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Rewrite Your Profile, Rewrite Your Future: A New Year’s Post

2012-01-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

Right around now lots of people are writing, or rewriting, or sticking to, or breaking their New Year’s Resolutions; I’m busy rewriting my online profiles.

If you do any type of writing online (and if you’re reading this you probably do), chances are you have about half-a-dozen “profiles” posted here and there: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.

In addition to all those, I have professional profiles on Guru.com, Elance.com, YA profiles on Smashwords and Scribd.com, plus a few more on places like Wattpad and Inkpop.com.

So every January I make it a point to revisit each profile and look at it objectively. Short or long, professional or personal, I try to read and then re-read ALL of my profiles to make sure they’re as effective as possible.

Along the way I ask myself a few questions:

• Is this recent, current or otherwise updated?

• Is it smooth, clean, tight?

• Does it pop?

• If I was looking to find a new author, would this profile appeal to me?

• Am I intrigued enough to learn more?

Then, depending on the answers, I go to town. I tweak and update them, add to or delete from them. I tone and craft and chisel until I’m happy for them to exist, “as is,” for another year.

Some profiles, like on Guru.com and Elance.com (professional freelance writing websites), are long and intense. Others, like my Blogger.com profile, are little more than a paragraph long. Still, every word counts.

I won’t call this process “fun,” exactly, but it definitely revives my spirit of creativity and, I think, gradually and even subtly enhances my online reputation.

There are other, hidden benefits as well. Case in point: as I sat down to write this, I was tweaking my Elance.com profile and there, in the very first paragraph, I read this line: “I am a bestselling ghostwriter with over a decade of experiencing ghost writing for such publishers as…”

“Experiencing” ghost writing? Really, Russ? Ouch. Can you say unprofessional? And that’s been up since, what? This time last year? So it’s nice to catch things like that and move forward positively. It’s also nice to update certain numbers, awards, experiences, connections, etc.

It also helps to see yourself as others see you, and to look at something you thought was “impressive” a year ago and fine tune it to be even more so now, with an older, hopefully wiser pair of eyes.

So what about you? Even if you only have a few, one-paragraph profiles like on Blogger.com and Twitter, are they working for you? Can they work better? Say more? Do more? Are you happy with them? Could you be happier?

It’s a new year and that means a new opportunity for us all to revamp what we say about ourselves online. So, what will you say about yourself this year? And how will what you say affect how you move forward as 2012 dawns bright, fresh and new?

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty Fischer

What’s in Your Creative Blender? A Post About Spare Time – and How You Use It

2011-10-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

How do you use your spare time? Do you… hang with friends and family? Go to the gym? Partake in a hobby or a night class? If you’re like most writers, you probably do all of that, sure, but also plenty of reading, and possibly listening to music, and hopefully going to movies.

This is a post about spare time and how, for writers, even our spare time is often spent thinking about writing, or storing away ideas, tidbits of knowledge, pop culture or inspiration that we’ll eventually write about, someday.

Case in point: if you were to look at the books stacked on my nightstand at this very moment, you might think that a second grader, a cat lady, a political professor and a wannabe filmmaker were having a slumber party.

That’s because I’ve got a few kids books, a book about the near assassination of Ronald Reagan, a Halloween cozy mystery and a collection of Tim Burton interviews stacked there, all with bookmarks halfway through them.

Lend an ear to this week’s playlist and you’ll hear Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Johnny Cash (who I’m just now rediscovering), a groovy new group called the Moon-Rays (awesome Halloween music, btw), Mark Knopfler (after recommending him to a friend) and the first of this year’s new Christmas records.

And my movie ticket stubs are just as schizophrenic; Ides of March, The Thing, Lion King, Real Steel (!), Contagion… whatever. Just give me 90 minutes of flickering lights and fresh Twizzlers and I’m there.

I used to worry that maybe my choices in reading, listening and watching material weren’t quite helping me advance in my literary pursuits. That, somehow, I needed to be reading what I was writing, or reading about writing, and possibly even writing about writing, 24/7/365.

But now I think just the opposite: it’s all up for grabs. I consider everything I watch, listen to or read fair game now.

Then again, I make the right choices: for me. Writing YA is all about the story; the beginning, the middle, the end. The setting, the theme, the mood. Who’s the good guy? Who’s the bad guy? And why are they at odds?

The books I read, they all tell a good story; so they’re wise choices for me. Children’s books are great because they tell a good story in real-time. They also tend to be broad and help me put my older stories in perspective. Tim Burton? Great storyteller. And mysteries always feature a great “bad guy or gal,” even if you don’t know who it is until the end.

Even the music I choose is full of storytellers. Johnny Cash? Forget about it; he’s as much a writer as a musician. Same with Mark Knopfler, whose last three albums might as well be short story collections as well. And Halloween and Christmas music are full of rich legends and history.

And movies? Movies have always been my go-to source for inspiration because I have no skin in the game. I read a book I’m always wondering who published it, how much it’s sold, is this genre hot or not, who’s the author’s agent, etc.? Those kinds of things are always running in the back of my mind.

But a movie is a story in pictures, and I can just let its details and plot and characters wash over me, leaving an indelible imprint that I’m never quite sure when will surface.

And that’s the beauty of how you spend your spare time as a writer: you’ll never know when it will pop back up and pay off in a new story idea, a great bad guy or an awesome new setting. For instance, I used my love of all things movies in my latest YA supernatural romance, Ushers, Inc.

I use pop references when I’m writing for clients all the time, and those come straight from the “soup” I’m daily stuffing into my “creative blender,” otherwise known as my mind.

It’s this “blender,” I think, that makes us each unique. There is no telling how the music I’ve listened to, the books I’ve read, the movies I’ve watched – to say nothing of my upbringing, my friends, family and life experiences – affects what, how or even when I write. Same goes for you and what you write, even how you write it.

It’s why hundreds of thousands of books can come out every single year and no two be the same. As writes, we might all come equipped with the same “blender”; it’s what we stick into them that counts!

Give it enough quality ingredients, and the blender is always churning up new ideas, combinations of half-thoughts and sudden inspirations that turn into stories, poems, book titles, pages or sometimes just paragraphs or random ideas.

And that’s what’s so great about our spare time. It’s not “reading”; it’s homework. It’s not “listening to music”; it’s research. It’s not “going to the movies”; it’s on the job training.

Now, as the holidays approach and some of the year’s best Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas stories roll back around, it’s a good time to ask: What’s in your blender?

And how will it affect what you put on the page for the rest of the year?

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Patience is Power – The Top-Three Reasons to Sleep on Your Next Submission

2011-08-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

The other evening I sent out a query letter for a new YA project.

I had run across this hot new publisher after reading one of their tweets. The cool part is, they were totally working in my genre of choice, actively soliciting submissions.

Now, that’s rare enough in itself; but these guys were practically begging for subs all over Twitter and Facebook, on account of hiring some new editors, taking advantage of some great new interns and urging writers to beat the summer doldrums by submitting now; right now, today!

I took them at their word and submitted immediately. Only problem was, I totally botched the job.

Only AFTER I’d copied and pasted and sent out my query letter did I realize I’d written it for an entirely different publisher; and personalized it with some really insightful commentary about… them.

Which is good; I’d really researched both publishers, but in my haste to approach the second I left in the personalized parts about… the first.

Seriously, so when Publisher B gets it, they’re going to read the first three paragraphs and (hopefully) figure this writer’s really got his act together, then get to Paragraph # 4 and read some really great stuff… about Publisher A!

It’s like writing a love letter to Sally and midway through you start pledging your love to… Paula! So now I look completely stupid, and the sad thing is, my submission was right up their alley!

But it just goes to show, even after sending out thousands of query letters over the last 10 years, it never pays to rush. In other words, patience is power.

So here are three great reasons to sleep on your next submission:

1. Personalize: We all use templates for our queries, i.e. we write up a really strong one and then change the agent or editor’s name at the top. This isn’t to say we’re lazy, just realistic. So if Agent A doesn’t accept it, we can move on to Agent B without writing a completely new query letter. But do you mention the agent’s name a second time later on, or talk about a book the agent handled, or use the publisher by name in the fourth paragraph? If so, you want to always make sure that paragraph is personalized for the right agent or editor, every time.

2. Proofread: There’s always something to catch, no matter how many times you read it. The other day I was re-reading a comment I left on Facebook and I ran across this little gem: “Thanks, Gemma, for friend-ing me; I enjoyed your blog to…” To? With one “o,” not two? Really, Rusty? Query letters are no different; always, always, always read it one more time, preferably the next morning so your eyes – and senses – are fresh.

3. Perfect: The thing about queries that makes them different from almost everything else you write is that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. I had a really great opportunity with a great new publisher and I totally botched it! Why? Because I rushed things without taking the time to make my query perfect. Or, as close to perfect as I could. Don’t be me! Sleep on your query to make sure it’s as good as it can be – then send it!

So take my word for it: the publisher, the agent, the editor, the opportunity will still be there tomorrow. But if you rush things and ship out a query before you’ve made it as good as it can be, you might wind up being rejected tonight!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Creative Loading: Fueling Up For Your Next Big Idea

2011-06-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

In the hilarious “Fun Run” episode of the hit series The Office, Michael “carb-o loads,” as he calls it, before a friendly race with his co-workers. Of course, since this is Michael Scott we’re talking about, there are hilarious-slash-unpleasant results waiting well before the finish line.

But the scene got me to thinking of how we might “carb-o load” for our creative endeavors in addition to our physical ones. Do we take that necessary time to gear up before the marathon race of writing a new book, story, article, report or white paper?

Or, more often than not, do we start mid-stream, without pausing to consider how big of an undertaking starting a new project will be?

I know it’s not always convenient to hit the “pause” button when you’ve got a great new idea germinating in your brain pan, but it’s important to do what I call “creative loading” – the writing version of carb-o loading – before tackling any new project.

So if you’re looking for some cheap, quick, even fun “fuel” for your next creative endeavor, here are some simple tips you can follow to “creative load” and ensure that you don’t run out of steam mid-project:

Unplug: I say it on my blog(s) all the time, “Step AWAY from the mouse!” Writing a book takes a LONG time. What’s more, since most of us have “day” jobs it takes a lot of creative energy to work all day and then come home at night and write. So for a week or two before you write – or if you can’t wait just a weekend or so – step away from the computer the laptop, the net book or whatever and just… unplug completely. Take a walk, ride your bike, go swimming, take a “stay cation.” It’s okay, your project will be waiting for you when you get back. What’s more, your mind will be clear and ready to focus on your next great idea!

Have a movie marathon: Maybe you’re getting ready to write a cozy mystery about a bookshop owner who solves crimes in a little Maine town. Now, before you start, would be a great time to go see a few great murder mysteries, or rent some classics, or even some not-so-classics. There’s nothing like watching in your favorite genre to give you “grist for the mill,” so to speak, when it comes time to write your own ideas down on paper.

Be a bookworm: Read in your genre. If you’re gearing up to write the next business bestseller, grab your favorites and just. Start. Reading. Being in the presence of great business language is super inspiration for writing your own classic business tome.

Listen actively: Download or grab your favorite CDs and just chill out to some great music that inspires you. Resting your eyes and being inspired by your favorite songs is a great way to “creative load” before your next book. It can also be helpful for the book when it comes time to, you know, actually write? For instance, oftentimes when writing YA, I’ll assign a certain “theme song” to major characters. So, the “bad” guy might sound like Judas Priest, but the good guy might sound like AC/DC. The good girl may sound like Joan Jett – or Katy Perry. You just never know, but music is a great way to visualize characters, mood or place settings, whether you’re writing or just boning up.

Stock up for the journey: Don’t let the beginning of your new book, article or story be the end of your “creative loading”! When I was writing my young adult novel Zombies Don’t Cry, for instance, whatever YA zombie books I didn’t finish reading before I started writing were right there by my bedside during the process so I could keep my creative motor running. I had pretty much EVERY zombie movie known to man queued up on my Netflix account as well, and even created a playlist on my blog to inspire me while I wrote.

I hope these ideas help; any or all of them. I have learned over time that even when I’m chomping at the bit to get started on a project, the good ones will always wait!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

3 Ways to Tell If Your Title Is Working (Or Just a Working Title)

2011-06-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

This morning I was getting ready to post an excerpt from my work in progress to Scribd.com when I looked at it and, for the first time, thought: “Man, that’s a really lame title.”

The thing is, I wrote this book nearly two years ago and the title has always been the same: The Good Vampire.

It’s about a high school kid who gets a summer job for… you guessed it… a vampire. But it turns out his new boss is a “good” vampire, one who’s fighting this kind of Creature from the Black Lagoon style monster and, well, not to give too much away, I just always thought The Good Vampire worked.

Then I was looking through it today, and I was just like, “Meh, I can’t put this up with that title.”

So I started reading the first few chapters and it was all summertime and classifieds and help wanted ads and resumes and interviews and suddenly, it clicked: Summer Jobs Suck! It’s got what the book is really about, plus implies vampires with the “suck” in the title and, eureka; done deal.

PS: Here’s the cover I designed for it…

Now, you can debate whether or not that’s really a “better” title, but the exercise was a good one because it helped me dust off tired ideas and make them fresh; at least, for myself! And it started me thinking about titles that work versus working titles, aka ones that are just sort of “place holders,” and how to tell the difference:

Step 1: Read it Again

Go to the source material.

Read the first few chapters.

Read your query.

Read your blurb.

Read your synopsis.

See if the title you’ve chosen really reflects the book you’ve written. In my case, it did; and it didn’t. Even if you’ve always “loved” your title, like I did; read the piece over again and see if something else doesn’t pop up.

If you have to, set it aside and read it later. I’m not saying shove it in a drawer for two years like I did, but… let it sit over a weekend and then come back to it fresh and see what you think. You never know; a new title might be staring you dead in the face, smack dab in the middle of page 41!

Step 2: Road Test It

Ask your friends.

Say it out loud.

Post several versions on your blog or Facebook page and let fans vote.

Write it down somewhere other than your title page.

Design a book cover!

Do something, anything, to take it to the street and test it out before you decide it’s the right one for you. Writing often happens in a vacuum; titling is part of writing. But it can be really helpful to step outside of your office and just do a quick poll of one, two or three titles side-by-side and see which works the best.

I can tell you that last month I uploaded two excerpts at about the same time. One was called Soil City; the other was called Panty Raid @ Zombie High. So far, “Panty Raid” has twice as many reads as the other title.

Now, I’m not saying to put “panty” or “thong” or “bra” or “jock strap” in EVERY title, but we all know certain words are certainly going to get a second glance. Take your title to the masses and see which one they like most. It’s okay to get a vote by popular opinion!

Step 3: Cool It On the Keywords

Too often, we get so caught up in filling our titles with keywords or source clues or cleverness or snark that we lose sight of the book we’ve written. For two years, I kept The Good Vampire because, duh, it had “vampire” in it. I knew if kids were looking for a vampire book, eventually, they’d come across it in a keyword search.

But… is that enough to base a title on? Sure, if keywords are all that matter to you, but you have to remember: kids don’t pick a YA book just because it has vampire or werewolf or zombie in the title. Okay, it might get their foot in the door, but that’s about it. They’re still going to dig on the cover, read the blurb, see what other kids think, check out the four- and (hopefully) five-star reviews, whatever, before they actually pick YOUR book, title or no title.

There are a million reasons why a kid buys a book, but probably only one or two reasons why you chose a particular title. So lay off the keywords and trust your inspiration to come up with a title that not only reflects what’s actually inside the book you wrote, but that will also appeal to your target audience.

So, that’s a process that worked for me.

Will it work for you? I don’t know, but it couldn’t hurt!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

How To Boost Your Literary Metabolism by Getting Creatively Fit!!!

2011-04-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I went on my every-other-daily run-slash-walk (more like walk-slash-run, but… who’s counting?).
I live in a pretty decent neighborhood that, like most Florida neighborhoods contains a few nice condos full of (mostly) nice folks.

The path I walk on takes me past three or four of them, and I usually seem the same few friendly folks at the same time most mornings.

I walk fairly quickly, but not too briskly. When I run, for about half of the 45-minutes I’m out there, I do it fairly slowly; I would consider it a jog, more than a run – but “run” always sounds better in mixed company.

Anyway, this morning I was joined by one of my neighbors, a rather vibrant young lady on… rollerblades.

Most folks on my route say “Hi,” comment on the weather, give a wave and move on. But this morning my friend on roller blades – we’ll call her “Rollergirl” – offered to hang by my side for awhile while I ran-slash-jogged.

Now, I don’t have very good experiences with people running with me. My brother and I used to run together sometimes, but he’s taller and has longer legs and got tired of me slowing him down. I ran with other guys before or after football practice, but mostly we wore garbage bags and were trying to make weight for the game that weekend.

I think the last time I ran with someone was back in high school and the minute a pretty girl drove by, my buddy sprinted off and left me high and dry, panting and sweaty in his wake.

So… let’s just say I don’t have a ton of great experiences running near, by or especially with people.

So I’m doing my jogging thing, my friend Rollergirl is next to me and I realize something; I don’t run very fast – at all. And I’m having to run faster just to keep up, and try to have a conversation and be social and not look like I’m having a heart attack and… well… somehow I managed to pull it off without having a complete cardiac incident but I have to tell you, it wasn’t easy.

And, of course, the minute Rollergirl turned around and headed for home, I found the nearest corner, turned it and promptly… started walking! (You know, after I caught my breath and could stand upright again.)

But the experience made me think, as most experiences tend to do, of how this could apply to my writing.

In other words, am I too caught up in sticking with the same-old, same-old? Do I mentally “run” at the same pace every day, never sprinting or stretching my creative legs? For instance, am I stuck in novel-writing mode, or fiction mode, or some other “rut” it might do me some good to stray out of every once in awhile?

I have to give mad props to Rollergirl because she got me out of my rut. I might have felt a little uncomfortable by pushing myself this morning, maybe even out of breath, but when I had stretched and recovered and unwound I felt… great! Revitalized, refreshed and renewed.

I feel that way sometimes when I take a break from nonfiction and write fiction, or finish a 60,000-word YA novel and concentrate on short stories, even poems, for a few weeks.

I think changing things up is good for us; it boosts our creative metabolism, gets our literary juices going and ultimately, I think, makes us healthier writers.

So, what can you do today to get out of your creative rut, stretch your mental legs and sprint toward a literary metabolism boost?

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

7 Reasons Why You Might Have Gotten a Rejection Letter

2011-03-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

The reasons for rejection letters are as many and numerous as the number of agents and publishers you could potentially get rejected by!

(Wrap your head around that, why don’t you?!?)

While it’s easy to take such rejection personally, the fact is there are at least seven perfectly good, non-YOU reasons why your query letter, synopsis and/or sample chapters might have gotten a rejection letter:

1.) Out of date submission guidelines: Hey, it happens, and even if you’re the most conscientious researcher in the world, if an agent or editor doesn’t update them, how are you to know that you’re submitting when they’re not accepting?

2.) Timing: When it comes to rejection, timing really IS everything. Maybe the editor is having a bad day, or got a flat tire on the way to work, or is working late and yours is the 5,000th query they’ve read that day.

3.) Too many of what you’re selling: Even if an agent or editor is in a great mood when they read your query, if it’s the 5,000th vampire, zombie, werewolf or faerie query they’ve read that day, even if it is the BEST vampire, zombie or faerie query they’ve read that day, they might not exactly be “receptive” to it.

4.) Internal problems: Maybe the company’s not doing so well and the agent or editor rejecting you has just come from a meeting where the CEO said, “Reject everything today!”

5.) Style wars: I realize my style isn’t for everybody, and even when you work really hard to try to target how and what you write for the “right” agent or editor, it still might not be the style they’re looking for.

6.) Changing market trends: Maybe just because you just noticed an uptick in vampire-zombie mash-ups in the bookstores or on Amazon.com, that trend may have already come and gone in New York publishing circles.

7.) Personal reasons: Maybe the agent is getting ready to go on a pregnancy leave, or just got married, or divorced, or is for some reason not exactly making your query letter her mission in life at the moment, even though it might normally have appealed to her.

As you can plainly see, none of the reasons for rejection above – not a single one – have anything to do with the quality, merit or actual content of your manuscript. So take heart, not every rejection requires a mourning period!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

5 Things NOT to Expect from Social Media (At Least, Not Right Away)

2011-03-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

WARNING: This is *not* a negative post about social media. It isn’t; really. I think social media opens up a ton of doors for marketing authors and their books, especially for “shy” writers like myself.

But I also think that it’s as important to know what NOT to expect from something – especially something we all spend so much time on – as it is what TO expect.

I think it helps to be real, so while the following 5 Things NOT to Expect from Social Media may be expectations that don’t come to light, at least not right away, knowing them can help us feel better when they don’t materialize overnight:

The First Thing Not to Expect from Social Media: Follow Through

Not everyone will do everything he or she says they’re going to do.

You might have 250 people with your book listed as “to read” on Goodreads.com, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that every one of them will read it; or that people who aren’t on your list won’t read it.

Goodreads.com makes it way too easy to add a book to your list that, at the time, you plan on reading but… life gets in the way. I see some users with literally thousands of books to be read on their list, with mine buried somewhere in the middle. If I were to hold my breath for that person to rate or review my book right now, or today, or tomorrow or even next week, well… I’d be sorely disappointed. (And perhaps waking up in the ER!)

They may very well review it yesterday, but I find I sleep a lot better at night if I just leave it up to them and don’t constantly check to see if they’re halfway through it yet!

My point is, it’s very easy to say you’ll review something, rate something, leave a comment, follow a blog or fill in the social media blank here, but it’s also just as easy to forget to do those things as well. People are human; we commit to things we mean right now, but don’t always follow through on. And that’s okay; enough people will, whether they tell you about it or not.

The Second Thing Not to Expect from Social Media: Loyalty

Loyalty is something you build over time; not with one or two clicks.

You can have a zillion Facebook friends or Twitter followers, but the majority of them are often folks who clicked an “accept” or “follow” button once and… then never came back. It happens; it’s fine – it’s human nature.

Realistically, I can count on, maybe, two hands the folks I interact with on a weekly basis; who’ve re-tweeted me, commented on my blog, thanked me for re-tweeting them, made personal contact, reviewed a book, etc. It doesn’t mean the rest won’t one day, but in general people are busy; they are not there to serve your book promotion needs.

The same goes for me: I am loyal to a few dozen very cool, very fun, very active, very loyalty-encouraging authors but it didn’t happen overnight and it takes repeated exposure to their personality, posts and projects to put a face with a name, or a title with an author, or a book cover with a Facebook friend – and then drive me to actually purchase one of their books.

Give yourself time to inspire loyalty and don’t expect every one of your social media connections to rush out and buy your book the day it’s released. Some will have to wait until payday, until they’ve bought the rest of the Facebook friends’ books or, perhaps, until next year. It might happen, it will probably happen, but it’s not a 1:1 ratio where you send one message to all your followers and sales spike that day.

