaways at Comic Con,  “And we’ve had lots of success with giveaways.” She explained how Samhain offered the first book of a series free for a week which was “hugely successful with many downloads.  Book giveaways are very successful. In a post giveaway week we sold over 2,000 copies.  The second book in the series hit the USA Today best seller list.”

There are advantages to being small.  Flux’s Brian Farrey said they work closely wth authors, doing lots of social media on-line—video streams, Facebook and Twitter.  “We’re a company of 110 years. We target the library market.  We’re all doing the same thing, just with different resources.  Flux prints targeted ARC copy runs of 2,000—more modest runs but more targeted.”  Further, Brian said Flux helps authors understand what they can do so they can have their own voice.  “We educate our authors on proper on-line etiquette.”

“We’re a small press within a larger company,” Angela James said. “We have tools to help you learn how to (promote) yourself because no one’s more passionate about your book than you are. We teach you how to do social media, how to build a web site, and you can take that wherever you may go in your career.  We utilize Net Galley – online digital ARC reviewers, librarians, bookstores – over 30,000 users for review copies.”  Through these resources they are able to reach many people. “Every release gets a release tour.”

Next:  How submissions rise out of the slush pile and how to query.

Are you a Survivor?

What does it take to be a Survivor in publishing? What traits do you think are most important?

I’m working with my critique partners on a panel presentation for the upcoming Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference, aka Colorado Gold Conference, scheduled this year for September 10, 11, 12 at Denver’s Renaissance Hotel. Actually, Kay Bergstrom is doing all the initial planning, and the rest of us are offering small suggestions.

The panel will be based on one of my favorite television shows, “Survivor.” “Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” will cover beginnings, middles and ends, and contestants (my fellow critique partners and I) will try to outwit and outlast each other and make it to the end without getting voted off. Should be great fun!

When I first heard the concept of “Survivor” (from Kay Bergstrom, actually, years ago, so this is coming full circle for me), I thought the idea of voting people off an island was repugnant – ill-spirited and insensitive. Watching the show, I learned quickly that it’s a game. And what can be more of a game, more of a competition than writing to get published?

What does it take to be a Survivor in publishing? What traits do you think are most important?

eBooks and the agonies of change

The Kindle eBook. Click on the photo to see a fascinating article on the latest developments in the eBook industry.

You may have seen my eBook, Mothers Day Poem Kit, being offered as a Kindle release on amazon.com.  Like many other authors, I’m testing the waters of this emerging market. 

The New Yorker on April 26 printed a fascinating story, an overview of the eBook’s position in the overall publishing picture.  Here are some quick stats from that article that reveal the growing impact of ePublishing.

* 3 million Kindles have been sold

* Amazon.com currently offers 450 thousand eBooks.

* When a hard-bound book is offered next to an eBook, 40 per cent buy the electronic version.

* Per Markus Dohle, CEO of Random house, digital transition will take five to seven years, not a week or a hundred days.

* Publishers’ efforts to “window” releases (think “window of opportunity), strategically delaying the release of an eBook following hardback release, can backfire because consumers lose interest.

A wealth of other useful industry information and news is included in this article.  Just click on the Kindle above to read all about it.  Thanks to Michelle Black for giving me the heads-up on this article.  Networking is important.  For authors, especially in this dynamic industry, knowledge is power.