The Third Thing Not to Expect from Social Media: Return On Investment (ROI)

There is no 1:1 ratio of time invested with the return on that investment.

Social media takes a ton of time. Every time I do a post on social media a few people pop up to remind me how time-consuming this all is. I know it; because I do it. I’m spending WAY too much time on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Scribd, Smashwords, Wattpad and the like, and yet there are folks who spend two to three times as much as I do and it’s still not enough; it will never be enough.

The point is, social media requires a huge investment of time, of energy, of networking, of commenting, of reviewing, of reading, of thanking, of asking, of telling, of questioning; and it’s awesome – every minute of it.

But… but… don’t expect to immediately or even visibly see a ROI (Return On Investment) just because you’ve put in the time. Some folks are really, really successful with social media; others struggle. I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle there, but who’s to say?

The key is to work at it as much as you can, have realistic goals, monitor them carefully and measure them as accurately as possible. You can see success with the amount of “friends” you have, or “followers” or, if your book’s for sale; sales number or rank or figures or royalties.

But no matter how well you do, if you spend a ton of social media you’re bound to think that “you should have done better.” Gotten more friends, more followers; more sales. Maybe that’s natural, but it’s not always positive.

Do your best; the rest will sort itself out.

The Fourth Thing Not to Expect from Social Media: Fans

Don’t look for fans; look for connections.

Fans! I see a lot of great, wonderful YA writers with legions and legions of fans. It’s hard not to feel inadequate if you try to measure yourself to them; so… don’t.

Make friends, first. Get involved with readers, see what they like and don’t like, get to know their personalities, the books they dig or don’t dig, the kinds of reviews they give and don’t give.

Recently I got a few great four-star reviews for Zombies Don’t Cry. While I was stoked, my first thought was: Hey, why not five-stars?!?! But... but… if you look at who rated the book, and compare that to the other books they rated, well, these folks give very, very few five-star reviews so by that measurement I was kicking some major butt.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have a “fan,” but I do know that I’ve made a lot of writing, reading, editing, agenting and publishing “friends” in my brief dalliance with social media and they are all precious to me, have all educated me, taught me, comforted me and encouraged me. That’s pretty cool; and lots more than I ever hoped to expect.

The Fifth Thing Not to Expect from Social Media: Fame

Fame is a mindset, not a magazine cover!

Finally, if you’re seeking instant “fame” through social media, I dunno; be on a hit TV series, make 2 million bucks an episode, go off the rails, give some great sound bites, gain a million followers on Twitter overnight and you’re sure to find it!

Other than that, fame is pretty hard to come by; even in social media where the promises are cheap but the reality is hard to come by. There is only so much room in people’s minds for “the” hot book of the week, or month, or year. Will it be yours? Or the hundreds of other books coming out this week, month or year?

There’s a lot of competition out there, and I don’t mean that in the mercenary sense. I mean that our eyeballs only have so much screen time and most of us only have a few minutes at a clip to check in with Twitter or Facebook before our lunch break is over or we have to jump in the shower or nod off for bed.

Seriously, though, you have to define your definition of fame. Is it to be on the cover of People magazine? The New York Times bestseller list? Or just the Amazon bestseller list… in your genre or category?

I can tell you I feel pretty “famous” every time I get a Google alert about Zombies Don’t Cry; even if it’s just to tell me someone added it on their Goodreads list or subscribed to me on Scribd.com. Maybe I’m just easy to please, or maybe I’m just stoked to be having a book coming out that I worked really hard on and think kids will enjoy.

Either way, fame is in the eye of the beholder. We just have to be realistic about the degree of fame we expect to achieve as a result of our social media efforts – and how long those might take to achieve.

Anyway, that’s my take on doing hardcore social media for the last, I dunno, six months straight. I know some folks will disagree; mostly the ones with fans and fame and whatnot.

My point is, do social media, work it, engage, communicate, but have reasonable expectations and don’t become obsessed (like I occasionally have). Use social media as a tool, not a turnkey operation where if you put in six hours, you get six book sales, etc.

Revel in the small thrills of hooking up with someone new, finding a great new book to read, stumbling on an awesome new review site and know that most of what happens with social media happens beyond your control. So control what you can, and let the rest sort itself out!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

An Open Letter to My Local Bookseller

2011-02-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

Dear friendly bookstore clerk,

Times are hard; we both know it.

But I’m not here to talk about the economy; I just want a book.

I love books.

I buy books when, and as often as, I can.

It’s not always easy; it’s not always affordable. It’s getting less so, but I don’t care; I love books and I buy them as often as I can, wherever I can.

Since I’m old school, I prefer to buy them from a brick and mortar bookstore whenever I can. It’s not always easy; you’re making it harder and harder.

I know somebody, somewhere, told you it was a good idea to up-sell your customers by offering a buyer’s advantage card. I know it saves me 10% on books all year, but I don’t always buy books here.

I know it collects information and increases brand awareness and a whole lot of other great things for YOU, but I repeat – I don’t always buy books here.

The more you push your card on me, the less likely I am to buy books here. In fact, I didn’t want to buy a book here today. But you’re the only big bookstore around, and so I came in anyway.

Take today, for instance. I had 20 minutes to kill before my movie started, so I wandered in.

I found a book I liked and headed up to the cash register.

You were helping someone in the back of the store and it took you awhile to get back to your register.

Why weren’t there more people around to help me?

Probably because bookstores are having a rough time of it right now and you’re understaffed.

“That’s okay,” I said when you finally showed up and apologized. “That’s fine.”

I slid my book across the counter.

“Do you have one of our customer loyalty cards?” you asked me.

“No,” I said. (Let the games begin.)

“Would you like one?” you asked me.

“No,” I said.

“Did you know it saves you 10% on purchases all year long?” you asked me.

“Yes,” I said. (Because you ask me every time I come in; every time.)

“Did you know we’re running a special right now and although the card is usually $20, today I can offer it to you for a one-time-only price of $17?”

“No, but I’m good,” I said.

Finally, 5 minutes into the transaction – not counting the time you were helping that other guy who didn’t buy anything – you started to ring up my book.

“As a ‘thank you’ for shopping with us today, you can try three of these fine magazines for free,” you said before you finished my transaction. “Which ones shall I sign you up for today?”

“None,” I said. “But thanks anyway. How much do I owe you?”

Finally, a straight answer: “$26.42.”

But we’re still not done.

“We’re running a special in honor of the Oscars,” you said, unfurling my receipt on the sales counter like some ancient scroll. “Who do you think will win best picture?”

I shrug and say, “King's Speech,” only because my movie’s about to start and now I won’t have time to go to my car and put my book up first, which means I’ll have to lug it around with me, and balance it on the seat next to me, and run the risk of forgetting it there like I did that one time a few years ago.

“Great,” you say, circling my movie and writing your initials next to it. “Now, if your movie wins, come back in and if you spend $30 and show this receipt, we’ll give you $5 off.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Out loud.

But what I really wanted to say was, “That’s it? I’m late for my movie because of some other rip-off, come-on, loss-leader sales tactic your marketing department cooked up? How about, instead of pushing your card on me, and making me feel guilty because I don’t have one, and reminding me of the 10% I’ll save, and trying to lure me into signing up for the ‘free’ magazines, which you and I both know will be ‘free’ for exactly one month before I have to send some card back in the mail saying I don’t want to re-up, and I’ll forget, and they’ll start coming every week, and I’ll get charged $24.95 a magazine by the time I finally clear things up, at my own inconvenience, you just sell me my book.

“That’s it; just sell me the book. Because I came in here and bought this book despite you, not because of you. I really didn’t want to do it. I actually almost didn’t do it. Know why? Because every time I walk up to the sales counter it’s a guaranteed 10-minute finagle trying to get you to quit asking me things that are strictly designed to help YOU and YOUR COMPANY make more money.

“You know how I know? I’ve signed up for your card; repeatedly. Oftentimes just to shut you up. And that’s wrong. And I got my 10%, and that was great, but not great enough. I never got the ‘special deals throughout the year’ you promised to email me, or any other reward for my customer loyalty. I paid you $20 in January and by the time my year was up, I’d probably saved less than that with your 10%.

“It’s not that I’m ungrateful, but I just wish you’d put your efforts elsewhere; like in hiring more employees so I don’t have to wait so long to buy my book. Or in putting more titles in your Entertainment section, because I’ve already read all the ‘making of’ books and I’d like to read more.

“Know why I go to Amazon.com? Because they have more. But I don’t want to give ALL my money to online retailers because I know you and your fellow brick and mortar bookstores are having a hard time right now and I’m trying my best to give you my business. But you just don’t get it.

“You think up-selling me is the way to get my business, my money and my loyalty; it’s not. I’d gladly pay you an extra 10% on every book I buy just to get you to QUIT asking me about your stupid card, and offering me the fake ‘free’ magazines and asking who I want to win the Oscar so I can get $5 off if I spend $30, which just makes me spend more to save more, and it’s an old trick and I’m not falling for it. Not anymore.

“I’m here because I had time to kill; don’t waste it with your games, just stock good books and make me feel good about buying them. I know times are hard; they’re hard for me, they’re hard for you. I know it’s not your fault. You have to ask me these things; I get that.

“I used to work in a bookstore, once upon a time ago, and they were still playing the same games way back then. My manager used to hover around and see if I was asking people; I hated it. I hated asking people, and being pushy about it when I knew they weren’t going to buy, and I knew they weren’t going to come back because I was being so pushy, but my manager said if she caught me not asking a customer three times, she would fire me. Your manager has probably said the same thing to you, too. Which is why I was nice and played the game and didn’t blow my stack.

“But if you could tell your boss from me, I’m trying really hard to keep coming in here, but it’s getting less and less worth it. A lot of times I’m in your store and I think to myself, ‘I could buy this cheaper online when I get home.’

“But then I think, ‘Yeah, but then this store won’t get my money, and if this store doesn’t get my money, they might go out of business. Because if people stop going to bookstores, real bookstores, they’ll be gone, and then what will we do?

“But you don’t make it easy, bookseller. Because walking up to the sales counter is becoming more and more like work, and it’s not fun. Just sell me my book, and I’ll come in a lot more often. And maybe if you just sell books, and stop trying to sell, sell, sell other things that aren’t books, more people will come in.

“Because I can’t tell you how many people hear this story, and say to me, ‘Why do you think I stopped going there?’ Is that really what your manager wants, or his manager, or her manager, or your CEO? I doubt it, but here we are; and that’s how it is.

“I’ll probably buy another book from you, but it will be under duress. And that makes me feel sad; for me, for you, but mostly for the author of the book I almost didn’t buy because I didn’t want to go through the 10-minutes of work it took to buy her book.

“I just think, with so many big bookstore chains on the ropes right now, you should maybe stop doing things the old way and look at doing them a new way. A way that works more in favor of your customers.

“Because for every poor sap like me who loves books, and purposefully buys a few a week to keep folks like you in business, there are hundreds, thousands, of folks who won’t try so hard. Who will just go online and order them that way; without a second thought.

“And you know what, Bookseller Guy? I can’t blame them….”

Well, that’s what I wanted to say anyway; but I didn’t.

Why not? Because, like I (almost) said, it’s not your fault. But in a world with so many choices, from online shopping to electronic readers to this, that or the other, why would you possibly make it harder for your shoppers to buy from you?

And why should I care so much if you go broke because you can’t turn your ship around any faster than you are? You obviously don’t care about me… so tell me why I keep caring about you?

Sincerely,

A concerned customer

Stop Freaking Out About Your Synopsis! 3 Simple Steps for Dealing with the Dreaded “S” Word

2011-01-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

Writing fiction isn’t like writing nonfiction. Likewise, submitting fiction isn’t like submitting nonfiction. For one reason or another, I’ve been writing a lot more fiction this year than in years past, and while I’ve enjoyed the change of pace in writing, the submitting has taken me a little getting used to.

Case in point: I have yet to submit a fiction manuscript where I didn’t have to write a synopsis. That meant it was something I had to get used to and, in getting used to it, I’ve learned to actually enjoy it.

Or, if not enjoy it, then at least not dread it quite so much.

I hear a lot of writers talking about the synopsis process on Facebook and Twitter, on blogs and in articles, sharing tips and commiserating, and often the tone they use is one of abject fear, crippling anxiety or outright panic.

It’s hard to write when your hands are trembling, so in an effort to take some of the fear out of the exercise, I’ve compiled the following 3 Helpful Hints When Writing a Synopsis:

The First Tip – Design a Template

Some publishers are very specific about the length of your synopsis. Some want it to be no more than one-page; some want it to be 2-3 pages, while still others want a full 5-page synopsis treatment.

I generally write one synopsis for each manuscript and, depending on who I’m submitting it to, tailor it for length to match their (often very) specific guidelines. My “default” page count for a complete, thorough and thoughtful synopsis is generally in the 2-3 page range.

So, if I run across a publisher who is very firm about wanting one page and one page only, I can go to my default synopsis and cut it rather than starting from scratch. Likewise, if I’m submitting to a publisher who wants the full 5-page treatment, I can add to it. Most of the times, though, I’m pretty safe with my 2-3-pager.

The Second Tip – Details, Details, Details

Remember, it’s a synopsis. By definition, it’s not supposed to contain EVERY single detail of the book; otherwise it would be called “the book.” So how many details should you include? How many should you leave out?

I would start by not putting a “number” on your details; rather, rank them instead. Think of your synopsis like a good movie trailer; they don’t include EVERY plot twist, character name or special effect, do they?

No, they give you just enough to be able to tell the story and get excited over learning more. In the trailers for the Green Hornet movie, I don’t think I ever once saw the face of a villain; just the two good guys leaping around doing cool stuff. Sure, there was a basic “plot,” but not seeing the bad guy’s face didn’t stop me from wanting to see the movie.

Yes, of course, YOU should provide details about your bad guy/gal, as well as your good guy(s)/gal(s), but you don’t need to list every single detail about every single character.

For instance, there is a spouse or neighbor or parent – or several – in each of my clients’ novels, but rarely do I even mention them in the synopses; there isn’t really room and unless they’re central to the plot, which they usually aren’t, why bother?

So be choosy about the details you leave in – and leave out. Share enough to tell the story, but not so much that you’re so busy telling the “back story” that no one knows what happens in the actual book!

The Third Tip – Write Like No One’s Reading

Finally, relax! I’m not being overly casual or whimsical or blunt or sarcastic here; I really mean it – relax. You can’t write well when you’re troubling over every word, and a synopsis isn’t intended to give you major cardiac arrest.

I think of it this way: in a query letter, every word counts. It’s the first impression, the elevator pitch, the foot in the door. So every word has to be polished, tight and clean. Same for your manuscript; it really has to be the best it can be, on every page, so that if it were to go to press tomorrow it would be camera ready.

Now, for me anyway, the synopsis falls someplace in the middle. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t take my synopses lightly; far from it. I also make sure they’re clean and tight and fully fleshed out and engaging and all the rest. But… but… I do relax a little more and just let the story tell itself.

For me, a synopsis should do three major things:

1.) Introduce all the major characters and tell how they relate to each other and the story;

2.) Outline the story from beginning to end, hitting the 5-7 major plot developments I include in each novel;

3.) Explain the ending to a sufficient degree that all the threads tie together.

If my synopsis does that, effectively and engagingly, and falls within the page count the publisher is asking for, I’m happy. (You should be, too.)

I really hope these tips have helped.

I know some folks breeze through the synopsis and might think this is funny, but I really do think it’s a big deal for a lot of writers out there, so I hope these few tips take the dread out of doing something that helps invite readers to read more of our books!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Using Social Media to Promote Your Book

2010-12-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s that time of year again; almost New Year’s Eve. A time when people – especially writers – tend to reflect on the past 365 days and look forward to the next. I hope you’ve had a great year, filled with personal and professional success.

But why stop there? If you’re looking to find even more success with your book promotion in 2011, why not make the following 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Using Social Media to Promote Your Book:

Resolution # 1: I Will Be More… Original

The first thing I resolve to do next year is be more original. I don’t mean kooky, quirky or affected, just more… original. Better headlines, shorter posts, links that not everybody has seen yet, re-tweets I think not everybody else has re-tweeted; that kind of thing.

This starts by taking a look at every post and asking: Why would anyone want to read this? Is it funny? Wise? Sage? Clever? Outrageous? Controversial? Informative? Brave? I’m not saying to overanalyze every post, but just to be mindful of adding a tad more originality to what you’re posting. The best way to increase your social media brand is to be more memorable, and one way to help folks remember you is by always being consistent with your message.

If every time folks see your profile picture and they groan, thinking, “Ugghh, here’s another self-righteous sales pitch from this guy,” that’s not great branding. On the other hand, if every time they see your profile pic and think, “Oh, great; I need a laugh right about now!” That’s great branding!

Resolution # 2: I Will Be More… Useful

The posts that catch my eye on blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter and elsewhere are those that I think will be personally or professionally useful to me. 10 ways to be more creative. 5 of the best times to query an agent. 6 don’ts for writing a book proposal. I click on those with the quickness, because even if I only learn something from one or two of the tips, ways, secrets or strategies, at least it’s worth my time.

Why? Because it’s useful. I’m not saying every post next year should be a list, a bullet point, a secret or a strategy, but definitely more of them should.

Resolution # 3: I Will Be More… Giving!

If there’s one thing I resolve to do more of next year, it’s give more. More free stories, more free reports, more free articles, more free advice. (Even if nobody takes it!)

Not to the point where it’s annoying, but I get so much from my Facebook friends and the folks I follow on Twitter, that it’s important to me to take less… and give more.

How about you?

Resolution # 4: I Will Be More… Interesting!

Here’s a great exercise as 2010 winds down and 2011 begins: read through your last, say, 50 tweets, posts, comments, blogs, etc. Read them objectively, and look specifically to answer one question: Am I being interesting?

Make sure that what you’re posting, whatever you’re posting, passes the interesting test. In other words, if it’s interesting, post it. If it’s not, don’t. I tend to look at social media like a highway, with lots of great billboards that catch my eye all day long.

Some are funny, some are wise, some are helpful, some are informative and some are even useful; others are the creative equivalent of litter on the social media highway. Make sure that whatever you’re posting makes people stop, look and take notice – or don’t post it.

Resolution # 5: I Will Be More…Interactive!

This year, pledge to get more involved when it comes to social media. I recently read where most people treat social media like a speech, while the most successful people treat it like a conversation. What’s the difference? Well, in a speech you talk to an audience with no Q & A. In a conversation, you talk AND you listen.

In 2011, do more listening; then do more talking. Interact using comment windows at your favorite blog, respond to everyone who re-tweets one of your posts or just make it a point to say “Hi” to at least one of your many Facebook friends per day.

Whatever you choose to do more of next year – or less! – I wish you happiness, prosperity and success. As a recent social media convert, I tend to be overenthusiastic about what it can do when it comes to book promotion.

In 2011, I hope you are, too!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Social Media in 30 Minutes or Less: Or, How to Promote Yourself on a (Time) Budget

2010-11-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

I’ve written several articles recently about the importance of social media for authors, be it published or unpublished, and listing dozens of ways to increase your all-important “platform” for publishers using sites like Facebook, Twitter, Smashwords and Scribd.com.

Since I work from home and am literally online 10-12 hours a day, every day, it’s easy for me to forget that lots of authors are using social media on the run; checking into Facebook for a few minutes here, tweeting for a few minutes there and perhaps posting on a blog or Scribd.com when they can.

I was reminded of this fact recently when a reader wrote in to say, “Help! This is all great advice IF you have the time, but I don’t. What can I do when I have less than 30 minutes a day?”

It got me thinking of what an effective social media campaign might look like if you didn’t have all day to post, update, tweet and re-tweet; if you didn’t even have an hour. And so, for my time-challenged author friends, here are five simple ways you can have an effective and optimal social media campaign in 30-minutes (or less) per day:

1. Schedule It: If time is of the essence then you really, really have to schedule your time online when it comes to social media. Let’s say you really do only have 30-minutes per day to devote to social media. What will you do with them? How will you split them up? If you can find a nice block of 30-minutes, that’s a no-brainer, but if you’re grabbing 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at lunch and 10 minutes after dinner, then so be it; make that your “schedule” and try to stick to it every day.

2. Prioritize It: Let’s face it: some days you just won’t be able to hit all the sites that are important to you. What then? Know which sites you definitely want to hit in a day and then be active on them in that order. For instance, if you have 5,000 Facebook friends and 500 Twitter followers, well, start where you’re going to get the biggest bang for your time and make sure you cultivate those 5,000 FB friends before you turn to growing your Twitter base. If your blog or website is getting (far) more link-backs from Scribd.com than Linkedin these days, then recognize that trend and go where the heat is and hit Scribd before you tend to Linkedin.

3. Cycle It: Ideally, you want to hit all your social media sites every day, but if you can’t, then start at the top of a short, daily “to do” list and get as far as you can before your 30-minutes are up. I call this the “cycle.” So, let’s say on your list you have Facebook, Twitter, Scribd.com, Smashwords and Linked In – in that order. Start at the top of the list and work your way down; stop when you’ve hit your 30-minutes. Let’s say you’ve only had time today to hit Facebook and Twitter on your cycle. That’s fine, just circle the sites you didn’t hit and, the next day, start with them so that you’re always hitting your 4-5 social media sites every two days, then starting over through the cycle.

4. Share It: Don’t spend hours a day thinking of something original, fun, cutesy, clever or SEO-optimized to say; let others do the work for you! Seriously, you can boost your own profile while helping build the success of others by regularly sharing interesting, targeted and informative posts on Facebook or re-tweeting great links, advice or quotes on Twitter. I re-tweet often throughout the day and folks are always grateful for it; plus I get to share timely and helpful links or advice without scouring the internet for hours a day!

5. Say It… With Less: Finally, don’t think you have to blanket your favorite or most effective social media sites with daily posts, long-winded witticisms or rambling messages. In fact, I’ve found that with social media less really IS more. Everyone is busy, not just you; so whenever you say something, say it with less. If you’ve thought of something funny, timely or relevant to share on Facebook, share it quickly and without a lot of explanation. If you’re tweeting a great link you found elsewhere, remember the link is the most important part of that post, not your rambling explanation about it. Trust your friends and followers to do the rest!

So there; you really CAN do social media on a time budget… IF you know what you want and how to find it – fast. This should come in handy as the holidays approach and we all find ourselves with less (online) time on our hands, and more family to see, share and enjoy. Happy holidays, happy writing and happy social media-ing!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Skipping Thanksgiving: Or Why You Can’t Rush the Small Stuff!

2010-11-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

I’ve been hitting the promotional trail pretty hard lately in advance of my new young adult supernatural romance, Zombies Don’t Cry. In an effort to “brand” myself in a new world full of zombie writers, I’ve been posting some short, quick, fun FREE holiday zombie poems over at www.Scribd.com.

The first was called Zombies Don’t Trick or Treat: A Halloween Zombie Poem; the second was Zombies Don’t Gobble: A Thanksgiving Zombie Poem. I know we’re not all the way to Turkey Day yet but… seriously?

The Halloween poem got about three to four times as many reads as my poor little zombie Thanksgiving poem, even though I’m doing the same amount of marketing and promotion for both.

At the same time, I’ve just watched the holiday displays go – almost overnight – from the 75% off Halloween candy and costumes straight to the brand new Christmas displays. I mean, not even a tip of the hat or a nod to Thanksgiving, just… “Well, Halloween’s over so what’s next? Oh yeah, Christmas!”

Which leads me to ask: What’s the deal with Thanksgiving? It’s like the misfit holiday, even though what it stands for is pretty darn important, although maybe, occasionally a little historically inaccurate.

And, of course, it led me to equate the holidays with writing – because, let’s face it: that’s how I roll! But seriously, if you think about it, Halloween is similar to the “idea phase” of writing a great book – and Christmas is writing and completing the book itself.

In the middle you’ve got, well, Thanksgiving; a kind of placeholder holiday with no carols, no great movies to think of, not a lot of great decorations but, still, a pretty important day… all things considered.

And in literary terms, to get from the excitement of having a great idea of a new book, i.e. Halloween, to the “Christmas” of finding that finished book under your tree, you’ve got to go through a little Thanksgiving, i.e. the query letter and book proposal. (There; you knew I was going somewhere with this one!)

The thing is, most of us love the Halloween-slash-idea phase; it’s fun and non-threatening and ripe with opportunity. And just as many of us love the actual writing of the book, with its twists and turns and the satisfaction of reaching a goal.

But the proposal and query letter process? The “Thanksgiving” of writing? Well, not so much. But take a minute now to honor the opportunity that query letters and book proposals bring.

After all, without them your finished book would just sit there, finished, without anywhere to go. So while we all want to race straight through the turkey and gravy to get to the candy canes and gingerbread houses, pause to make sure that you’re not “skipping Thanksgiving” by rushing the query letter and proposal phase.

Every holiday should be a cause for celebration, just as every part of the writing process – from idea to completion and even the proposal writing process – should be another brick in the wall of your literary success.

So this year, instead of shifting gears from Halloween candy and scary movie marathons to trimming the tree and Christmas carols, give some pause and honor your own literary Thanksgiving properly – by writing the best query letter and proposal you can.

The Pilgrims, and your new agent and/or publisher, will “thank” you!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Candy’s Dandy: Or How Talking About Halloween Candy Earned Me Facebook Friends!

2010-10-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

In my ongoing quest to strengthen my writing relationships – and publishing contacts, ahem – through social media, I’ve been getting pretty heavy into Facebook and Twitter recently.

I try not to be a nuisance, and very rarely if ever promote one of my own books or even a client’s. Instead I find helpful publishing links to find, or share posts about querying or agents or book proposals, or throw in a great site recommend.

I try to keep it strictly professional, and mostly writing- and/or publishing-related, because I figure that’s why folks “friend” or “follow” me on Facebook and Twitter in the first place.

So, very, very rarely do I fire off a personal post for no reason at all. And then… and then… I bought some Halloween candy. It started with the cheapo stuff at the dollar store, funny chocolates shaped like body parts or crispy coins with orange and green wrappers.

Then someone said our house would get egged if we gave that kind of stuff out, so I bought one of those Gigantor mixes with tootsie roll pops and milk duds and the works.

But, then my Mom said the only thing the kids want is the Hershey’s miniature bars; you know, Mr. Goodbar and Krackel and whatnot. Okay, so $40 later I have an entire city block’s worth of kids covered, candy-wise, when in reality only about five kids will likely stop by.

And since I’m so sedentary and try to watch my figure (ahem), I merely posted on Facebook and Twitter that I was proud of the fact that I hadn’t broken into the Halloween candy yet. Well, you would have thought I’d stumbled on the secret to social media!

Immediately two, then three, then four of my Facebook friends weighed in with how they’d broken into the candy and had to buy more, talked about their favorite candies, etc. Then one person “liked” the comment, and another, and two more and… just like that, I had half-a-dozen friend requests by day’s end. Okay, okay, so it’s not really earth-shattering marketing news but… it was progress. In fact, it was more “action” than I’d seen in weeks, maybe even months; all from candy!

Now, what does this have to do with getting published? Well, just this: we don’t always know everything. Nor can we control what others will respond to.

So it’s okay to try new things, to get personal and share a little of ourselves with those we write to – or even for. Say what you mean; mean what you say – and say it more often.

It also goes to show that what we respond to isn’t always what others will respond to. What I like in a book cover isn’t what others may like, and vice versa. So if you think your title is locked in because “you” like it, run it by some friends before you send it out. See what they think. Maybe they’ll respond in ways you never imagined before, like my “candy” surprise on Facebook and Twitter.

You never know, your “treat” could be somebody’s “trick,” and vice versa. Happy Halloween, everybody… and happy publishing!!

Rusty

Publishing as Zombie: Or, When Opportunity Rises From the Dead!

2010-09-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it’s been a few weeks since my last post about “the Death of Publishing” and, apparently, publishing ISN’T dead after all.

In fact, what I’ve seen in my travels on Facebook and Twitter, in conversations with clients and colleagues, is that there’s never been a better time TO publish.

That’s because as traditional publishing experiences a sea change at nearly every level, self-publishing and e-publishing are experiencing a true renaissance. I have enjoyed reading dozens of lively takes on the “rebirth” of alternative publishing – though many will take exception to that terminology.

Every day I “meet” new authors on Facebook or Twitter who are without a doubt professional, talented, market savvy, ambitious, cordial, creative, resourceful and, above all, EXCITED about the future of publishing. Most of them have never had a book in print (i.e. hard copy), but are prolific authors of several fantastic-looking eBooks that are on my (early) Christmas shopping list.

All of them are doing what so called “traditional” authors do: promoting themselves, blogging, interacting, networking, writing, writing and more writing. There are sequels in the works, and stories in anthologies, and edits due, and cover art to approve and post and man, are they ever good!

I am daily blown away by the positivity and productivity of these kick-butt authors who rival those of any New York Times bestselling author I’ve ever read, followed or “friend-ed.” Which is not to say that traditional publishing is dead anymore than it is to say that “alternative” publishing is alive; both are plugging away on separate but parallel tracks to the same destination: the future.

How they’ll get there is still anybody’s guess, but after a week or two of doubting, bumming and grousing, I’m more encouraged than ever that publishing, if not print, is alive and strong in the hearts and minds and pages and covers of my new author “friends.”

And if you’re looking to get published in 2010 and beyond, do yourself a favor and consider both traditional and alternative presses as a way to see your work in print, online and, best of all, in the hands of readers.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Death of Publishing? Say What?!?

2010-08-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Facebook lately, making connections with tons – literally, TONS – of authors and learning more about the industry in a few months than I have in years.

Frankly, I think that says less about the time I’ve been spending on Facebook than it does about how quickly the publishing industry itself is changing.

One recent event – the decision of Dorchester Publishing to do away with mass market print publishing in favor of putting out only eBooks and POD from now on – sent shockwaves through the author community of my new Facebook friends.

(Read the story that ignited the furor here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/44085-dorchester-drops-mass-market-publishing-for-e-book-pod-model.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_campaign=1ef6b64a66-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=twitter)

I, too, felt a chill as the headline quickly spread and the full impact of this game-changing news settled in. Lately it’s been hard enough getting agents and publishers to respond to my query letters on behalf of worthy clients, would this make it all the more difficult to place great clients with decent publishers?

I thought so, at first; then I spent some more time on Facebook and really dug in deep, visiting the energetic, lively, colorful and powerful sites of some of today’s fastest moving independent publishers.

Most of them specialize in eBooks, yes, but the covers – man, are they great! And the titles are exciting, and timely, and out in a sizzle. It’s nothing for me to see a new author friend announce several eBook publication dates at a time!

I visit these websites, see all these new releases, read their great book reviews, revel in submission guidelines that are actually warm and friendly – not to mention OPEN to un-agented authors – and grow more and more, as opposed to less and less, encouraged.

I just see so much opportunity out there, and authors and ePublishers flourishing while big traditional print publishers seem to be withering on the vine. Not that I’m saying the death of print is immediate, but it’s certainly imminent.

And I, like my clients, will have to adapt.

Most of these new indy ePublishers specialize in fiction, while most of my clients specialize in nonfiction. How will that affect them? Well, I imagine as the demand for paper-free publishing increases so will the ePublishers have to diversify as well.

I can see them adding nonfiction lines already, and as those begin to succeed, maybe I’ll have more publishers to choose from – not less. The point is, these are strange times indeed; “pioneer times,” as I called them after reading the Dorchester article in Publisher’s Weekly.

And what are authors but pioneers? Pioneers with words, who will watch the landscape change, not without grumbling, but will quickly adapt, and reassess, and re-finesse their pitching and querying skills as necessary.

Although still hesitant, and anxious, I’m glad to be living in these times of sea change in publishing, and look forward to – rather than away from – the future! I hope you’ll join me on this new twist in our joint journey toward publication…

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

When it Comes to Query Letters, Never Send Out A Gray DVD

2010-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

I got two DVDs from Netflix the other day; one was a documentary about a Hollywood legend and the other was a B-movie -- okay, maybe C- movie -- featuring a giant scorpion. (My wife likes them, what can I say?)

I didn’t open the DVDs right away because I was busy and that’s how things go, but last night I went to pop in the documentary and when I opened the DVD envelope what I pulled out was this boring-looking, nondescript gray DVD.

Now, I rent a lot of DVDs and most studios go to elaborate lengths to make theirs look cool. Some are shimmery, most are in color, all are designed well, some are even in 3-D or contain a holograph or something cool like that.

It’s a small thing, but it puts me in the right mind for seeing the movie as I slide it in the DVD player.

So although it wasn’t a major deal, I really felt kind of… disappointed.

And this wasn’t from some low-rent movie studio; this was a high-profile documentary from a major motion picture studio.

Then I looked at the giant scorpion DVD and it looked really cool; there was a graphic of this huge bug with gnashing teeth (yes, maybe scorpions in real life don’t have teeth but they’re not 40-feet tall, either) glowing eyes and a menacing looking tail so lifelike I felt like it was coming off the DVD to sting me!

Okay, sure, I watched the documentary anyway because that’s what I was in the mood for in the first place but, it got me thinking…. How hard would it have been for the studio to put a picture on the DVD cover?

Something in color, something interesting, even the Hollywood sign or the studio gates or the media mogul’s glowering face would have been better than just this generic looking gray DVD cover.

I mean, with all the stimuli fighting for audience’s attention these days, how can you get away with being so lazy in presenting your product?

It got me thinking about query letters, about how little room we have to say what we need to say, how little time each agent or editor gives it, how brief a span we have to really make an impact and keep them reading, let alone asking to see more.

Are we sending out the literary equivalent of a gray DVD cover?

And, if so, why?

My theory is it’s just as expensive -- or cheap, as the case may be -- to put out a simple gray DVD cover as it is to pop out a really snazzy, creepy, scary impressive DVD that shows a giant scorpion looking like it’s ready to sting the viewer.

So why skimp?

Likewise, it costs the same amount to write a bad query letter as it does a good one.

What does it cost us to write an even better one? Just some time; and although we’re all busy, if you watch one less hour of TV tonight, or take a quicker route home tomorrow, or set your alarm for half-an-hour earlier, you can easily find the time to send out something really special…

So… why skimp?

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Guidelines or Guardrails: Why Playing by the Rules is More Important Than Ever

2010-06-01T09:05:00.001-07:00

I have been spanked more often in the last two months for not following publisher’s guidelines than I have in the last two years combined! And I’m actually pretty careful about such things.

But I’m convinced that a few years ago, when margins weren’t so tight and editors were freer to be more creative with their purchasing power, guidelines were just that; “guidelines” they hoped you’d follow rather than insisted you follow.

Now, they’re not playing!

I’ve had no less than 6 publishers write me recently telling me that unless I re-submitted my query and followed the submission guidelines carefully that my query would be discarded.

Typically when I go back and actually read the guidelines I notice that they’re not difficult to follow, just very, very specific.

Again, I’m not consciously trying to break the rules, but oftentimes when I have a new client whose book is right for a certain publisher, or even a literary agent, I’ll just go into my database, grab the editor’s email and approach them directly.

So it’s not that I’m disregarding the guidelines so much as cutting out the middleman. Now I know better. Read the publisher’s submission guidelines; bookmark the guidelines; study the guidelines.

They’re there for a reason, and oftentimes it’s to weed out busy shmucks like me who haven’t visited the publisher’s website in over a year!

Seriously, though, guidelines exist because publishers are busier than ever, are being more selective than ever and although they DO want to read, find and discover new talent, they want to do so on their terms. (And these days, who can blame them?)

What I’m seeing a lot of lately is publishers asking you to send a representative writing sample of the piece – maybe the first 15 to 20 pages – pasted inside the email directly below the query. This cuts out the step of liking your query and then asking to see the pages in a separate email, which they may or may not like.

This way, in one step, they can read the query and, if they like what you’re pitching, read your actual writing in the very same email.

They also seem to be looking for contact information, the genre the book falls into and how many words it has, or is expected to have; these are not difficult guidelines to follow, although it can get frustrating to see different guidelines for almost every publisher.

Follow them anyway. There’s no sense starting off the relationship with a potential publisher on the wrong foot, right?

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Why Book Proposals Are Like Easter Baskets (Stick With Me Here!)

2010-05-03T08:44:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know it’s well past Easter and creeping up on Mother’s Day (yikes!), but it struck me the other day how book proposals – and, by association, query letters and books themselves – are a lot like… wait for it… Easter baskets.

Some baskets are pretty on their own right. Maybe they’re glass, or porcelain, or bamboo or wicker. Then again, maybe they have cute designs or a funky shape or are a different color. I even see baskets these days shaped like superhero heads or sports balls or princess tiaras.

What you bring to your writing is a lot like the type of Easter basket you resemble. Are you a pretty writer, who has a lot of quality, lyricism and craft, like a porcelain or fancy wicker basket? Or are you a kind of gimmicky writer who maybe isn’t literary but still has a lot of style and humor or personality to offer, like a Spiderman-shaped Easter basket?

Hey, to me, no style is better than another. When I’m in the mood for something literary and crafty, that’s what works for me. But just as often I’m in the style for something clever, fun and gimmicky, no matter how well it’s written. Just like Easter baskets, when it comes to writing, it’s all about variety.

But no matter how pretty the basket (i.e. what type of style you write in), it’s still just a basket until you start filling it with stuff.

Now, the “stuff” is what you bring to your book proposal and/or query letter.

So let’s say you have 20,000 Facebook friends; that is definitely an egg you want to put in your basket!

Maybe your book is the first of its kind and ahead of a growing trend; add another egg to your basket.

Maybe you are the first “insider” to write about this topic before, or you have a few famous friends who could “blurb” the book; two more eggs for your basket.

Do you see where I’m going here? The way you write is one thing; even the book you’ve written is another. But now more than ever agents and editors at big publishing houses need to see not just another pretty basket – and trust me, they’ve seen ‘em all – but they want to see that basket loaded down with clever, unique or concrete things to help sell that book.

So before you consider that proposal finished or that query letter polished, look at it once more to make sure it’s not an empty basket. And even if it’s only half full, see what else you can bring to the table to help an agent or publisher sell your book.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Idle Hands – Keeping Busy While You Wait on (Busier Than Ever) Agents and Editors

2010-03-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

One thing I have noticed between this year and last year, and particularly in this year and, say, two years ago, is the slower pace of agent and editor responses these days.

Once upon a time I could count on agents to reply fairly quickly to a query, say within a week of when I pitched them; at least by the following week.

Yes, I know they have standard “reading times” posted all over their websites – which often state it might take 3 to four weeks to get back to you – but the reality of it is that when an agent is hot for something, he or she will respond fairly quickly.

I don’t see that so often these days, and the caliber of my clients or attractiveness of my projects hasn’t changed in the last three years. (At least, I like to think they haven’t!)

However, I know this isn’t unique to me so I thought I would offer some valuable tips on how to stay busy while you wait for (even busier than ever) agents and editors to respond:

Work on something new – If you’ve just submitted a novel, write a short story. If you’ve just submitted an article, try a book. If you find ideas pouring out of you, try a blog. The best way to keep your mind off the mailbox or, increasingly, your in-box is to keep working on new things all the time.

Refine what you’ve just sent – Nothing is ever perfect, and all manuscripts need a little polish before they’re camera ready. So take what you’ve just submitted and give it another look with a fresh pair of eyes. See if you can improve it, or just one section of it. This way, when the agent comes back at you asking for changes, you may have already done them!

Step away completely – You may be completely burned out on writing at the moment; I feel you! However, don’t sit idle during this valuable time. Even if you’re not tapping away at the keyboard, you can still be improving your writing, as well as your chances of getting published, by actively using this one to two months. Go to the bookstore and research your topic some more. Take a creative writing class. Listen to some audio CDs about writing, or even just by your favorite authors. Organize your office!

It may take longer than ever, but agents and editors will respond eventually. By using one, two or all of these tips, you will be better prepared when they do!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

A Query By Any Other Name – Or the Importance of Subject Lines

2010-02-08T05:57:00.000-08:00

January is always a good time for sending out query letters. The holidays are over, agents and editors are back at their desks, ready to do business.

They usually have a backlog, though, of query letters stacked – or queued – up waiting for their attention during the first few weeks of the year, so I generally wait until all that’s cleared out to start re-submitting after the holidays. (Typically around the third week of January, in case you’re taking notes.)

This year I had a great new business project to query on behalf of a successful client, and I had high hopes for it. I sent off the query we had worked so hard on over the holidays and… cue the sound of crickets chirping. Nothing for the first week or so, then we got a handful of form rejection letters, maybe two or three out of the dozen or so query letters I’d sent out the previous week.

It was frustrating. I know I’ve been going on about the sad state of publishing in my last few posts (sorry about that), but this was ridiculous! Usually I can at least get some interest on my client’s behalf, so I vowed to go back to the drawing board.

And, just as I was re-reading the query for the sixth or seventh time, a line popped out at me: Why So Many Gold Watches Are Rusting.

The book was on what my client was calling the “Death of Retirement,” and that’s what we’d been using as the subject line of our email queries: The Death of Retirement.

I thought it sounded pretty intriguing; I guess agents disagreed. Later that week I renamed the query letter, “Why So Many Gold Watches Are Rusting” and let another dozen rip.

I won’t say the response was overwhelming, but those agents who did respond did so more quickly, and in higher numbers, than the previous week. To me, it felt like night and day – and absolutely NOTHING inside the email query had changed; not one word.

All I’d done is take another look at the query itself from a different perspective and pull out a potentially more intriguing catchphrase to make the initial impact of the query more alluring.

And it took about 10 minutes.

So if your query responses have been sluggish, if you’re not finding a lot of interest in your query, take another look and focus on the subject line; it could just be the key to unlocking an agent’s interest!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

2010 – The Year for Self-Publishing?

2010-02-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

I have made much of the decline of traditional publishing in this blog, but as a client recently pointed out, haven’t written nearly as much about a remedy!

Well, time to “remedy” that situation!

I still believe in traditional publishing. I’m still getting clients agency representation, and those agents are still submitting to publishers, and the process is still in motion – it’s just moving very, very slowly.

To say nothing of the fact that, if you or I were to get a traditional publishing contract tomorrow (Congrats, us!), that same book wouldn’t be on the shelves until NEXT spring, if not next summer.

Most of my clients don’t want to wait that long.

They have blogs in motion, cover designers lining up, marketing and PR tactics to try and a brand to enhance, so many of them opt for self-publishing, whether or not a traditional publisher comes back with an offer or not.

Maybe it’s time you did the same.

Now, I’m not saying I’m done with traditional publishing; no way, no how.

But time IS a factor when it comes to putting your book out, and traditional publishers know that time is on their side, not yours.

After all, it doesn’t hurt them any to sit on your book proposal for one week, one month, two months – even three or four.

Meanwhile you’re pulling your hair out, thinking of all the different ways you could market that book if it was out tomorrow!

Self-publishing allows you to get a book to market in a fraction of the time it takes a traditional publisher to put out that same exact book.

It also allows you complete creative control over the contents; no editors messing around with your title or the flow of your Table of Contents.

You also own ALL the rights (check the self-publisher’s contract to make sure, of course) meaning you can use excerpts from that self-published book freely, as articles on other websites, as posts on your own blog, even lump two or three together and use them as an Ebook.

I won’t go into the pros and cons of traditional publishing versus self-publishing here; I’ve done that several times on this blog and those posts are listed in the archives.

But I know in the last few years I’ve been much more pro-traditional publishing and far less self-publishing oriented on this blog; 2010 might see that slant shifting just a little.

I’m not saying abandon traditional publishing OR traditional publishers; I’m not, and I won’t. I still say, if you’ve got the time to wait, traditional publishing is the best way to go.

But… but… while you’re pitching publishers, do yourself a favor and check out the top-10 or so self-publishers as well.

That way if too much time passes without a traditional publisher getting back to you, and your book is done and almost camera-ready (always opt for copy editing if you’re going to self-publish, it’s a must) you have options.

And as 2010 begins in earnest, with another rough year for publishing ahead, options is what it’s all about!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

My Facebook Weekend – and the Power of Connections

2010-02-03T13:28:00.001-08:00

For the longest time I resisted getting on Facebook (and don’t get me started on Twitter!).

But last week a client needed me to look at something he’d posted on his Facebook page and I couldn’t without joining myself. So I did, posting a quick author’s photo from some book jacket or another and doing the bare minimum just so I could see what he wanted me to see; mission accomplished.

Then a funny thing happened; I started getting “Add a Friend” requests. One or two a day, then the more I added – I can’t turn anybody down – the more requests I got. In one weekend I was up to 100 friends!

Now, I know that doesn’t sound like a whole lot to some of you more popular people but, for a guy who’s lucky to talk to 2 or 3 live human beings in an entire day, 100 online friends is like an all-night celebrity rock concert in my head.

Suddenly I was chatting with old friends from high school, from college, folks I’d worked with when I still rode a cubicle – it was amazing, fun, enjoyable, thrilling and a major time vampire.

I realized I could quickly get sucked in, and burned out, if I kept up that pace of constantly checking who’d added me, who’d requested me, who’d written on my wall – for 72-hours straight I lived the Facebook Experiment.

It taught me one valuable thing: writers can’t live in their heads all the time. We need to get out, troll the bookstores, talk to friends, pitch to agents, workshop with other writers, go to readings and signings.

I know most of our work gets done in solitary confinement, most of it self-imposed. In fact, that’s where most of our best work gets done. But dabbling on Facebook for a weekend reminded me that I’m not in this alone, that I have friends and colleagues and neighbors and family I haven’t seen in ages, let alone chatted with – online or not!

Obviously, I’m talking about more than Facebook here. It can be scary to troll the bookstores and see if anybody else is writing the same types of books as you are, but how will you know unless you try? I talked to a client the other day who’s book on surviving the recession with your family intact isn’t coming out for a few months and she’s already seeing other authors talking about similar books!

That’s good; that’s great! At least she’s knowledgeable about the market and knows her competition and can pick out how her book is different – and of course it is. What does this have to do with Facebook?

Simple: you have to get out there. I have to get out there. We all do, even if “out there” simply means pulling back from our book proposals and manuscripts and drafts and seeing what the world is up to, what people in your target audience are reading, what agents are buying and what they’re not.

And the best way to get plugged in is to get connected; Facebook – and next, Twitter! – is a great place to start.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Mixed Messages Means a Mixed Bag in 2010 -- PUBLISH ANYWAY!!!

2010-01-11T06:16:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened in the first week of the New Year; agents came crawling out of the woodwork!

Seriously, on the first business week of the New Year I spoke to (okay, emailed) nearly half-a-dozen agents on a variety of standing matters and got quite the mixed bag of responses about how 2009 wound up – and what 2010 offered.

One agent was leaving the game entirely, heading off to join her colleagues in a new venture.

One was writing to let me know she’d exhausted all her efforts on behalf of my client but that, in a word, I shouldn't feel bad because... “No one is buying anything these days!”

Another wrote to tell me she had high hopes for a new round of submissions she was starting for me next week.

One more wrote to forward me a note from another agent who was branching out into YA fiction!

It was such a surreal experience that, after the first week of 2010 I don’t know whether to be hopeful – or simply hang it up.

Chances are, you’re feeling about the same. 2009 wasn’t that a great a year for agents, for publishing, for books in general and, I dare say, for writers across the board.

I was speaking to one of my few clients WITH a book deal over the holidays and about halfway through the conversation it hit me that she was my ONLY current client with a book coming out next year. This down from a career “high” of nearly a dozen clients coming out with new books in 2007-08.

What a difference a year makes.

I’ll never forget reading Bridget Jones’ Diary for the first time and coming across her title for the Month of December: “Oh, Christ.” That’s about how I felt for ALL of 2009 and, as 2010 is already here and old patterns are emerging, that’s how I’m prepared to feel for the next 360-something-odd days.

What will happen for my clients? Who will get published? Who will have to self-publish? Who will find success? As with every year, only time will tell.

This much I do know: when so much is out of control in the world, when agents are leaving the business and publishers are slamming doors and writers are scratching their heads, I look around think, “I just have to work harder this year.”

No excuses, no doom and gloom, just more hard work. If the big publishers are cracking down, I need to go to mid-list publishers, if mid-list publishers are doing less I need to look harder for small publishers, if small publishers are slamming the door I need to dust off those old self-publishing sites and do a compare/contrast for my clients about which companies are the best for them.

If one agent closes up shop, typically a new one rushes in to take her place. New agents are often eager agents; and in this climate, an eager agent is a good agent. I just can’t have another gruesome, horrible, bloody bad year like 2009. I refuse to.

How about you?

I know we’re deep into 2010 by now but there is still time for resolutions. In this case, I may not be able to “resolve to get a book published” because, after all, so many other people are a part of that decision but… I CAN resolve to work harder than ever to get a book published in 2010.

How about you?

At the end of the day, I wish you a glorious, happy, healthy and published 2010. No matter what the doom and gloomers say, books are getting published every single day. Let’s make sure a few of them are ours this year!!!

Happy New Year Everybody,

Rusty

When it Comes to Query Letters, Make ‘Em “Straight No Chaser”

2009-11-23T06:38:00.001-08:00

I was in the store the other day and picked up a new CD and – stick with me here – this CD taught me a lot about how to write a decent query letter.

The CD was by a group called Straight No Chaser. Yes, it was a Christmas CD and yes it was early November. What’s your point?

MY point is that I had no idea what this group was about, who they were, what they sounded like or even if they’d be any good. All I knew was that I had all the other Christmas CDs Target was offering that day and I was in the mood, so I bit.

And here’s the thing: you know how it usually takes an Act of God, an army and a chainsaw to get those darn CD wrappers open, and that’s before you have to deal with that little glued-on strip from hell to actually get into the CD itself?

Well, there was none of that. The CD shrink wrap had one of those little deals where you just pulled on a tab and off it came; no muss, no fuss. Likewise the sticky-tacky CD-holder-togetherer-thingamajig came off in one piece, with no need to dig around for the fingernail clippers in my glove box.

Now, I can’t tell you what frame of mind this put me in when I went to pop that CD in my car for the drive home. Well, yes I can; it put me in a GREAT frame of mind.

Usually I’m so frustrated by the time I open a CD I’m actively gunning for the album to stink because I’m already steaming by the time the first track starts playing.

But with Straight No Chaser, boom; I was pre-programmed to like that CD because the buying, opening and listening of it was so darn easy. Now, of course, it helped that the group is actually awesome and works really hard to put out a decent Christmas album, but nowadays that’s only half the battle.

It’s getting people to buy the album – or the book – that’s the real challenge.

So what does this have to do with query letters?

Simple: are you making it easy for agents and editors to like your query?

Is it easy on the eyes? In other words, does it invite easily with a tempting subject line or a great teaser of a first sentence?

Is it easy to open? For example, did you send an attachment when nobody asked for it? Are there tons of extra formatting that only turn into gobbledygook on the user end?

Lastly, are you making sure that by the time an agent or editor actually sits down to read the query that they are predisposed to like it?

By that I mean is it short, is it sweet, does it look short and sweet and is it a fat-free, bare bones, “tell me what I need to know” elevator pitch about your book – and nothing else?

Like the title says, when it comes to query letters, make it Straight No Chaser!

Happy Holidays, Everybody, and Here’s to a Better Publishing Year in 2010!!!!

Rusty

5 Quick Email Etiquette Tips When Querying Agents and Publishers

2009-09-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

I just spent the morning pitching a few small publishers for one client and nearly a dozen literary agents for another, and I felt inspired to share five quick tips on the blog for those attempting to do the same for themselves:

Tip # 1 – Personalize, Personalize, Personalize: Always, always – or at least whenever possible – personalize your query letters. I know I’ve said this before but it really can’t be said enough. Don’t you like seeing your name in an email? It just makes you feel warm and fuzzy, even if it is just some magazine asking you to re-subscribe to Gardening Monthly.

Well, agents and publishers are people, too, and when asking them to look at your book proposal via a quick email query letter, it only makes sense that you would address them by name and, preferably, their accurate title: acquisitions editor, senior editor, managing editor, publisher, etc. (You can typically find this at the actual publisher’s website under “About us” or “staff listings,” etc.)

Now, there are some exceptions. For instance, today when I was querying there was a small publisher’s website that said, specifically, “Direct your queries to ‘Submissions Editor.’” No name, no title other than just “Submissions Editor.” So, that’s what you do. BUT… where there is a name, find it, use it, make sure it’s spelled right. (I usually copy and paste it straight from the source website to make sure it’s as accurate as possible.) Yes, it takes a little more digging, but it’s more than worth it.

Tip # 2 – Mine Responses Carefully: I pitched an editor at a small regional publisher on my client’s southern cookbook. He declined, but mentioned that I might try an editor at the publisher where he previously worked, and graciously included not only the editor’s name but her email address.

Now, this kind of information is golden. Why? Well, for starters, most of us get our information about agents and publishers from the same places: Writers Digest, Publishers Marketplace, Sally Stuart, etc. But when you can get an editor’s name and an email address that isn’t listed in any of those places, chances are you’re going to have a much better shot at getting her attention.

Tip # 3 – Be Prompt: If you’re going to query online, devote some time to it. By that I mean, if you sit down to query at noon, make sure you’re around until at least the end of the business day to respond, promptly, to any inquiries or “bites” on your proposal that might result from pitching your query that same day.

Sure, it takes some agents and publishers days, even weeks, to respond to your email query but just as often I get responses within the same hour as I’ve just sent them. To those that request my client’s proposal I always try to get it out within the hour, or at least the same day, of them responding.

Why? It’s simply a matter of “out of sight, out of mind.” If an agent or publisher responds favorably to your query, chances are they’ll be in a positive mind frame if they receive the actual proposal that same day. Doesn’t mean they’ll get to it that day but, if they do, you’ve set the hook and they’re much more likely to bite.

Tip # 4 – Be Gracious: Oftentimes when querying agents or publishers I get quick, form or even blunt rejection letters; this is par for the course. Now, I don’t respond to every one of those because… why? The agent or publisher has simply said “No thanks,” so, that’s that. Move on; next. Why clutter their in-box with even more mail thanking them for rejecting you?

However, IF an agent offers some personal feedback, like, “At the described length, your book is too long/short,” or “Your proposed book title has already been used, you may want to consider an alternate title before re-submitting,” or even “That was a really nice query letter, but…”, I believe a quick, one- or two-line gracious response is warranted. Just something short and sweet like, “Wow, thanks so much for pointing that out to me. I know you must be busy and I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to let me know…” We’re all human and when someone as busy as a literary agent or publisher takes time out to “school you,” why not respond with a quick thanks?

Tip # 5 – Be Professional: Above all, be professional. Occasionally, a client will send me a response they’ve written to an agent or publisher’s question (which I’ve forwarded on to them) and it’s so blunt, littered with misspellings or outright personal that I cringe.

Many of these men and women are CEOs, VPs, consultants or otherwise very professional people and yet the world of agents and publishers is so odd and new to them that, I suppose, they figure that professionalism they use in day-to-day correspondence with other CEOs, VPs and businesspeople need not apply. But it DOES apply, so remember: always write to an agent or publisher as if you are writing to the head of a company because, in many cases, particularly with a one-person agency or small publisher, you ARE.

Remember, as few as three or four years ago MOST agents and publishers were absolutely, 100% against email query letters; now most of them prefer it, by far, to the paper and stamp variety.

So I consider it a privilege to be able to sit at my desk and query with immediacy, accuracy and professionalism. For the hours and hours I save every week or so in not having to print, lick, stick and run to the post office, I’m glad to pay closer attention to my email pitches than most of my daily emails. I’m sure you feel the same…

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Dealing with Deadlines: Putting Business Before Art

2009-09-15T14:36:00.005-07:00

Over the summer I had not one, not two but three VERY demanding deadlines. As the economy got worse, it seemed, my deadlines grew tighter. One publisher was gracious and gave my client three months to write a complete book; two more gave us only two months to complete our respective books.

Now, keep in mind, a traditional book for a traditional publisher (in this case two of the books were business and one was self-help) typically weighs in at between 45,000- and 60,000-words. Some are even higher. In our case the word counts for all three books were typically around the 50,000-word mark.

Now, this is not to look for pity or have you marvel at my speed writing skills, but merely to say that when your dream of writing for a traditional publisher finally comes true, be prepared for some hard realities about the business of writing for a living.

One of those realities, it seems, is that publishers often give you firm deadlines that are less than generous. I know; I know – you treat writing as an art. Hey, so do I! But occasionally compromises must be made and when a publisher is paying you to create that work of art one of those compromises is often that art comes with a deadline!

Here are four simple steps for dealing with deadlines:

1.) Focus: The worst thing you can do in the face of a deadline – even a stiff one – is to panic. You must remain focused and have a clear goal in mind. For instance, typically by the time I’ve been given a publisher’s deadline I have written at least a sample chapter or two (from the book proposal) that the publisher has approved. This is my starting point; these one or two chapters let me know what, exactly, the publisher likes about the project and how they want it written. It also gives me a starting word count. So let’s say the publisher wants a complete, thorough 50,000-word manuscript in the next 60 days. Wow, okay, after taking a couple of breaths I do a quick word count on my two sample chapters and realize, hey, I’ve already written 8,000-words. Now the words I have to write has gone down from 50,000-words to “only” 42,000-words!

2.) Prioritize: Most writers DON’T write for a living; I get that. Most of us have day jobs, families, schedules to keep, bills to pay and only so many hours in a day. Still, this is what you dreamed of, this is what you wanted and you can’t give up on that now simply because 42,000-words seems extremely intimidating. Instead you must prioritize your schedule to make the time you need to write the book you want. How do you do that? First you need to figure out a schedule:

3.) Schedule: So, let’s be clear – you have 42,000-words to write in 60 days. What? How? When? Why? First, don’t panic. Now you need to prioritize what needs to be written first and how long it might take. Do some quick math. The book is nine chapters long but you’ve already written two of them; that leaves seven. Dividing 42,000-words by seven chapters leaves you 6,000-words a chapter. Okay, now at least you know what needs to go into each chapter. How long will it take you? If you were to do a chapter a week it would take you 7 weeks to get done. Great! That leaves you one week to not do any writing but simply to read the book from start to finish and make sure it’s clear, coherent and up to your – and the publisher’s – standards.

4.) Clarify: Finally, your book must be clear. One of the biggest challenges with writing a big book fast is that you can work so quickly, for so long that you lose track of what the book is about in the first place. You have to avoid that trap and bring clarity to the process. Build re-reading time into your writing time. For instance, if you’re doing 6,000-words a week, don’t just slack off all week and do all 6,000-words on Sunday! Instead, shoot for writing 1,000-words a day and give yourself Sunday to read over what you’ve written and clean it up so each page, of each chapter and each chapter of the entire book is clear, focused and stays true to the pitch you made the publisher – and the promise you made to your reader – way back in the book’s Introduction.

Meeting deadlines is tough, but when you follow these four steps you can safely turn in a good, well-written, clearly polished book on time while still wearing your artist’s hat.

The Tenth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Really, Really, REALLY Love Books

2009-09-15T14:36:00.003-07:00

Finally, the BEST thing about agents it they are book people. They know books, read books, buy books, sell books and talk books. If you are a book lover, like myself, like most of my clients, this means you will ALWAYS have something in common with your literary agent.

And the best thing to have in common with them is a really good book proposal for a really good book. You can read everything out there on how to write a book proposal, including last week’s blog, do it exactly like the agent likes and still not make a sale.

Why? Often it’s because no matter how good the book proposal is there may be a problem with the title, the subtitle, the book’s structure, the timing of when the book would come out or, frankly, the writing.

Never forget that the book proposal is only a sales tool for the book itself. Like they say at the DMV, “If you want a better picture on your driver’s license, bring a better face!” For me, the better the book is, the easier it is to write the proposal.

So before sitting down to write the proposal and certainly before submitting to a good agent, always make sure you’re treating your book like a business and making it the best it can be.

The Ninth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Are In Business, Just Not Necessarily YOUR Business

2009-09-15T14:36:00.001-07:00

Agents are in business to sell books and make money, and not necessarily in that order.

Some agents live for finding that new book that is really going to inform people, move people, touch people or just generally shake things up.

Other agents live for the deal; they talk constantly about points and figures and rights and money.

Neither type of agent is right; neither is wrong. Both types of agent are in the business of selling books; both types of agent typically make money selling books.

The critical point to take away from this post is that agents are in business; they expect and demand to work with professionals and the best way to secure an agent is to treat them, your book, the market, the audience, the professionals and in particular YOUR BOOK PROPOSAL like a business.

I know it’s easy to get caught up in the dream of becoming a published author, but the best way to make that dream a reality is to first learn the business of what it means to get published in the first place.

Writing a really good book proposal is a great way to start.

The Eighth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Don’t Mean Anything Personally (Except When They Do)

2009-09-15T14:35:00.001-07:00

Whether an agent is being nice or mean, patient or impatient, giddy or goading, never take it personally.

Again, agents are in business to sell books and make money and they like to work with people who write good books that will make them money; period.

When a client gets a query letter that somehow doesn’t match their business model, they promptly reject it. This could be for any number of reasons, including a variety that have absolutely nothing to do with how well you write or even what you write about.

For instance, the market might be too crowded right now, we might be in a recession (ahem!), a certain type of book might be hotter than yours, they might even be representing a book like yours at the moment. So you see, there are literally hundreds of reasons why a good agent might reject a good writer with a good book; none of them have anything to do with you, personally.

I often hesitate to send clients a brusque, blunt or occasionally sniping rejection letter because I know they’ll take it personally; still, knowledge is helpful and it’s a necessary evil to know who isn’t interested so we can move on to someone who is.

The point of this post is to stop reading every rejection letter for hidden meaning, stop taking it personally and move on. No means no and regardless of how cryptic, or blunt, the rejection might have been, the bottom line is no matter how you interpret it the answer is still, always and ever “NO!”

The sooner you move on and pitch to another agent, and another and another, the sooner you’re going to get over the rejection and start “getting to yes!”

The Seventh Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Can Occasionally Be Nasty

2009-09-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

A few years ago an agent said of a client’s book, “This will never sell.” He went on to say it was “juvenile” and “petty” and had “no place” on today’s market.

Just last year an agent rejected a client’s beautifully written project (and not by me; he did it all on his lonesome) because it was “too regional” and that “nobody outside of his time zone would care.”

Recently an agent told me, “Rusty, we think it best if you stop sending us query letters.”

Ouch!

Which, of course, just goes to point that agents are human and, often, moody, brusque, impatient, brutally honest, frequently narrow-minded and occasionally downright mean.

There are as many reasons for rudeness as there are ways to be rude. Maybe the agents who wrote the above were hungry, hungover, tired, just got bad news themselves or broke up with someone.

Agents are human and respond like humans; sometimes nice, sometimes not-so-nice. The trick is to brush it off and move forward so that you don’t become not-so-nice yourself!

The Sixth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Are Quite Often Nice

2009-09-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

Most agents I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to personally are actually quite nice. They are often busy, but polite; blunt, but fair.

The fact of the matter is an agent doesn’t have to be nice to be good, it just helps everything go a little more smoothly. Likewise, an agent doesn’t need a client to be nice, but it sure helps.

The bottom line, of course, is how good a writer you are and how good an agent he or she is; nice is really just the icing on the cake.

After all, the nicest thing an agent can do for you is give you constructive criticism that actually helps your proposal get better through a rewrite or two; this they actually do quite often!

The Fifth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Are Away a Lot!

2009-09-14T08:21:00.002-07:00

Just as hard as they work, agents are often on the road.

They travel frequently; they go to conferences where they speak or workshops where they enjoy “meet and greets” and short pitches, they take holidays and vacations just like everybody else.

So don’t be surprised if you get an auto-response to your emailed query letter or if it takes awhile for an agent to get back to you.

The main thing is to just hang in there, keep pitching and never lose faith in your book project. If you don’t hear from an agent after a few weeks, send out another query letter to another agent. If you don’t hear from that agent after a few weeks, send out another.

Don’t sit on your hands; don’t wait around for the phone to ring, the in-box to fill up or the mailman to come. Just… keep… moving.

Some agents respond the same day I query them; others the same week, still others that same month. The other day I got a response to a query I wrote back in February – of LAST year! The point is agents are busy; you are busy.

Don’t assume an agent doesn’t like you, or your book, because they haven’t responded right away; just keep pitching until you find an agent who responds in time – and in the positive!

The Fourth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Are Workaholics

2009-09-14T08:21:00.001-07:00

I have gotten responses from agents on Halloween, on Christmas Eve, on New Year’s Eve, in the middle of summer and, judging by some of the email time stamps the next morning, in the middle of the night.

Many agents are workaholics who are at their desks early and/or late. And, with technology, it’s easy to take your query home with them.

Not that all will, but many is the time if I’m doing a rewrite on a proposal specifically for an agent or getting close to a deal I see “sent from a Blackberry” at the bottom of their short message so I know they’re working remotely, often early in the morning, late in the evening and even weekends.

The Third Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Have Short Memories

2009-09-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Some agents never remember me, whether we’ve spoken on the phone or gotten really, really, really close on a deal.

These are typically the bigger agents, and I know they certainly have bigger fish to fry, but I mention this mainly because I don’t want you to be upset that they DON’T remember your gardening, nursing or salespeople query from six years ago!

Not every agent is going to be a warm fuzzy, buddy-buddy experience; they don’t have to be. Agents serve a necessary purpose and the more you focus on the purpose versus the person, the less disappointed you’ll be if you and your agent don’t wind up being lifelong friends.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s awesome when you get to work with an agent who also treats you like a friend, just don’t expect it to happen too often. At least, not anymore than it would happen with your doctor, your lawyer, your mechanic or your insurance agent.

The Second Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Have Long Memories

2009-06-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

Every few years or so I pitch an agent I haven’t pitched in awhile or, conversely, hear from an agent I haven’t heard from in awhile who needs a proposal done or has a client who needs a ghostwriter.

Whenever I do, I’m always amazed that the agent remembered me in the first place!

But agents will often say something like, “I remember that non-smoking proposal you sent me because I lost a brother to cancer six years ago…”

Or, “I’ll never forget that two sentence subtitle you sent me for that business book a few years back!”

Agents: they’re just like you and me!

So don’t be afraid to mention to an agent that you’ve been querying her for years, saw him at a recent writer’s conference or just noticed his name in the acknowledgements of a book you read recently. Anything you can do to create a personal, even emotional response from an agent will only put them in a more positive position while reading your proposal.

Maybe they’ll remember, maybe they won’t, but chances are the ones who do might be a better fit as your new literary agent.

The First Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents: They Are Human

2009-06-10T10:33:00.001-07:00

A publisher recently asked to see a client’s book proposal, via a great literary agent, and I was ecstatic; we hadn’t heard back from anybody in awhile so this was definitely good news. Then the literary agent shared with me a brief little anecdote about how, exactly, the publisher asked to see the proposal:

He said the senior editor wasn’t too impressed with the idea herself but, since it was lunchtime, and Friday, and she was feeling a little frisky, she decided to ask the younger girls in the office – most of them assistant agents, interns or just plain assistants – what they thought of the idea (which was a dating book with a particular twist).

Turns out they all said they’d buy it, so she decided to ask the agent to send it along.

Now, amusing though it is, this anecdote immediately had me asking 101 different questions in rapid succession, such as:

What if it hadn’t been a Friday?

What if that senior editor hadn’t been feeling so frisky?

What if the younger gals in the office had all gone out to eat that day?

What if this had happened on a Tuesday afternoon?!?

Regardless, the editor passed on the book and the trifle might have faded from memory if it hadn’t made me realize the first thing you never knew about literary agents: they are human.

They eat lunch, obviously, and often at their desks; they can be whimsical, fickle, uncertain, gracious, kind, petty and all the other good and bad emotions that make them human.

Follow the rules you’ve learned on this blog, in dozens of books on how to get published and, obviously, on the literary agents’ websites themselves, but never forget there’s a human being attached to those eyeballs reading your book proposal.

10 Things You Never Knew About Literary Agents

2009-06-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Last week I was talking to a literary agent and her dog kept barking the whole time we were on the phone together.

Over the holidays several agents sent me Christmas cards with sweet, touching or funny personal notes inside.

A few months ago an agent forwarded me an email response to one of my client’s query letters and forgot to turn off the entire thread; his earlier responses to the person he was writing to was littered with typos!

Another agent wrote me one of the most encouraging rejection letters I’ve ever read.

Years back a young agent took myself and a client to lunch and left an 8% tip!

I say all that to say this: literary agents will surprise you.

Most of what we as writers know about literary agents comes from Writer’s Digest magazine and their own websites, but who of us has time to really give agents much thought beyond what type of genres they represent and do they or don’t they accept email query letters?!?

I couldn’t have written this post a few years ago for a variety of reasons. For starters, I wasn’t blogging back then but, more importantly, I hadn’t spoken with, worked with, written for and sold books through as many agents as I have now.

And it occurred to me, as I was walking another client through the agent maze last week, we really do have a lot of misconceptions about literary agents that should probably be cleaned up if we’re going to work with them as writers.

So I figured I’d come clean and share with you 10 Things You Never Knew About Literary Agents, and that’s what I’ll be writing about in the next few weeks worth of posts:

A Few Last “Housekeeping Issues” for the Themed Proposal

2009-06-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Now, before we leave our series of posts on the themed book proposal, here are a few more things to consider:

Graphics can make or break a good proposal. I tend to use more graphics these days, but with one core rule: they must improve on the theme of the proposal itself.

For instance, if my client’s target audience is middle-aged corporate executives, I’m going to search for a few pictures of, guess what, middle-aged corporate executives and paste them between the “Target Audience” title and the first paragraph of that section.

Why? Because I think if agents can actively “see” this audience in their mind it might subconsciously sell them on the importance of this audience.

Formatting is also very important to the themed proposal; consistency is key. You want to make sure you use the same font and type-size throughout. Times New Roman 12-point font, for instance, or Arial 11-point.

You want to have consistent spacing; double-spacing for all big chunks of text and regular sections, like the Overview, Author Bio, Chapter Summaries and Sample Chapter, but maybe one-and-a-half line spacing for lists of speaking engagements in your Author Bio, competitive titles, audience segments, etc.

It’s also important to be consistent in your titles and subtitles. For instance, all the various sections of my proposals start with a centered title – Author Bio, General Overview, etc. – in a larger font, say 18-point. Every section head, every time.

If I’m writing a longer section, say the Overview or Sample Chapter, and I use a subtitle or subhead within, I’ll call it out from the rest of the text by spacing above and below it, pulling it all the way to the left margin with no tab, making it bold type and 14-point type.

Finally, I’ll include the book title, author name and page number, centered and at the bottom, in 10-point type just for clarity and convenience in case the agent prints it, takes it home and drops it while reading it on the subway or train. Various agencies and publishers will vary in how they want to see this, but unless they say otherwise this is how I roll with it.

The Sample Chapter: Your Last Chance to Make a Good First Impression!

2009-06-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

The themed proposal is book-ended by the sample chapter. Remember how I said the General Overview was your first chance to make a good impression? Well, your Sample Chapter is your last.

In other ends, make a strong first impression with the overview and wrap it up in the sample, and your chances of securing an agent are vastly improved.

Now, for me, I typically include a sample Introduction OR Chapter 1 as the sample chapter. Agents have told me they like to see consecutive sample chapters so even though you might be really proud of Chapter 9, to use it as the sample just makes agents wonder, “Hmm, what’s wrong with the first 8 chapters?”

The point with the writing sample is not to blow agents away with your great writing but, instead, to give them a reason to want to read more.

Yes, they want to know you can string two sentences together and use a thesaurus to avoid redundancy, but more importantly they want to know a.) that you can write clearly and engagingly for busy modern readers, b.) that what you’re actually writing delivers on the promises you made in the proposal and c.) that they’ve actually learned something by the time they’re through reading.

Again, the point of a themed book proposal is that every word, every phrase, every section, chapter and subhead of the proposal matches what you promised on the title page. So before you sit down to write the sample chapter, or at least edit it, revisit the title page; reread your General Overview.

This will give you the fresh perspective you need to make sure your sample writing delivers on the promise of the book proposal.

The Chapter Summaries: Enough Already

2009-06-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

I am constantly reminding my clients that the point of a chapter summary is, indeed, to summarize what is going into the chapter; not to write the entire chapter itself!

I’m not saying that this isn’t a vital piece of the proposal. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that a bad chapter summary section can kill an otherwise good proposal.

This is all the more reason to write nice, tight, clean and brief chapter summaries that go to the heart of each chapter you plan to write for the book.

For me, three to five paragraphs of fluff-free writing about what, specifically, is going to be in the chapter will suffice.

The Table of Contents: A Preview Before the Preview

2009-06-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Some proposals skip listing the Table of Contents, or just the chapter titles, in lieu of listing the chapter titles along with their summaries; in a themed proposal, I do both because I think it’s nice for agents to see, at a glance, how the book is set up.

For instance, if I’m doing a book on modern dentistry and I arrange the book according to the acronym T.E.E.T.H., well, some agents are going to immediately see that, think it’s too cutesy or clever and back out.

Bad news for my client but at least we don’t hold out false hope. Likewise, other agents really like that and will definitely keep reading.

Also, remember that the point of a themed proposal is clarity; all eyes are focused on the same reader payoff and benefit – more time to make more sales, better posture for older gardeners, a crack addict’s memoir, etc.

So listing just the chapter titles in a section all their own before the actual chapter summaries lets busy agents see exactly what they’re getting: four sections, 12 chapters, T.E.E.T.H., a 3-Part Plan, 19 Rules, 7 Strategies, 10 Habits, etc.

The Competitive Analysis: No (Similar) Book Left Behind

2009-06-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

The rationale behind the Competitive Analysis section, or where you list other books that are similar to your own, is basically for the agent to determine two things: 1.) is there a healthy genre or sub-genre that already exists where your book might fit nicely and 2.) is the genre or sub-genre healthy or robust enough to support another book?

So, really, hiding the fact that while your book is called Gardening by the Numbers there is already a book called Paint by Numbers Gardening doesn’t make your case any stronger.

Instead, it’s more important to note the book and tell how your book is different.

That’s why, in a themed book proposal, you don’t just list the book, its author, publisher and pub date and a general description but go one step further to describe how your book is different and, hopefully, better.

For instance, if Paint by Numbers Gardening is really just a cute gift book that helps interior designers grow their own favorite colored flowers and plants to save money on home accents and your book, Gardening by the Numbers, is actually more about how to finance your own nursery, state that very clearly so the agent can see for him- or herself how while the books may have similar titles they actually belong in two separate categories.

The Target Audience: Numbers, Facts and Figures, Please – NOT Opinions

2009-06-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

It’s easy to say, “Everyone in the world will want to read this book,” but very, very hard to prove. In fact, stating opinions in your Target Audience section or even using emphatic language like “millions,” “scores,” “bestseller potential,” etc., is a good way to turn off a busy agent.

Instead, refrain from listing a target audience unless you can find a firm, hard figure for it. For instance, if your book is for salespeople, find out how many salespeople there are in the country; this could take some time, but is well worth it.

For instance, saying, “There are millions of salespeople in this country” is almost toothless without qualifying it with a.) how many millions there really are and b.) a credible source from whence this information came.

It’s much better to say something like, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are currently 2.7 million people who call themselves sales representatives as of their most recent 2008 figures…”

It’s better to have a Target Audience section with fewer audience segments but more specifically-described audiences than to just list anyone and everyone with nothing to back it up (which seems to be everybody’s tendencies these days).

So a basic template for including an audience segment within the target audience would be to a.) define the audience, i.e. salespeople, gardeners, nursery workers, nurses, flight attendants, etc., then b.) find a rough, credible and sourced out number for this segment, i.e. 3 million salespeople, 10 million nurses, 5,600 nursery workers in the southeast, etc. and finally, c.) explain HOW this book pertains to them, specifically, as in “My book will help nursery workers avoid back injuries” or “Time Management for Salespeople will help salesmen and saleswomen add an average of 90 minutes to their day, thus increasing profits significantly…”

The Author Bio: The Best YOU Possible

2009-06-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

An author’s bio is more than just a rehash of your resume or a quick “lift” from your company’s website. You have to specifically write or, in most cases, rewrite your resume or business bio for a themed proposal.

In short, you have to ask yourself, “Why am I qualified to write this book?”

When you answer that question thoroughly, you’re prepared to write a strong bio for your themed book proposal. I typically follow a carefully-crafted four-point template for creating a strong author bio in my clients’ book proposals.

For starters, Education is key. Even if you didn’t graduate college, if you’ve taken any special classes that apply to your book, such as a botanist’s license for your gardening book or a dog trainer certification for your pet manual, it clearly establishes at the outset that you are qualified to write this book.

Secondly, other Qualifications might include additional awards, certifications, and training such as two years as a dog trainer for the local police’s K-9 unit or interning at a famous east coast nursery.

Experience is my third category, and this would of course include not just your work experience but any valuable life experience that applies to your book’s core subject matter.

For instance, working in a nursery lends itself well to your gardening book while working in a restaurant, not so much. So be selective here and don’t see this as a place to list any and every job you’ve ever had; only those that are relevant to the book you’re pitching in this proposal.

Previous writing experience wraps up the author bio and hopefully you have some. If not, work hard to get some and perhaps even hold off on sending in the proposal until you do.

And if you can’t get your writing published anywhere yet, for whatever reason, say in a local parenting magazine or on a topical website, do some research and experimentation and start a blog where at least you can show agents and publishers your dedication and writing samples online.

The General Overview: Make or Break Time

2009-06-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

In a themed proposal, the General Overview is your first – and for a busy agent, often your LAST – chance to make a good impression. So it’s important to start strong, edit well and carefully evaluate whether or not each paragraph of this proposal is necessary.

I used to think that length equaled thoroughness but more and more agents are schooling me in the theory of “less is more,” i.e. say it all but say it well – and in fewer words.

I generally start a themed book proposal in one of three ways: a fact, a question or an anecdote.

A fact might be something like, “There are 4 million obese children in America today…”

A question might sound more like, “Bob and Erin both work in the same office, but one closes three more sales a day than the other. Think the difference is in age, experience, cunning or preparation? Think again; Erin simply managers her time better and, in so doing, literally has more time to close sales than her coworker…”

And an anecdote could be something like, “When Jim Anderson took that first hit off a crack pipe, he knew his end game would either be jail or death. Ten years later, busted and facing three years for possession, he’s not happy to have been so right…”

The reason I consistently rely on these three strategies is because they work, time and time again. One, both or all three consistently get an agent’s attention because they are tight, clean, straight up and battened down.

You hear a grim statistic about obesity, you know you’re in for a diet, health, wellness or lifestyle book. If the agent is up for that, he or she will keep reading.

You hear about Erin’s sales dominance and know that you’re in for a book on time management for businesspeople; so far, so good.

That anecdote about Jim the Crack Head tells you right away you’re in for a memoir turned cautionary tale about modern drug usage. If that’s your cup of tea and the writing is engaging, even as a busy agent, you’ll keep reading.

I guess that’s the whole point of a themed proposal: just keep them reading.

The Title Page: More Than Just a Byline

2009-06-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

My themed proposals start urging the theme from page one, i.e. the title page. Here is a chance for you to do what a title page always does – introduce the title, subtitle, byline and contact information – but with a twist.

For instance, if my client has appeared in ANY type of media in the last few years I will say, right at the very top, centered in bold type and a big font, “As Seen in the New York Times and on CNBC,” etc. This works just as well as if you’ve been in the North Dakota Spectator or on a local radio talk show called KXNB in the Morning.

The goal is to send the positive message that you are proactive about publicity and visible in the new media, which is to say, of course, that these days it’s just as valuable to say, “As Seen in the North Dakota Spectator and on eDiets.com.”

Next I scroll down a few spaces and say, “A Book Proposal for…” to remind them that these are not actual manuscript pages yet, then a few spaces more to reveal the title of the book, subtitle and author byline.

A few spaces below that, centered and in a smaller point, goes the contact information.

Now, this only really differs from a “normal” book proposal in presentation; all these pieces are pretty much present on every title page, on every book proposal known to man. But with a themed proposal all these pieces fit together, which is why the title and subtitle are so vitally important.

It’s easy to just give the title page of your book proposal a cursory glance and move on, but what I always do is print it up separately and really pick it apart on its own.

I set it on my desk and try to look at it several times throughout the day to make sure it really represents what my client’s book is all about; it really is looking at the title and subtitle in a vacuum.

Why Themed Book Proposals?

2009-06-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Agents get a lot of generic, by-the-book, run of the mill book proposals every day of the week. What can you do to stand out? Make it clean, make it tight, make it clear and make your point; again and again.

Have you ever been to a presentation and the speaker says something like, “Today we’re going to talk about the five ways to make a million dollars a year flipping houses”? Only, by the time the seminar is over he has either under-delivered by only giving you three of the secrets or over-delivered by giving you nine?

Or how about an author that mixes metaphors; first he compares building a sales force to building a house but, later, he switches things up and now it’s like baking a cake!

Themed book proposals avoid mis-numbering your points or mixing metaphors by being clear, tight, focused and, above all, on point. They make it easier for agents to see what you’re selling because you tell them, very clearly, in every section:

This book will help gardeners grow more tomatoes.

This book will help you cook $9 meals.

This book will help you retire five years early.

Etc. You might think this sounds like any old proposal and, basically, it is, but a themed book proposal doesn’t just make the point bluntly; it makes the point in a tight, tempting and professional package that doesn’t read like the three dozen other proposals that agent skimmed that day.

What IS a Themed Book Proposal?

2009-06-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

In short, a themed book proposal is a long piece of writing comprised of several pieces-parts (we’ll discuss each one in kind) that all pertain to the same common theme: your book.

In other words, a themed book proposal is one that has a common theme, mood, tone, message, question, answer, solution, benefit, etc., running through not just every single section but every single sub-section, graphic, paragraph and word.

A themed proposal embraces the adage, “If it sells, repeat it.”

It’s not the same as being redundant; themed book proposals simply streamline your message so that it’s not only unavoidable but unmistakably yours.

In short, a themed book proposal is one that leaves no question what your book is about by the time an agent or publisher is through reading it.

A Field Guide for the Themed Book Proposal

2009-06-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

On average, I write about three to four book proposals per month, which is not necessarily to say that I write one every week. Some weeks I don’t write any; others I write two.

This is also not to say that I can do them quickly or, for that matter, easily; some clients tell me writing the book proposal is harder than writing the book and, in some cases, they’re right.

Why is writing a book proposal so hard? Simple: writers are not marketing experts and at its heart a book proposal is, by necessity, a marketing tool. Specifically, it is a big, fat, 50-60 page pitch that lays out your case to a (hopefully) interested agent or publisher.

In short, it brags; and we writers are used to shrinking into the background and hanging against the wall. So it’s unnatural for us to say things like, “With several English degrees from major universities and a string of bestselling hits behind her, Barbara Bookworm brings a wealth of knowledge to her new book…”

We cringe when writing things like that, but agents and publishers instantly see “back cover copy” and so we must write that so that they may read it.

You can read about book proposals anywhere on the web, on most authors’, agents’ and even publishers’ websites, so hopefully I’m not telling you anything new in this post.

So why keep reading?

Well, having done so many book proposals in my life, having been alternately praised and spanked about my proposals from agents and publishers alike, I have come to specialize in something known as a themed book proposal.

In this post and the next six or seven or so to follow, I will lay out for you the beauty of a themed proposal…

The Author as Brand: What You Bring to the Table

2009-03-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Last week we spent a lot of time talking about the nuts and bolts of publishing; pros and cons, good and bad, strengths and weaknesses. It got me to thinking farther upstream, about what happens long before the book ever reaches the market and what we as authors can do in these turbulent times to make ourselves more attractive to agents and publishers.

Now more than ever, authors have to bring something unique to the table. If you spend as much time as I do on Amazon.com, you quickly realize that there is nothing new under the sun. Everything, it seems, has been written about; even things you hardly ever think about have 10, 20 and sometimes 30 or 40 books written on the subject.

Take gardening, for instance.

Last week a client and I grew frustrated because we realized that, while The Gardener’s Bible was a GREAT title, everyone else agreed; literally a dozen or more books on Amazon.com had the same exact title, or with a slight variation: The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, The Container Gardener’s Bible, The Southern Gardener’s Bible, etc.

We had to go back to square one and find a different way to say the same thing.

Fortunately, I think we both agreed, the exercise made us examine and reevaluate the true market position of the book and come up with a much stronger target audience than we might have otherwise, and the whole time I kept thinking: “I need to backup and start this process sooner with EVERY client!”

So no matter where you are in the project – whether it’s just a twinkle in your eye, you’ve just polished off the book proposal or even completed the rough draft of the book itself – stop what you’re doing and look up the key words for your book’s topic on www.Amazon.com.

Even if you find that 10 people have written on your same topic, or 100 or 1,001, take heart that there is STILL something unique that you and you alone bring to the project; you just have to find out what it is.

For instance, it just so happens that this client was addressing the recession and talking about recreational gardening to lower household grocery bills. So rather than pitching this as the Recreational Gardener’s Bible, even though that wasn’t technically taken, we decided to go a different route and came up with a better alternative: Gardening for Dollars!

This let the author “brand” himself as kind of a young upstart with an edge who was introducing this revolutionary new concept (although it really wasn’t) of offsetting your produce bill by creating your own garden, as big or as small as it needed to be.

So rather than just another book on gardening with a slight nod to the economy, which is really how all of this started, this author was able to create a completely new (and better) identity for himself when faced with the challenge that he needed to be different from all those other gardeners out there.

From bad news (his title was already taken) we were able to come up with an even better title and it actually reinvigorated the project completely so that it took on a new pace, a new tone; the author’s new “brand” drove his website, his blog, his business cards, etc.

In effect, his book became his calling card and his fresh new attitude about gardening became his “brand.”

So whether your book is about gardening, leadership, diet, real estate or golfing, do yourself a favor and at least consider yourself as a brand by sorting out the competition and determining how, exactly, you can stand apart, and even above.

You never know, this simple exercise could just breathe new life into your book!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Self-publishing: Pros and Cons

2009-03-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

Self-publishing isn’t right for everybody, but neither is traditional publisher OR collaborative publication. Whether or not you warm to self-publishing could rely on the various pros and cons I’ll discuss today:

PROS:

Self-publishing is typically faster – in terms of months – in bringing your book to market than traditional or collaborative publishing. Where a traditional publisher might take a year to bring your book to market and a collaborative publisher might take six months, I’ve seen self-publishers do it in as little as six weeks!

Self-publishing gives you more control over things like cover design, back cover copy, page count and cover price than the other two forms of publication.

Self-publishing lets you write the book exactly the way you want to, for better or worse; whatever editing there is usually comes in the form of simple copy editing, so structurally you are free to write to your heart’s content.

Self-publishing can be as affordable or expensive as you want it to be. I’ve seen people put their books out for as little as $500 and as much as 5 grand; it all depends on your budget and which ala carte services you want to explore.

CONS:

No matter how affordable it is, some people have a real hang-up about paying to be published.

The quality of your book cover is very important to the “eye appeal” of your finished product; those who go with self-publishing need to stay on top of their cover designer and make sure they get the cover they want.

A lot of people skip the editing phase when self-publishing; this can result in poorly-edited books that leave a less than professional taste in readers’ mouths.

EVERYTHING is up to you; from promotion to making sure your Amazon.com book page represents the book accurately to, in some cases, shipping and distribution.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Collaborative Publishing: Pros and Cons

2009-03-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I introduced the concept of “collaborative publishing” to this blog in a very general way, but now I’d like to get more specific with a brief discussion of the pros and cons I’ve encountered using this type of publication:

PROS:

Aside from the money involved, many collaborative publishers operate just like a traditional publisher would, so a lot of the decision-making and little housekeeping chores are taken off your hands.

Depending on the collaborative publisher, your book could look, feel and be distributed just like a traditionally published book.

Unlike the vanity presses of old, most collaborative publishers are very transparent about their contracts, services, costs and requirements; as long as you research the company thoroughly there should be little to no surprises.

With the better collaborative publishers there is very little difference in quality, price, cover design and operations than most traditional publishers.

Unlike self-publishing, most collaborative publishers include a full editorial pass so that your book is printed professionally and with no glaring errors.

CONS:

Again, there IS money involved so if your budget is tight you may end up scrimping or not getting published at all.

Not all collaborative publishers are created equal; research, research and research some more to find just the right publisher for you.

Some collaborative publishers do have an editorial process where your book may not be selected for publication, so always have a top-5 list if your project doesn’t make the cut.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Traditional Publishing: Pros and Cons

2009-03-25T08:27:00.002-07:00

Earlier this week I wrote about the basics of traditional publishing. Now I’d like to get a tad more specific and share some of the pros and cons I’ve noticed with this particular form of publication:

PROS:

Traditional publishers represent the “gold standard” in modern publishing. For better or worse, this is how it’s supposed to be done.

Traditional publishers generally work to make sure your project – which they are putting out on your behalf – puts their best face forward so they work hard to design quality covers, edit thoroughly and distribute widely.

Aside from a few editorial passes and feedback on cover design and book description copy, most of the work of the publishing is done for you.

You never have to worry about things like distribution, storage, returns, getting your own ISBN-number, etc.

Most traditional publishers have access to news and media outlets that would be difficult to achieve with self-publishing, such as major reviewers, celebrities for blurbs, etc.

CONS:

Most traditional publishing contracts are geared toward the publisher, so you may feel frustrated that while you wrote the book they are reaping up to 75% to 85% of the profit!

Some clauses in traditional publishing contracts limit your rights as an author, so be sure to have a lawyer look them over before you sign.

No matter how much a traditional publisher promises to promote your book, you should always be aware that some of the burden of self-publicity will fall on you.

Many people think that once their book gets published by a traditional publisher their career is made; that’s not necessarily so. You will have to prove to the publisher that you can promote your book successfully for them to continue believing in you as an author they want to work with again and again.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Publishing: You Get What You Give

2009-03-25T08:27:00.001-07:00

So this week I finally posted some broad sketch differences between the three main ways of getting published these days: traditional, collaborative and self-publishing.

Over the next few days I’m going to wrap up this very serious, very technical and very necessary discussion of publishing with the pros and cons of each type of publishing, because knowledge really IS power and the better informed you are, the better informed your decisions will be when it comes to getting published.

Mainly, I tried to reserve judgment when discussing each type of publishing because my clients have been published across all three spectrums and most have enjoyed whatever form of publishing brought their book to market; but not all.

Some clients have been traditionally published and loved very minute; others who’ve been traditionally published have a litany of complaints.

Some have never had a better professional experience than being collaboratively published; others would never do it again.

Some have self-published to great success while others felt the experience was far from satisfactory.

In that sense, publishing is no different from, say, eating at a certain restaurant or seeing the latest blockbuster movie. Two people can eat at the same restaurant on the same night and have the same waiter and both come away with completely different experiences. One will rail that the food was overcooked, the ambiance mediocre and the service even worse while the other person will rave about all of the above.

And if everyone felt the same way about every movie, what would our movie critics do for a living?

At the end of the day, whether your book comes out from HarperCollins, Morgan James or www.iuniverse.com, publishing is basically a way to get your book from the inside of your head into someone else’s hands.

What you do with the experience, what you make of it, how much effort you’ll put into your own book promotion through blogging, doing readings, courting reviews and getting blurbs and testimonials remains mostly independent of your publisher.

I’ve seen some clients flourish with traditional publishers and others wither on the vine, while just as many clients have made the fact that their book was self-published by a small POD press a non-issue because of the quality not just of the writing but of the smallest details, from the cover design to who they got their blurbs from to where they promoted it to the keywords they used in the back cover copy.

At the end of the day, publishing is merely a tool to deliver your message. No matter who puts your book out, if you’re not going to give 100% to the experience of sharing that message with the world, your publisher can only help you so much.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

The Third Type of Publishing: Self-publishing

2009-03-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

Self-publishing comes in many forms. You’ve got your Print-On-Demand (or POD) publishers who, for a nominal fee, prepare a cover, copyright your book, assign you an ISBN, get you on Amazon.com, etc., and print the book as orders come in, versus printing a few hundred or a few thousand copies at a time.

Other self-publishers are more like printers, where you order in bulk, say 250 copies or 4,000 copies, and the books are printed and shipped and you have to store them somewhere. Items like cover design, copyright, bar code, distribution, etc., are considered “ala carte” items and you pick and choose which ones you need.

One benefit to self-publishing of this kind is the quick(er) turnaround. Some self-publishers can have your book out in 6 to 8 weeks, while others don’t take much longer.

Regardless of which type of self-publishing you choose, this type of publication is neither traditional nor collaborative; you are not getting a publisher, per say, but a company who prints books, be it digitally on demand or a whole bunch at one time.

While traditional and collaborative publishers offer editing as part of their package, self-publishers offer it as an ala carte item and, if you don’t choose to have it edited professionally, yours will be the last pair of eyes on it.

In summary, there are pros and cons to all of these publishing options. For instance, traditional publishers have a lot of control over your book’s future if you choose to go that direction, while collaborative and self-publishers offer you more freedom.

On the other hand, you are paying for that freedom; literally.

In the end, of course, the choice is yours; most readers don’t notice who published a book. I’ll never forget a few years ago when a perspective client sent me a book he loved. “If we could publish something of this quality,” he said, “I’d consider that a dream come true.”

The book was hardcover, classy, well-designed, well-written, and for years I held it up as the gold standard of short, pithy, quality business books. I had assumed its publisher was an imprint of somebody huge, maybe HarperCollins or Random House. Then one day on a hunch I wanted to submit something to that publisher, looked it up and, to my surprise, the book had been self-published all along.

So it just goes to show that if the book is quality, both inside and out, it really won’t matter WHO puts it out or, for that matter, how much it cost…

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Second Type of Publishing: Collaborative Publishing

2009-03-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

Collaborative publishers, our second type of publishing, are a hybrid of traditional publishing – since most of them have all the trappings and do all the same services as traditional publishers – and self-publishing, since some money is going to come out of your pocket to get published.

Please don’t misinterpret this to mean that one type of publishing is necessarily “better” than another; depending on the client, the book, the economic climate, the author’s willingness to self-publicize and the terms of any given deal, collaborative or even self-publishing might just be the way to go.

While I may be listing these in order of my own personal preference, that doesn’t mean traditional publishing, or even self-publishing, is necessarily right for you.

That said, collaborative publishing is very similar to traditional publisher in that (most) collaborative publishers do the same thing traditional publishers do: print, bind and ship your book, design the cover, copyright it, get the ISBN number and bar code taken care of, get you on Amazon.com, handle returns and bounced checks, etc.

There is also usually a pretty serious editorial process as well, where your manuscript will go through a few revisions and be copy-edited before publication.

How long will all this take? While every publisher is different, collaborative publishing can take anywhere from three to nine months.

The main difference is payment. You won’t get an advance; you will get royalties but not on books you buy yourself (that’s pretty typical, too). However, as part of the contract a collaborative publisher will require some form of financial assistance from you, the author.

In some cases, you agree to buy x number of copies of your own book at a particular price, say half the cover price, so that if you agree to buy 250 copies of your own book at $6 a pop, the cost to you for collaboratively publishing your book with this company is $1,500.

Other companies go a different route, by not making you buy a specific number of copies but by charging you a set fee to enroll in a marketing, promotion or consulting course they require of every author. So instead of spending $1500 on 250 copies of your own book, you may end up helping the publisher by writing them a check for $2500 to enroll in their “Marketing Masters” Publishing Program or “Print Ready Boot Camp” or whatever.

This is why it’s called collaborative publishing; at least, by me – others call it partnership or shared publishing. While traditional publishers pay you and you pay self-publishers, collaborative publishing falls in the middle; you’re both paying something.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The First Type of Publishing: Traditional Publishing

2009-03-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

In the traditional publishing scenario, you get an agent who pitches your book proposal to the country’s top publishers on your behalf OR you approach smaller, more submission-friendly publishers on your own.

Either way, you go through what is known as the submission process; which entails everything I’ve been talking about on this blog all year: query letter, book proposal, sample chapters, more sample chapters, potential rewrites, etc.

Traditional publishers, unlike the next two options, don’t take everything they get but instead filter through most submissions that come across their desks and, in fact, reject a goodly portion. If a traditional publisher picks you up, you are assigned an editor, given a deadline, go through a round or two of edits, are assigned a publication date and that’s pretty much your role in the process (aside from marketing the book when it comes out, of course).

From there the publisher takes over, printing the book, designing the cover, usually securing cover blurbs or testimonials, getting it reviewed, shipping it to bookstores, taking returns, determining the cover price and even cover copy, etc.

You get paid either an advance plus royalties or, for smaller publishers or newer authors, merely royalties with no advance. An advance is a sum of money given to you before and sometimes even upon publication; royalties are a percentage of the publisher’s profits doled out to you (usually quarterly) after publication.

You do not pay a traditional publisher; they pay you. That’s why what I’m calling “traditional publishing” is also referred to as royalty-paying publishing or finding a royalty-paying publisher.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Three Types of Publishing: The Pros, the Cons, the Ups, the Downs… the Choices!

2009-03-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

Uggghhh! I didn’t want to write this post, have been putting it off ever since I started this blog and, frankly, wish I didn’t have to write it at all.

In a perfect world, EVERYONE would get traditionally published, i.e. picked up by a royalty-paying publisher who took care of all those little housekeeping issues like printing, cover design, copyrighting it, grabbing an ISBN number, shipping, distribution, returns, handling credit cards and bounced checks, getting four-star reviews and placement on the bestseller lists, etc.

However, now more than ever (there’s that phrase again), getting traditionally published is a challenge some of my clients simply aren’t able to achieve. The reasons publishers give for this new phenomenon are many: we did a book just like this last year, this genre isn’t selling as well as it used to, your platform isn’t big enough, I’m taking on fewer clients this year, the publishers are doing fewer books in this area for the next few years, the market’s saturated, etc.

The bottom line is that if you truly do want your book to come to market, traditional publishing isn’t your ONLY choice. In the next few posts I will talk about the three most popular forms of publishing (and the only ones I know worth pursuing): traditional, collaborative and self-publishing.

Depending on your book, your risk tolerance, your comfort level with self-promotion and/or why you wish to publish the book in the first place, traditional publishing may NOT be your best way to go.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Realistic Expectations versus Time to Market: Which Comes First?

2009-03-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

In last week’s post I may have give the false impression that EVERY agent takes nearly two years to sell a project; not true by a long shot: some take longer!

Seriously, though, how long should it take from the time you sign a contract with a publisher for a book to hit the shelves?

The company line is between nine and 12 months. Sometimes it’s six months, other times it’s 16. Last year I worked on a bestselling health title that was so popular its publisher wanted to quickly get the sequel to market; from the time we completed it until the time it was published was less than four months! In another case I’m still waiting on a book that was supposed to be published LAST SUMMER to come out THIS SUMMER.

In a word, there are a variety of variables that come into play for how long it takes your book to come to market; a lot of that you simply can’t control. The best (sometimes the only) thing to do is make good use of that time. How?

Most of my clients use the downtime between when the manuscript is completed and when it is actually available on the shelves to market themselves, start a blog, solicit blurbs and testimonials for the book, get it reviewed, set up book signings with local book stores, etc.

In coming weeks I will be discussing what I’ve been putting off for weeks now: the three different types of publishing. So if you think nine to 12 months is simply too long to wait for your book to come out, soon you’ll know about viable options that could get it out to market much, much sooner!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

A Year-and-a-half and Counting: The Business of (Your) Dreams

2009-03-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

I got an email the other day from a client who pops in from time-to-time and makes me realize what a strange, odd, frustrating, fulfilling and ultimately challenging business publishing is.

After we had exchanged a few emails about her agent’s latest suggestions for a rewrite and/or the few larger publishers he still wanted to hear back from before looking at smaller ones, I thought to myself, “Man, it seems like we’ve been working on this project for a long, LONG time.”

And we have; I started digging through my old mail searching for this client’s email address and realized we had first gotten in touch over a year-and-a-half ago and were still fiddling around with rewrites and publisher requests, i.e. “change the tone and send it back” or “add another chapter on the economy and we’ll take a second/third look…”

Then I thought how upbeat and hopeful my client was, how fresh and ready she was for yet another round of changes and hopeful that “this time” would be “the time.” I realized that throughout our relationship she had always been this way and, in fact, had taught me the value of patience.

And, in part, loyalty.

Lest you think this is some whack job client with a crazy pitch and THAT’S why her book isn’t getting picked up, the client is actually tops in her field, the proposal is rock solid, the market huge, the topic timely and the agent is really, really good. We’ve just all kind of gotten caught up in this challenging economy and yet, amazingly, have all hung together to keep the dream alive.

Yes, the book could have been self-published months ago. Sure, we could have picked another agent once his one-year option was up. Okay, it doesn’t normally take that long but, in this case, we all got on the same page and struggle to this day with finding the right home for this great book.

I share this story today because so often clients, and even myself, are in a hurry to get this book out “on time.” But time is relative in this business. We are at the mercy of the agents and their busy schedules and, to an even greater degree, the mercy of the publishers and their occasionally protracted decision-making process.

If it’s your dream to get published, as it is with myself and so many of my clients, you have to keep that dream alive while still becoming a businessperson in this very challenging business. The two – dreams and business – are not mutually exclusive. In fact, in this business, in particular, you can’t really have one without the other.

So have patience, hang in there, keep plugging and know that the more you treat your dreams like a business, the more likely they are to come true…

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Turn Right at the Second Light: The Gift of Rewriting

2009-02-16T07:08:00.001-08:00

On my walk this morning a family stopped me for directions to a local restaurant. I was distracted, in one zone and they pulled me into another. I smiled and blurted out some needlessly convoluted set of “go here, turn there, go up there, turn back here” directions that no doubt found them miles away from where they were headed.

For the rest of my walk I rewrote my directions. I mean, I’ve lived here all my life, eaten where they wanted to go eat at least a few dozen times. We were less than a quarter-mile from it, for Pete’s sake! But in a fog I blurted out something bad and, in order to elaborate, made it even worse.

By the end of the walk I had modified what I’d told them to a simple one line answer: “Turn right at the second light and you’ll see it at the end of the street.”

That’s it; 16 little words that would take them straight where they needed to go.

I guess that’s why I’m a ghostwriter and not a public speaker. Where else do you get the opportunity to rewrite everything you say, a dozen or more times if necessary, before anybody ever sees it?

But how often do we really value the gift of a really good rewrite?

And that’s what it is, you know: a gift. Even if you’re on a deadline, even if you’ve been living with this idea in your head for six years, even if you just know this is the most “perfect” proposal you’ve ever written, sleep on it and read it one more time.

Read it as if you’re halfway through a 50-minute walk and have all the time in the world to rewrite it. Read it as if you’re giving someone directions to your idea for a book and ask yourself, “Does every page keep their interest? Will this query letter or book proposal get them there in as few steps as possible? Does it take them straight there instead of meandering through a lot of impressive statistics or purple prose?”

Readers are like tourists; they just want to get where they’re going in as few steps as possible. Are you sending them in loop-de-loops through extra, excessive pages in your proposal? Or are you telling them, “Turn right at the second light”?

Food for thought; have a great writing week!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Go Direct to the Source – Not Every Project, or Publisher, Requires an Agent

2009-02-16T07:07:00.000-08:00

I think I’ve made it pretty clear so far how important I think agents are to the submission process. Every good, big or multi-deal I’ve made has been through an agent; but not EVERY deal I’ve made has been through an agent.

Frankly, agents will be the first to tell you – now more than ever – that not every deal needs an agent. Yet it’s been drummed into our heads, year after year after year, that NO publisher will look at a query letter, book proposal or manuscript without an agent.

That’s just not true. You can approach a publisher directly, even now; especially now. As more and more agents ding more and more projects because they’re just not worth pursuing, financially-speaking, for them, more and more projects become orphaned; agent-less and looking for a home.

I’m not saying you should go directly to publishers as your first plan of attack. I always start with agents first; always and ever. But… if every agent you try turns you down, if you’ve exhausted every agent directory on this blog – and even some of your own – and you still don’t have representation, rather than shelving that project or simply giving up, reach higher and farther, look longer and harder.

Let’s say you’ve written a book on the health benefits of hot chocolate. Okay, so William & Morris isn’t returning your calls. Does that mean it’s over? Hardly; head over to http://www.amazon.com/ and type in the keywords “hot chocolate.” Minimize that window so it stays open but hides at the bottom of your screen and then open http://www.yahoo.com/ or http://www.google.com/, whichever search engine you prefer.

Shrink that window down until it’s a small box on the left of your screen, open amazon back up and shrink that until it’s a slightly larger box on the right of your screen, and then click on the first “hot chocolate” book you see. Find out its publisher, copy and paste that name into your google window and see what comes up. If it’s a legitimate, author-friendly, in-operation, working publisher, a website should pop up right away. (If not, or you have to dig too far, move on.)

Now, click on that website and scout around for “author info” or “submission guidelines” or “meet the editors,” etc. IF they accept unsolicited submissions and IF they give you a simple, easy way to submit you have just found a potential publisher for your hot chocolate book that doesn’t require an agent for you to submit.

So… submit! Or bookmark the first publisher’s submission page and go back to amazon and see who published the second highest-ranked hot chocolate book, then the third, then the fourth. Shampoo, lather, rinse, repeat until you have a nice, solid list of current, in-business, still-open publishers with welcoming submission guidelines who might be open to putting out your book.

You can use this very simple process for any topic, for any publisher, to build your own database of author-friendly publishers on any subject. I’m not saying to short-circuit literary agents or cut them out of the picture every time.

By all means, start with the literary agents EVERY time. But… if that effort falls flat rather than giving up start fresh by directly approaching a targeted list of author-friendly publishers who put out books in your genre AND accept unsolicited manuscripts directly from authors.

Always, always, always look a little harder, a little longer before giving up on a project. You never know what you might find…

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Self-Editing: The Deal is in the Details!

2009-02-07T12:48:00.000-08:00

Every December – and often as early as November – I give my family Christmas CDs. My little brother likes John Denver, so he gets John Denver Christmas CDs. My mom likes Johnny Mathis, so she gets Johnny Mathis. My sister-in-law likes Celtic so there’s a lot to choose from for her. My Dad and his wife have a cabin in North Carolina so there’s always a new “Smoky Mountain Christmas” CD on their list.

This year, as I went from house to house delivering my Christmas goodies, handing out a stack of CDs that would make most DJs drool, I noticed an odd phenomenon. There, at my little brother’s house, stashed at the bottom of his CD rack was last year’s John Denver Christmas CD; still in its dusty wrapper. At Mom’s house, not one but two Johnny Mathis CDs still nestled safely, snug in their shrink wrap.

Everywhere I went, it seemed, the ghosts of Christmas CDs past came out to haunt me, mewling from behind their shrink wrap pitifully as they beckoned, “Somebody, please, open me!!!”

As I was commenting on this to my wife, Martha, after the holidays this year she said, “You know, Russ, not everybody likes Christmas CDs as much as you do!”

My family will be glad to know that I have since imposed a moratorium on all Christmas CD shopping (at least, for THEM) but, what’s more, I realized Martha’s advice could apply to my – and your – proposal writing as well.

Think about it: is your proposal just appealing to you, or will it appeal to others as well?

It’s all well and good to list dozens of primary and collateral sub-groups in your Target Audience section, but will the book – as written – really appeal to all of them? Or have you written it just for yourself?

I’m still reeling from the fact that not everybody likes Christmas CDs as much as I do. But learning such a valuable, if tragic, lesson helped me look at the book proposals I write differently.

We have to remember that we are not writing books in a vacuum. At some point, if all goes as planned, someone other than us, somewhere outside of our den, will read this book. Will the title speak to them, or is it an inside joke between you and your friends? Does the subtitle clearly communicate the benefits the book has to offer, or is it so full of clever twists and puns that it’s practically illegible? Does the outline make sense? Are the chapters in the best possible order? Or are you just writing things as they rank in interest to you so that the last few chapters are actually lackluster?

This year, publisher-wise, quit giving Christmas CDs to people who don’t want them! In other words, once your proposal is done, let it sit for a weekend (or more) and revisit it on Monday with a clear set of eyes. Look at it – really, really look at it – and make sure that it’s ready for mass consumption.

Realize that editing isn’t just a pain in the butt, it’s a chance to get things right, once and for all. The hard part is done; you’ve written a great rough draft and 90% of it’s all there. The missing 10% can come when you self-edit, paying close attention to the details and making sure that this book will be as appealing to everyone else as it is right now to you.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Talking to An Agent: If the Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’s Me!

2009-02-07T12:29:00.001-08:00

From time to time, rather than emailing me or the client back to express interest in a proposal or, more than likely, ask some questions or pose some suggestions, an agent will pick up the phone and call one of us direct.

If and when this happens to you (congrats!), don’t freak out! Okay, I admit, I used to freak out myself a few years back when this began to happen but really there is no way to prepare for a phone call with an agent other than to be familiar with your book proposal and, since YOU wrote it, what’s to worry about, right?

You’d be surprised by how often my clients panic at this notion, though. And these are experts in their fields, CEOs, millionaires, doctors, lawyers, clearly very smart people who should have no trouble communicating their ideas over the phone. But I know it’s a new experience for them and they just want to get it right and not say anything wrong.

Typically, an agent will call to get some more specifics about you, your proposal, your idea or perhaps just to get a feel for who you are and how you come across as a person. Despite the gobzillions of query letters and proposals they receive each year and how many they must reject, agents really are just like you and me and want to put a “face to a name” or, in this case, “a voice to a proposal.”

So when an agent calls try to be calm and relax. I know it’s difficult but agents actually make it easier because a.) they’re busy and don’t have a ton of time for small talk and b.) they’ve usually got a list of 2-4 questions they need answers to and don’t hesitate to dive right in.

This is good; answer the questions and be honest, forthright and eager to please. Be passionate about your project; agents want to hear your enthusiasm and know that you’re committed to the project. By the same token, know where to draw the line. If you’ve written a book about dogs because you’re a dog expert, don’t let the agent suggest you write about cats!

Usually these calls don’t last long and, again, the agent typically runs the show because he or she just has some quick questions. Answer them and you’ll be fine. Think of it this way: at least your proposal was interesting enough to get an agent’s attention. It’s not every proposal they call on, you know.

By the same token, don’t think this call can make or break whether an agent decides to represent you. (That would just make you more nervous!)

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Golden Art of Nudging an Agent or Editor: The Delicate Dance Between Subtle and Stalker!

2009-02-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

A client asked me the other day when it was too soon to nudge an agent who had requested his proposal only a week earlier. I said what I always say, “Never is too soon.”

And I was serious. I have yet to “nudge” an agent or editor and get good news. But it’s like that with clients, too. I learned years ago never to chase a lead; that if they wanted you, they’d have hired you by now and that if they didn’t, well, there was a reason they didn’t.

As tough as it is to swallow, if an agent or editor really wants to handle your book, he or she will find a way to do so.

Clients, many of them who pride themselves on their business etiquette, are often appalled that agents and editors don’t even respond to queries or proposal pitches. “It’s just common courtesy!” they’ll say. And I agree, but it is what it is. And who can blame them? If I got 500+ unsolicited emails per day, I wouldn’t be responding to them all, either.

However, I agree with those clients who feel it’s only right that if an agent or editor gets a query letter from us, likes it and asks to see the full book proposal, then they should at least let us know – within a few weeks or months – whether or not it’s still in contention.

It’s all in how you do it. Sometimes a client will take matters into his own hands and “nudge” an agent all by his lonesome. Last week one such client forwarded me the email he had sent to the agent “politely” requesting an answer, and the agent’s (not surprising) response:

“Dear Agent,” wrote the client, “Recently I sent you my book proposal for ‘Darning Socks in Denver.’ I would very much like to know why you haven’t written me back yet and, if possible, when you plan to do so…”

Yikes! I was cringing by the time I got to “Sincerely yours…” Were you, too? That opening just invites hostility on behalf of a busy agent or editor, and that’s exactly (mostly) what he got:

“Dear ‘Darning Socks in Denver,’” the agent quickly replied, “forgive me if I haven’t gotten to your proposal this week, but I’ve been busy reading about four dozen other proposals which came in (ahead of yours) last week. However, your email gave me reason to pause from my duties and take yours out and read it. After doing so, I regret to inform you that…”

And you can guess the rest. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I’ve seen this happen far too many times and so if you absolutely, positively “must” nudge an agent or editor heed this simple advice: have a reason for doing so.

For instance, maybe you’ve changed addresses so you can say, “Dear Angela Agent, Recently I sent you – at your request – my proposal for ‘Darning Socks in Denver.’ Although I realize you’re very busy and probably haven’t gotten to it yet, I recently changed addresses and wanted to make sure you had my most recent one, so here it is…”

This could work for snail- or e-mail addresses. But the more professional, and logical, way to follow-up with a slow-to-respond agent or editor is to actually have something positive to add to the book proposal they’ve already requested – and you’ve already sent them.

For instance, maybe you’ve just been featured in the local newspaper, won an award, published an article on About.com or appeared on a national drive-time talk radio show. Absolutely, positively this is something worthy of sending to an agent who has already asked to see your proposal. Not if it happens every day, mind you, but if you’ve had a particularly busy week, publicity wise, feel free to let them know.

You might say something like, “Dear Arthur Agent, Recently you requested my proposal for ‘Darning Socks in Denver.’ Since that time I’ve appeared on the Donnie & Dilbert Drive-thru Hour here in Boise a number of times. Donnie & Dilbert have a wide audience of over 450,000 dedicated listeners and I thought this might help publishers recognize my potential for promoting the book to a wide audience. I hope you agree…”

Another significant way to “nudge without nudging” would be if you’ve completed an additional sample chapter, are proud of it and feel it would add to the agent’s review of the material you’ve already sent her. Ask first! Don’t just send an attachment willy-nilly as that’s the best way to wind up in a SPAM filter.

But you could begin by saying something like, “Dear Amy Agent, In the week and a half since I sent you ‘Darning in Denver,’ I’ve since written an additional chapter that I think might help you review the original proposal more thoroughly. I’d be glad to send it your way via email attachment if you think it might help…”

To recap: I’ve never had a lot of luck “nudging” agents and editors but if you’re the impatient type or it actually HAS been over a month or two since they’ve asked to see your proposal with no reply, rather than just writing, hat in hand, to ask when they might “get around to it” make the nudge useful by providing additional information that will hopefully make the proposal they’re reading sound even better.

Even if it means writing a whole new sample chapter just to feel justified in nudging them, think of it this way: that’s one less chapter you have to write when the book finally finds a home!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Proposal Length: In Praise of the Middle Line

2009-02-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting conversation with a great agent this week who was very specific about the length of a proposal we were revising. “If I could get this in under 45 pages, that would be great,” he told me. “Your sample chapter here really needs to be brief; no more than 15 pages, max…”

I smiled to myself and concurred.

But it instantly reminded me of an agent I spoke with a few weeks earlier who urged on the side of length versus brevity. “Everything needs to be longer,” she advised. “These days the publishers are looking for weight in each of these sections. Don’t add filler, but go deeper in each section and include more specifics, particularly in the sample chapter. I don’t want to see a sample chapter less than 25 pages in the revision…”

So on one end of the extreme you’ve got one great agent advising you in favor of brevity and on the other you’ve got one more great agent with very specific suggestions against brevity; longer, deeper, better!

It gave me pause to consider how long my typical book proposal was. I’d never given it much thought before. Usually, I suppose, I let the story tell itself. If I had a lot of material to work with, I wrote a longer book proposal. If I didn’t have as much to work from, it turned out shorter.

I did some checking and my shortest proposal to date clocked in at 37 pages; my longest at exactly 100-pages! The first, shorter proposal sold to Kaplan and the second, longer pitch sold to Palgrave-Macmillan, so there you have it. Two very different agents, two very different publishers but, at the end of the day, that’s two more book proposal sold.

So what to do for the insecure proposal writer who’s already frustrated to contend with the 101 other rules you’ve been given about query and proposal writing? I tend to say “stay in the middle.” Even if it did sell quickly, I think 100-pages is way too long for a book proposal. Likewise, I think 37 is too short.

Then again, each proposal was very specific to its author and had very specific reasons for selling at those specific lengths. The shorter proposal was for a well-known celebrity with obvious credentials who didn’t need as much “ammunition” going in to sell his idea; the 100-pager was by two well-known financial planners who actually needed every one of those 100-pages to nail down the fairly sophisticated concepts and chapter descriptors for their upcoming book on wealth planning due out next year.

And what about you? What is a good rule of thumb to use when crafting your first – or latest – proposal? I would walk the middle line; shoot for 50-pages and, if you get close, great. If you shoot to far, set it down, revisit it, take a second look and see why you shot too far. If it was for legitimate reasons – you really went to town on your chapter descriptions or had a ton of great people to list as possible testimonials in your Publicity section – well, it’s no sin to go over 50 if it’s not filler. On the other hand, if you see a lot of redundancy or white space or fluff, feel free to cut it until you’re closer to 50.

And if you fall short, particularly if you fall way short, consider why. Don’t add pages just to hit my arbitrary number but look for places where a section is incomplete or could be buttressed with better/more statistics, quotes or information.

Are your chapter descriptions adequate? If not, you could gain some valuable page length there. Did you hit your Target Audience hard enough? If not, dig deeper for some better, more recent numbers or find a few appropriate quotes to bridge the gap. And if you rushed the sample chapter, read it again and see where you might have some room for some more concrete information, better, longer, stronger advice or a bullet-list or sub-head or two.

Again, don’t add just to add, but use this as another excuse to revisit your proposal and really make sure it’s camera ready to send to these agents and editors. If you shoot for the middle, you’ve got a better shot at hitting the bull’s eye than if you send in something too short OR too long.

And remember, it’s rare for an agent to send a proposal out “as is.” (At least, it’s been rare in my case. Maybe they’re trying to tell me something!) If an agent has very specific length requirements he or she will help you get there. If he or she thinks 50-pages is too long, ask for specific areas where he or she might want you to cut it. If it needs more pages, ask for the same kind of specifics on where it might be useful to add.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Title Tip # 1: It Has to “Click” With You First

2009-01-29T07:52:00.000-08:00

I was researching titles for a business book the other day and I came across a great one on business etiquette: Don’t Take the Last Donut.

Isn’t that awesome? Doesn’t it hint at what the book’s going to be about – not being rude at work – while still giving you a warm and fuzzy feel about how the project is going to be written? Slap a picture of a plate of donuts on there and a hand reaching for the last one and, well, I’m hooked!

I know it’s not earth-shattering or anything, but for some reason this title really clicked with me.

Does it click with you?

How about these:

Who’s Your Caddy?
My Reality Check Bounced
Brownie Points
I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy

These are just some of my favorite, give-it-a-second-glance book titles from the last year or two. What do they all have in common? Nothing, really, except that they’re great, self-compartmentalized and do the job of not only explaining what the book is going to be about but in an entertaining, clever and tongue-in-cheek way.

That’s just my style, but I have a feeling – based on the popularity of these four very different book titles – that a lot of readers share my feeling that they want a title they can smile at.

Where do you find such titles? The best place to keep abreast of clever, simple, stunning titles is the “bestseller” list at http://www.amazon.com/. Whenever I’m staring at a new book project, trying to brainstorm up a nice, solid list of 10-12 alternative book titles for a new project on gardening or management or nursing or whatnot, I always start there for inspiration.

Not to copy other people’s titles, but to get inspiration and in the creative mindset. Often just seeping yourself in the latest, greatest titles can help you be inspired yourself.

There have likely been whole books written on the subject of book titles; clearly, they’re very important. But like everything else in publishing the more you dwell on something, the less creative you get about it.

For me, a book title should do three simple things:

Hint at what the book is going to be about
Get your interest (preferably get you to smile as well)
Make you pick it up

That’s it; I think if you apply those three simple rules to the best title, whether it’s How to Win Friends and Influence People or He’s Just Not That Into You, you’ll find they both work on each of those points.

Does your book title? And, if not, what can you do to make it so?

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Random Query Tip # 2: Create Your Own Database of Literary Agents or Publishers

2009-01-28T14:19:00.000-08:00

The more I think about this issue of using a database someone else set up, the more I think of taking the power back into our own hands. Again, I love the top-5 databases I use here and use them frequently on behalf of my clients.

But… the more I think about it the more I realize that the times I’ve had true success in finding an agent were those where I took the initiative, fully explored that agent’s website and made a very personalized, very effortful foray into querying him or her specifically.

So as I was wrapping up another round of queries today I thought, “Why not make my own database?”

Seriously, why keep going to the same database of agents or publishers and making the same mistakes, clicking on the same agents who don’t represent memoirs, or fiction, or business or finance or whatever it is I’m pitching that day?

You’ve got a bookmark feature, right? You can split your bookmarks up into folders, can’t you? So the next time you query, the next time you use your favorite database, the next time you visit an agent’s website, see if it’s right for you; see if they rep the genre you represent, if they’re still open for submissions, if they’re still evening business! (And these days, you never know!)

So, if you find someone you like, whose website gives you that “warm, fuzzy” feeling, bookmark it. Put it in a folder marked “Agents I Like” or “Memoir Agents” or “New Agents Who Are Actively Seeking Queries” or whatever; but one by one, build up your own database.

Sure, you may still use the default system of checking out www.publishersmarketplace.com first, but as you grow and build more confidence in your querying abilities, more and more I think you’ll find yourself turning to your own database.

Who knows; maybe one day I’ll even be able to link to it!!!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Random Query Tip # 1: Go to the Source

2009-01-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

You know, I’m continually rewriting this blog, which makes me wonder how many mistakes I’ve made along the way. Ah, who are we kidding: mistakes? I’ve made a ton.

But I’m humble enough to admit when I’ve learned a thing or two, and it strikes me as I’m pitching for another client AS WE SPEAK that when I offer you a database of agent links, when I provide the link itself and urge you to email the agent and even personalize the email, I haven’t gone quite far enough.

When you’ve got the database open, when you’re looking at all those agent links, when you’re getting ready to click and copy and paste and personalize your query letter, go the extra step and visit the agent’s actual website first.

I suppose this should be common sense but as often as I do this (for a living) I’m still running across agent’s websites I’ve never seen before and every time I do I learn something new.

For instance, just today I was thinking, “How come this great agent, who represents 100% of the genres my clients write in and seems so open and inviting, has never written me back?” (The nerve!) Well, I finally took a detour from that nice and cushy and easy database of agent names and emails and visited his actual agency website.

Guess what? Under his “Submission Guidelines” he has posted a very specific email address he wants you to use and, you guessed it, it’s NOT the one listed on that simple, quick and easy database. I emailed it and, within hours, he wrote me back asking to see the client’s proposal. (Which I think is right up his alley!)

Now, how many other opportunities did I miss to connect with this very good agent because I was too lazy, too in a hurry, too full of myself not to step out of the comfort zone of that agent database and actually visit his own website?

I guess this is the moral of my story: the database is just a tool. Certainly the person who put it together spent hours and hours of time collecting all those sites for our convenience, but that’s not enough. We need to use the database as a launching pad to visit the actual agency websites and get the latest, greatest, personalized and up-to-the-minute submission guidelines there.

Yes, I want this to be as easy and painless on you as possible but this very valuable lesson only serves to reinforce the fact that in the business of publishing not everything should be fast, easy, loose and breezy. And when you’re finding an agent, whether this is your first query letter or your 101st, never be too busy to visit the agent’s website yourself.

Lesson learned; lesson shared…

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Faster Isn’t Better: Or Why No One is Waiting Breathlessly for Your Proposal! (And Why That’s a GOOD Thing)

2009-01-27T16:16:00.001-08:00

One last word on proposals before we move on: take your time. Seriously, no one is waiting breathlessly for your proposal.

Even if it’s of a timely nature, even if it’s a holiday book, even if it’s something that’s just been in the news all week, it’s better to wait a week to send in a really well-written, clear and concise proposal than it is to rush and send in something sloppy and disconnected.

Yes, agents can be fussy, subjective and sometimes downright disagreeable; they’re also very smart and can spot clarity and camera-ready copy when they see it.

Even if your material is time-sensitive, many agents are so busy that even if you send it when your topic or idea is in the news it could be passé by the time an agent or editor gets to it. Consider that next time you go to rush your sloppy copy in the mail.

I know it can be hard to wait; I know what it feels like to be sitting on a really great idea. Trust me, I’m the original “it’s so good they’ll forgive the few typos” submitter!

But I’ve been spanked by agents and editors enough times by now to know that if I just give it one more read, one more pass through, one more edit the project will be better served – and my clients’ chances of publication that much better in the long run.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Proposal as Lasagna: A Few Words on Trusting the Many Layers of Your Proposal

2009-01-27T16:15:00.005-08:00

Once your proposal is done, trust it! I can’t stress enough the vibe of confidence that shines through a really, really well-written proposal. In this blog I have shared with you the “7 Deadly Ins of Proposal Writing” and described each one; but don’t take my word for it: read as many sample proposals as you can.

You’re in luck: many agent websites feature sample book proposals they’re proud of and want you to use as a guide, if not an actual template, for your own. Read them, re-read them and then read them some more.

Proposal writing is a process; I often tell my clients that writing a proposal is like making lasagna: it’s only done when all the layers are in place. It can take weeks, even months, to write a really good proposal, and that’s because you need to read and re-read, write and re-write each section unto itself, as a pieces-part, and then read all the sections together and possibly re-read and re-write the entire piece as well.

Continue to layer your proposal with quotes, statistics, better book comparisons, longer chapter descriptions, more bullet points in your sample chapter or a better figure for your Target Audience. Pick apart your Overview and see if it really answers those 5 questions I shared with you; then pick it apart again.

Then, once you’ve read it so many times it’s making you nauseous, trust it. Trust it and query it and pitch it and submit it and feel good about it. I can always tell a rushed proposal from a fine-tuned, polished one – and so can agents and editors.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Seventh Deadly In: Sample Chapters

2009-01-27T16:15:00.003-08:00

Finally, every proposal contains at least one – and preferably two – sample chapters. Ideally, I like to write three sample chapters: two to include with the proposal and one to hold back to a.) keep the proposal length down and b.) just in case an agent or editor is on the fence and, even after reading the proposal, asks to see “another sample chapter.”

However, I have sold book proposal on just one sample chapter alone, but more and more these days I hear agents wanting at least two sample chapters, so it’s best not to scrimp in this area.

I typically do the Introduction and Chapter One here; most agents like to see chronological chapters because they like to see that you’re going to engage readers and keep their interest. Merely pulling the “best” chapter from the middle of the book doesn’t show them that.

Earlier I said your proposal has two halves; I meant that literally. So, if you have a 50-page proposal you should really make half of that your actual sample material, i.e. Table of Contents and Sample Chapters.

The key to including sample chapters is to really show agents and editors what this book will read like, sound like, even “feel” like. I’ve pitched proposals from movie stars, millionaires, Playmates, CEOs, reality TV stars and the like and, no matter how famous, rich or well-connected they are if the agent or editor doesn’t connect with the sample chapters, they’re still not going to commit to signing the book.

So if you’re scheduling your time for the writing of the proposal, make sure that whatever time you spent writing the first half – Overview, Bio, etc. – you spend two or even three times that long compiling, writing, editing, re-reading and re-writing your sample material.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Sixth Deadly In: Annotated Table of Contents

2009-01-27T16:15:00.001-08:00

It’s not enough merely to list your chapter titles in a row; agents and editors want to see what is contained in each chapter. Even if your chapter is really obvious like “10 Signs Your Boss Doesn’t Approve of Your Mini-Skirt (Even on Casual Friday),” they still want to get a sense of what, exactly, those signs are, how you address them and if they’re interesting enough to keep readers’ attention.

I typically devote 3-4 paragraphs of text to support every chapter, and I handle this one of two ways. If the book is already complete, I simply find the best 3-4 paragraphs of existing text and “excerpt” them under the chapter title.

On the other hand, as is most often the case, if the book isn’t yet complete I describe the chapter as if I were writing more back cover copy. For example, “Does your boss roll his eyes whenever you get off the elevator in the morning? Does she frequently write you up for ‘wardrobe malfunctions,’ even in the dead of winter? If any of these sound familiar, you could be dressing improperly at work – and in danger of losing more than your wardrobe allowance! In this chapter I address the 10 biggest faux pas of young professionals who think Casual Friday means Casual Every Day…”

The main point in describing your chapters is not just to fill the page and make it look like you worked real hard on this section, but to really give agents and editors a taste for what readers will find in each chapter and, of course, your writing style.

To that end, your proposal really has two halves. The first half I consider the “marketing material,” i.e. your Overview, Bio, Target Audience, etc. These sections are basically designed to show agents and editors the marketability of your book and are written as such. The second half contains your “sample material,” i.e. your Annotated Table of Contents and Sample Chapter(s). This is where agents and editors really start to get a sense for how the book will actually be written, so be sure that both of these sections really represent your writing style.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

The Fifth Deadly In: Competitive Analysis

2009-01-27T16:14:00.003-08:00

In the Competitive Analysis your main job is to provide a list of popular, recent and well-published titles that are similar in tone and tenor to your own.

Why popular? You want to compare your book to books people actually read. I mean, just because three books have already been published on Dressing for Corporate Success doesn’t mean anybody read them! Try to find

Why recent? Publishers want to know that you are writing I a field that is a.) still popular and b.) still going strong. I never list a book that hasn’t been published in the last 2-3 years because, to publishers, that signals the genre might already be old news.

Why well-published? Remember, “Like with like.” Good publishers want to know that what you’re writing about is important enough to be published by other good publishers.

Where do you find these books? I confess I do all my competitive research on Amazon.com. So if I’m looking up a book on gardening for young people, I would start with those keywords – gardening + young people – and go from there. Same with “business + dress” or “pet grooming” or any other keyword you can imagine.

This way I can find the title, author, publisher, year of publication and brief description – the five key ingredients to every competitive book title listing in your proposal – on one convenient website.

Why go to all the trouble? Basically, in this section you are telling agents that your book is a lot like these 6-8 other bestselling titles, but just different enough so that they can go on the shelf next to them but still stand out.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

The Fourth Deadly In: Target Audience

2009-01-27T16:14:00.001-08:00

To help convince an agent that your book is worth pitching to publishers, you’ll have to first prove there is an audience for it. Oftentimes this section is really overstating the obvious, but that’s why it’s important to take it seriously: tell them something new.

For instance, if you’re writing a business book, it’s not enough just to say, “The 4-Hour Workweek sold gobzillion copies and so will I…” Tell them, specifically, who will read this book and why.

If it’s for middle-managers, tell how many middle-managers there are in the country. If it’s for gardeners, try to find how many nurseries there are. If it’s for pet-lovers, get a good statistic on how many millions of people own cats, dogs, lizards or mice.

You get the idea. My main point is to take this section seriously and write 2-3 solid pages about the very specific and unique audience for your book.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Third Deadly In: Platform, Publicity and Promotion

2009-01-27T16:12:00.004-08:00

This part of the proposal comes up early because it’s extremely important to agents and editors. The Platform, Publicity and Promotion section is just that: a list of how you can successfully help promote this book.

In this section you might include:

Speaking gigs you have done or plan to do
Awards or recognition you may have won
Any recent magazine, website or TV appearances
Etc.

Some of my clients find this portion easier than others. For instance, if they have a radio show featuring 140,000 listeners every day at noon they’re obviously going to have a captive audience – and plenty of opportunity to market themselves.

On the other hand, if you’re a regular civilian (like myself and a lot of my clients) with no special media recognition or massive audience, this section can be a stretch. Mainly, be honest here; if all you can commit to doing is throwing up a blog about the book and trying to increase the traffic every day, say that. If you can speak at a few rotary luncheons, say that.

I always start this section with a paragraph or two about why the book is media-ready and my experience, if any, in this field. Then I break down what I pledge to do into a bullet list (see above) with a subtitle in bold and a short paragraph in regular print.

For instance:

Prominent contacts at major local newspapers: Having worked in local Journalism for five years author Ed Harris has editorial contacts at 8 of the 9 local newspapers, including the Toledo Herald and the Telegraph Gazette। The combined readership of these papers is over 120,000 paid subscribers.

Do that for as many bullet points/paragraphs as you can and hold your breath. If I’m sounding flip, it’s because this section is the most frequently tweaked, edited and rewritten section of every proposal I’ve ever written. Oftentimes, agents won’t even look at you until they’ve given you a list of things to do to add to this section – and you’ve actually done them. So do your best, be honest and trust a good agent to help you fine tune this.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The Second Deadly In: Author Bio

2009-01-27T16:12:00.003-08:00

The Author Bio is pretty straightforward; write about yourself in a way that pertains to the book. Don’t just copy and paste your resume; write a 4-5 paragraph summary of your accomplishments, your unique qualities and abilities, degrees and awards, etc.

Play up what pertains to the subject you’re writing about – your degree in botany, your MBA, the number of people who read your blog – and play down or leave out what doesn’t. For instance, where you live is important – it can tell agents and editors how available you’ll be for a book tour or media placement – but adding two paragraphs about winning the Christmas tree design award for your street for three years running doesn’t really help your case. (Unless, of course, you’re writing a book on Christmas tree design!)

If at all possible, include a recent picture with your bio. Believe it or not, even busy agents and editors like to put a face with a name!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

The First Deadly In: General Overview

2009-01-27T16:12:00.001-08:00

A lot of folks freak out about the Overview because, naturally, it’s the first thing people read of your book proposal. But the way I calm them down is to tell them this should read like back cover copy; get the agent interested, get the editor nodding his or her head, not shaking it.

Generally speaking, the Overview should be 5-6 pages long and answer the following 5 questions:

1.) What is the book about? Don’t get all cute and cryptic; straight up tell people what the book is about. If it’s “How to Dress for Young Professionals,” tell them that. If it’s “How to Heel Your Dog,” tell them that. Just like a query letter, consider the opening paragraph carefully. If you can find a great statistic or quote or recent headline that pertains to the topic of your book, all the better; use it!
2.) What problem does it solve? If you feel that young professionals today dress really sloppily, and can find data to support your belief, this is the problem you are solving. Tell them what the problem is, “According to recent data nearly 8 out of every 10 employer is dissatisfied with what their employees wear into work…” State the problem clearly and be just as clear that, with your book, you are going to solve it.
3.) Why should people read it? Just because YOU think young professionals dress sloppily isn’t really enough of a reason to get a busy editor to care about your project. This is why statistics, quotes and headlines can be important. Proving that 4 million CEOs, middle managers and HR interviewers agree with you that America is “dressing down” really tells agents and publishers why people should read your book.
4.) What will they get out of it? People want results; they want to buy your book, learn something, and walk away better informed to deal with the stated problem. Don’t just state the problem and walk away; tell people what you’re going to do to help solve the problem, such as, “This book will provide readers with the walk-away tools they’ll need to dress better for work, earn more money with more promotions, impress their employers and find career satisfaction. Each chapter will feature a self-quiz, an action plan and a take-away worksheet to help readers dress better, one chapter at a time…”
5.) Why are you the person to write it? Here is a chance for you to provide a brief, mini-bio of yourself that pertains to why, specifically, you are the person to write this book. Remember what the agent told me: like with like. Hopefully if you are writing about gardening, you work in a nursery, have a horticultural degree or, at the very least, an award-winning garden! Likewise, if you’re writing about dressing better in corporate America here would be the place to list your degrees in fashion and design and your MBA from Stanford!

So, if you answer these 5 questions – in about a page or two for each question – you WILL have a kick-butt Overview you can be proud of.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

The 7 Deadly Ins: What to Absolutely, Positively, 100% Put in Your Book Proposal

2009-01-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

All right, all this talk of writing queries has left me panicking that you’re going to get lots and lots of nibbles on your great pitch letter and… have nothing to send the interested agents and publishers!

So let’s talk about why you wrote that query letter in the first place: your book proposal. Like query letters, and agents, and publishers themselves, much has been written – and posted, and published, and blogged – about the book proposal. And I’m quite sure you could find dozens of books, articles and blogs better versed about proposals than myself.

However, that being said, I write about 5-6 book proposals a month on behalf of some of the most amazing people, stories and ideas you may never read about! But it’s certainly not for lack of trying! Fact is, I’ve made quite the study out of writing proposals and take great pride in the fact that, regardless of the author, the subject matter or the genre I can typically get at least a dozen or so agents/publishers to at least read the proposal.

And if you can get a busy agent or publisher to read your proposal these days, you’re doing pretty well. Of course, that’s only half the battle; it’s getting them to sign a contract based on the proposal that really counts.

But here’s the thing about a book proposal: no matter how many rules you think apply, or how many books on technique and theory you’ve read, what I’ve learned about proposals over the last three or four years of steady publishing success is this: you are in control of the words.

Once you get over the hyperventilation, panic and ulcers that come with starting a book proposal, you can finally dig down deep and start to create a really well-crafted, 30-50 page document that will knock their socks off.

Over the next few weeks we will discuss what I call the “7 Deadly ‘Ins’ of Book Proposals.” That is, the seven most vital things that go IN your book proposal. They are:

1.) General Overview
2.) Author Bio
3.) Platform, Publicity and Promotions
4.) Target Audience
5.) Competitive Analysis
6.) Annotated Table of Contents
7.) Sample Chapter(s)

Now, every agent, publisher or book will tell you different, but for me these “7 Deadly Ins” are what make up every one of my book proposals. So get ready, we’re going to pick yours proposals apart and put them back together again until you are happy, confident and satisfied that yours is the best it can possibly be!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Miscellaneous Publishing Tip # 6: Be Obsessed With the Business of Writing

2009-01-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

Publishing is a business; writing is a business. Pitching to agents is a business; landing one is BIG business! I find it helps to be fairly obsessed with the business of writing, pitching, agents and publishing if you really, really want to get published.

This means:

haunting bookstores to see what’s selling and what’s on the clearance
reading, reading, reading books, books,
devouring sample query letters and proposals on agents’
getting to know the 25 best agents in the genre your write
getting to know the 25 best publishers in your
book-marking your five favorite agent, publisher or writing blogs and reading them every

It’s okay that writing is a business; better to know it now and work the system than give up on your dreams of getting published। Yes, it can be a pain to jump through all the hoops agents put in your way and add all the bells and whistles publishers require in a book proposal, but over the years I’ve found that those bells, whistles and hoops are there for a reason.

The more you know about publishing, the more you consider yourself a businessperson first and an author second, the more chances you have of succeeding in this challenging but rewarding business!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

A Word on My Favorite Subject: Subject Lines That Pop!

2009-01-25T09:42:00.001-08:00

Obviously, the first thing an agent sees when they find your email query in their in-box is your subject line. I won’t say the subject line can make or break your query letter, but agents and publishers are only human; if the subject line is boring, chances are the query letter will be boring, too. They may open it, despite the yawn-reflex, but why make it a chore?

That said, there are a few things you can do to make your subject line pop:

The first thing you want to do is make sure they know it’s a query letter. I always start the subject line off with the word – “Query,” then I put a colon and follow it, typically, with the title of the book… IF it’s good.

Last year I worked on a book – later to become a New York Times bestseller – called Crack the Fat-Loss Code. The subject line for that one was easy – Query: Crack the Fat-Loss Code. We got a lot of hits on that one. And why not? The title was catchy, diet books are always potential big sellers and the short, sweet subject line made people curious: What IS the “fat-loss code” and how can I crack it?

So if your book title is intriguing, clever and has bestseller written all over it, use the book title. Sometimes, the subtitle works better. Earlier this year I helped an author with her book on relationships. The title worked well with the subtitle, but not so well alone; that didn’t necessarily make it a bad title, but in this case the subtitle – How to Love the One You’re With – was just a tad better and helped, in seven words or less, explain the actual contents of the query better.

So far you have two choices: the book’s title and the book’s subtitle. A third and sometimes better choice is if you have some defining personal characteristic, attribute, award, notoriety, fame or following to include, kind of like a headline versus a subject line – and thus doubly effective.

So maybe you say, “Query: New book by author just featured on 20/20.” That’s good. Or, “Query: Baby-Daddy Blog with 40,000 unique hits per day ready to give birth to book.” That’s good, too. Or, “Query: Reality TV Show Contestant Tells All in Hilarious New Memoir.” Nice!

The point is to be honest, sincere but also… enticing! Obviously, don’t say you’ve been on 20/20 if you haven’t, or list the number of readers of your blog if it’s only 4 people – one of whom is your mom! (Thanks, Mom!) This is the email version of the famous elevator pitch: you’ve got less than 4 seconds to make an impression, so you want to make it good. Any of the above three tips work wonders.

PS: IF neither your title nor subtitle clearly convey the message of your book quickly enough to paste into your average email subject line, it might be time to rethink either – or both!

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

The Big Day: Querying the Modern Way

2009-01-25T09:41:00.002-08:00

Okay, here we go; you’re ready to query and you’re at your computer and the smooth jazz station is playing softly in the background, an aromatherapy candle is mildly flickering in the corner, maybe you’re wearing your lucky bunny slippers and… it’s ON.

So, what first? First you find the best database for tracking down agents or publishers. There are dozens out there; I’m not going to date myself or hem you in by listing my top-10 favorites here. The way I’ve always found mine is just by googling “literary agent list” or “list of book publishers” and trying them out.

Do this, and then come back; it’s okay, I’ll wait. Okay, okay… if you DON’T want to Google those keywords yourself – and I can’t say as I blame you – I’ve included my Top-5 Best Literary Agent Directories here on the blog. Just scroll down to the left, there beneath some book covers from my latest clients, and you’ll find this handy, categorized list just waiting for you! Check them out, THEN get back to me!

All right, now that you’ve got your favorite list open – and I’m assuming you already have one if you’re ready to query, that’s why I’m being a little flip about the whole deal – just start going down the list.

Read it carefully. The lists you find on the internet are only as good as the time you put into them. There was a list I used years ago that just listed the email address of every agent on the planet; that’s it, just the email address and name of the agent. I would just start down the list and start firing away; rarely did I get a decent response.

The best kinds of lists are those that read like a database; they list the agent’s name, genres represented, years in business and, hopefully, the agent’s own website where you can click the link and visit it personally; do this. It only takes an extra five minutes or so and it’s well worth the time and effort. You can often see book covers from recent sales, the agent’s “likes and dislikes” and even the pictures of some of his or her authors. This all helps you understand how to target your query letter better.

If “Amy Algorithm” publishes the types of book you write, pitch her with your email query; if not, move on to “Adam Arkansas” and on down the list. This way you’re sure to target the right agent for you and follow their guidelines specifically.

How do you do this quickly and efficiently? I always have two windows open on my browser while I’m doing this: one with the agent or publisher database and one with the query letter I sent myself the day before. When I find an agent or editor that is right for me, I click on their email address, copy and paste the subject line from my query letter (more on that tomorrow) into the new subject line, then copy and paste the text from the body of my email into the new agent or editor email; when I’m sure both pieces are there, I personalize it with the agent’s name and let it fly!

And that, my friends, is querying in the modern age!

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Miscellaneous Publishing Tip # 5: Personalization is Key

2009-01-25T09:41:00.001-08:00

I hope you don’t think that by suggesting you strip down your query letters and email them that I’m recommending “blast” email campaigns, SPAM or impersonalized responses; I’m not. I’m just letting you know that the books I read on writing query letters while coming up wouldn’t work anymore; they’re too outdated and old.

And while, yes, it’s more convenient for me to sit here in my boxers and t-shirt and email query a few dozen agents in one day rather than print and fold and address and stamp all those snail mails, it’s also just plain the preferred way of querying most agents today.

That said, once you’ve written the query, formatted it sparsely, sent it to yourself and read it a couple dozen times over, the time has come to send these puppies out. Before you do (and we’ll get to that tomorrow) one last word about the “guts” of your email, starting at the top: whenever, wherever and as often as possible PLEASE personalize your email query.

I always start the rough draft of my query with “Dear Editor” and it stays there until the day I start querying for real. But every time I find the name of the agent I want to send it to or the editor I’m querying, I replace “Dear Editor” with “Dear Susan Strange, Associate Agent” or “Dear Phil Copperbottom, Acquisitions Editor.”

Occasionally you will read a publisher’s submission guidelines and they’ll say, “Please address your query letter to ‘Acquisitions Department.’” Okay, obviously, if the publisher or agent is telling you different, their guidelines trump my advice. BUT… in 9 out of 10 cases you’ll be able to find a name.

When you can, as often as possible, use it. I know it’s tempting to just write “Dear Literary Agent” and let it fly, over and over again but, seriously, how lame does that look? It’s like getting a postcard that says, “Dear Resident.” My first instinct is to throw it out, sight unseen. The last thing you want an agent to do is to feel the same way about that query letter you’ve worked so long and hard on…

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Before You Query Anybody, Query Yourself First (And Then Sleep On It!)

2009-01-25T09:40:00.004-08:00

I always send myself an email query first because then I can let it sit there overnight, open it up first thing the next morning – with a fresh pair of eyes – and see it as an agent or publisher might. No matter how many times I’ve spellchecked it, formatted it, shaved it down or propped it up, I almost always catching something that would have embarrassed me if I’d sent it out “as is” the day before.

Like spelling “weak” for “week,” or “their” for “there.” These are simple mistakes but people – especially people in publishing – notice. So after you’ve sent it to yourself sleep on it and read it the next morning; read it with a fresh pair of eyes and don’t “skim” it – really, really read it.

Once a query letter is done, I rarely ever read it again; I just keep copying and pasting it and personalizing it and sending it out. So this is my last real chance to read it all the way through and make sure it’s tight, right and clean.

This also lets you check for formatting issues, to see if your commas turned into question marks or your apostrophes turned into commas; these things happen, only the internet gods know why, but if you catch them now you can stop them early.

Lastly, this is a good chance to see if the query tests your patience. If you’re finding yourself rushing through it after a few paragraphs it might still need some cutting. It’s not fun to edit one last time, but if it helps the query be read by someone who’s never read it before, all the better.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

One Simple Rule for Formatting Your E-mail Query: DON’T!

2009-01-25T09:40:00.003-08:00

I know you’re used to seeing a lot of bullet points in my blog entries but this one really only has one simple rule when it comes to formatting an email query letter: less is more.

I don’t bold; I don’t italicize. I don’t even ALL CAPS. I write my query first in Word and save it as “text-only.” That way, all of the fancy formatting I would use in a snail mail query or a proposal or even a manuscript gets lost.

Why? I don’t need it and, what’s worse, the more bells and whistles you throw at an email query the more chances you have of an agent or publisher opening it up and it being illegible. Have you ever gotten an email from someone and it looked like it had been written in a foreign language?

Why risk it?

So write your query, make it a page, read and re-read it but save the formatting for the proposal!

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Miscellaneous Publishing Tip # 4: Still in the Game (If You’re Patient)

2009-01-25T09:40:00.001-08:00

I got a couple emails over the weekend that really made me stop and think about this querying game. The first was from a client updating me that his book was being considered by three really good houses; the second was from another client letting me know her agent had shifted gears from big publishers to small and was finding success with a few select, smaller-audience specialty publishers and two were VERY interested.

Okay, this is not so uncommon but my point is the first gentleman and I wrote his query LAST SUMMER and the second woman and I wrote her query LAST FALL. So for Mr. X we’ve been querying solidly since, I’d say, early to mid-August and for Mrs. Y we’ve been hitting publishers hard since late October. And even with all that said, being “considered” by a couple of publishers still means any kind of decision is at least a month or two out.

So above all the query letter writing rules I’ve shared with you so far and before I get into the formatting stuff we’ll cover this week, I just wanted to backtrack a little and say: BE PATIENT! I know that advice sucks and isn’t so fun to hear, but as my wife Martha always says, “It is what it is until it isn’t anymore.”

I’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years now and when times are tight like they are right now my goals go from getting 5-figure jobs to just plain getting paid for the jobs I’ve done. I remember after 9-11 when nearly every client I had stopped paying; didn’t delay, just stopped paying altogether. It was months before some of them paid up, and I still haven’t collected on others. It was a lean time for lots of people and many times I wanted to give up, but I had a long-range goal to see me through the tight times. I knew if I could just stay in the game long enough things would eventually turn around and, thank God, they did.

Now I’m having a lot of those feelings again, as I’m sure a lot of you are and, frankly, so are many of the agents I’m speaking with week in, week out during this crisis and the publishers they’re speaking to, week in, week out. So now more than ever keep querying, keep track of who you’re querying and keep querying some more. Just stay in the game, as long as you can, and you WILL get responses.

Yours in publishing,
Rusty

Miscellaneous Publishing Tip # 3: Seeing the Silver Lining in That Rejection Letter

2009-01-11T07:32:00.003-08:00

So, you’ve written your query letter – congrats – and now you’re ready to send it off. In coming weeks I’ll post about the submission process, the ins and outs, but before I do I wanted to spend just a few paragraphs readying you for rejection.

NOT because your book sucks, but because the economy does! Now more than ever, good projects are getting turned down – sight unseen – because publishers are leery of what the next year or two will hold.

BUT… that doesn’t mean they’re not still looking at things. Your job now, more than ever, is to make them see the logic of why your book deserves to get published. But along the way, you’re going to get a rejection letter or two – or two or three dozen!

Fear not, I have probably learned as much – if not more – about publishing from the many rejection letters I’ve received over the years than the ones who asked to see a proposal without comment or complaint. (Not that I’m complaining about NOT getting rejected, mind you!)

The truth is, some rejections are flat-out form letter, no information crap shoots. Generic in every sense of the word. But, if your query was at all well-written or your project at-all enticing, most editors will at least give you a quick “shout out” with a personal note.

For instance, even if an editor writes back “not for me, thanks” you now know that Susie Jones at Jones Literary Agency doesn’t like your spy fiction; duly noted. Now you can at least cross her off your list and skip the 30-seconds it took you to email query her next time!

Maybe an agent or editor scrawls something like “your word count is too short; I’d need at least 60,000-words to sell this.” Well, maybe that gets you thinking and you check publisher’s websites for submission guidelines and, actually, 60,000-words is their minimum as well. Point taken; lesson learned.

Perhaps an agent simply says something semi-encouraging like, “I’d love to take a look at this in six months when I get back from maternity leave. If you need an answer before then, well, I’ll have to pass…” This isn’t quite a rejection, but it IS a touch of a hurdle. The choice is yours whether you want to wait or not, but again – at least you know who’s on maternity leave now!

These are just some of the many tidbits you can glean from an otherwise depressing rejection letter. The point I’m trying to make with this brief post is to get you to not take rejection at face value; but to read between the lines to find the silver lining in EVERY rejection.

EVEN if you’ve queried an agent 25 times and ALWAYS gotten the same exact form rejection letter – no personal notes, no insight, no maternity leave, no smiley faces – that tells you one thing: maybe this agent isn’t worth your time.

And when it comes to querying, sometimes focusing on the right people to the exclusion of the wrong makes more sense than merely blitzing everybody, regardless of your chances. So see, even when a rejection really IS a rejection, you can still learn something from it; even if it’s just not to ever send to that person again!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Miscellaneous Publishing Tip # 2: A Few More “Quick” Words on the Query Letter

2009-01-11T07:32:00.001-08:00

I don’t want you to get me wrong if you read my last post with tongue planted firmly in cheek; I really DO take querying seriously. I’ve just found that when I take it too seriously, I freeze up, lose a lot of my creativity and wind up with something too structured and sterile to really convey the message of my client’s project.

I find that when I’m loose and free and relaxed and able to really focus on the benefits of my client’s book, I can then let fly with a query letter that is both strong and compelling.

The other day a client came to me looking for help with her book proposal. My first question was, “Well, do you have a query letter or will you need that, too?”

I was maybe a little flip, like how could any civilian come up with a query letter on her own??? (The nerve!) Hesitantly, she admitted she had and had already sent it to a few agents and two of them had shown interested and now wanted to see the proposal; and could I help her with that, please.

I swallowed some crow and said, “Oh, sure, absolutely! Can I see the query letter first?”

And what she sent was really, really great. It didn’t follow any strict rules or structure, didn’t open with a question, fact or statistic, just basically hit the ground running and expressed the main idea of the client’s project from word one and never quite let up. I was impressed, thrilled and a bit chagrined to realize I’d spent so much time focusing in structure over substance for so many years.

So I say all that to say this: structure is important, but not if you sacrifice substance to get it. At the end of the day, your query letter should stress the main idea of your book. If you read a great-looking query letter but STILL have no idea what the book is about, well, what’s the point? It may as well be written in French!

So follow the rules; your rules. My best advice to you as we slowly wrap up our weeks-long course in query letter writing is to write, write, write – then write some more. The more mystical and academic and obtuse you make this query-letter writing exercise, the harder it’s going to be to actually sit down and write the thing.

And writing it is the whole point. Even if your first draft is bad, just knowing it’s bad is half the battle. Write some more to make it better, then edit it down and write a little more and edit some more until you are satisfied.

Trust yourself, know the rules but don’t dwell on them and, most of all, understand why you’re writing your book in the first place. The best query letters I’ve ever read/written were for very clearly-defined projects with powerful payoffs and a clear target audience. The easier it is to describe your book in one page or less, the easier it is to write your query letter.

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

Never Query on Friday – And Other “Rules” I Don’t Follow

2009-01-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

Google “query letter” and you’re likely to find about a gazillion hits, many of them sending you to sites like mine where some quasi-expert walks you through the steps of writing a query letter. While this can all be well and good, it’s time to pull a little mystique away from the query letter itself and give yourself permission to breath; just… breathe!

Yes, the query letter is important, yes, there are certain rules you must abide by – like use proper punctuation and spelling, etc. – but as long as you’ve got a great, carefully thought-out, well-written letter describing a book that can reasonably be expected to sell well, you can let yourself off the hook and quit crossing all your fingers and toes.

Of course, you can take my advice with a grain of salt; just like I take everybody else’s advice when I read it. An agent once told me, “Never query on a Friday, my in-box is full of all the queries I haven’t gotten to all week and I’m out to lunch by 3 p.m.!” Another agent once said, “Friday is the best time to catch me; I often stay late and by then I’ve finally caught up on all my emails!”

So who to believe? Well, you can start with yourself; have faith in your idea, take the time to write and pitch a strong query letter that answers the 5 basic questions we’ve touched on in this blog and… just… relax.

FYI, here are some other “rules” I should probably follow but don’t – or can’t – and why:

Keep it to one page: I often can’t, no matter how hard I try। This is one I struggle with to this day, but I can safely say this: no one who has rejected one of my queries has ever said it was because the letter was too long। The truth is, if my query is over one-page it’s because there were that many selling points। I look at it like this: every paragraph should lead with a headline. If it doesn’t have an added bonus potential when I’m editing – like the author speaks at x amount of colleges per year or there are 20-million people in the target audience – I can likely throw it out.

Never send it by email: This is old-school, dinosaur advice। The agents who used to say this to me three years ago – even two years or one year ago – are the same ones posting “We ONLY accept e-mail queries” today। On the other hand… never kill a lead. If there is a super-duper agent who just seems right for you – handles your type of book exclusively, is nurturing and solicitous of new writers, etc. – BUT she only deals with snail mail, well… you can always make an exception.

Never query on Friday: I have broken this rule a couple dozen times this month already and about a gazillion times last year. I have queried on Friday night, Sunday morning, Halloween and Christmas Eve; if the letter is good enough, if the project will sell, if the agent is right for you – he or she WILL respond regardless of the date or time stamp!

Okay, so maybe I’ve got an attitude about query letters and you may or may not have found this information helpful, but remember this: actions speak louder than .The more you query, the more you get feedback from agents and publishers about your project.

I’m not saying to send in a “sloppy copy” just so you can learn by rejection, but you WILL learn by rejection either way. And the only way to get started on your education is to start submitting!

Yours in publishing,

Rusty

How to Start Your Query: To Question, Quote or Calculate?

2009-01-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

The opening line of a query letter can, to a busy agent or editor, make or break his or her chances of reading the rest of it. So every word counts. Accordingly, many people believe in starting the query one way or another. Some start with a joke, a mystery, a pun or a salacious bit of headline news.

What works? What doesn’t? There’s no easy answer to that question except to say that whatever gets results – i.e. an agent or editor asking to see more of your work – works! (Whatever doesn’t, doesn’t.)

Far be it from me to limit how you begin this most critical document, but over the years I have found that almost ALL successful query openings – of mine, at least – fall under three main categories:

A Question: “What if, right now, today, I could offer you a way to leap frog over your next round of interviews, promotions or qualifications and skip straight to the top of the corporate game? My new book, Leapfrogging to Success, is the one resource you need to…” This is an example of how to use an intriguing question to open up your query letter। Questions can be very effective because they immediately convey to the agent or editor exactly what you’ll be answering with your book। Oftentimes the question you’re asking sounds like it’s coming directly from a potential reader, thus giving an agent or editor an instant buy-in.

A Quote: “It was Mark Twain who said, ‘Dance like no one’s watching,’ but what if everybody – specifically at your office holiday party – is watching VERY closely?!? My new book, How to Avoid Office Party Blunders, answers the age-old question of...” Quotes can help open a query letter by succinctly – and often cleverly – expressing the main point of your book project in one sentence or less। They don’t have to be just literary quotes, though, you can quote a client who had a particular problem your business book answers, for instance, or quote a current celebrity who has fallen prey to some other kind of problem your book answers। I remember last year when pitching a beauty pageant winner’s book on manners and etiquette, we were able to use headlines from several prominent newspapers about how Paris, Lindsay and Britney were almost daily making a public spectacle of themselves; it was a very effective way of proving my client’s point that class never goes out of style। For that matter, quotes are extremely effective in giving your subject instant credibility.

A Calculation: “Every year in this country, x amount of people gain enough extra weight to make them officially considered obese। My new book, How to Stop the Obesity Epidemic, will help people…” A calculation, or a statistic (but that didn’t begin with a “C”), is a great way to prove your point that your book will help people in some specific way and, furthermore, that there are plenty of people – “x amount of people per day” – who actively need your help. Just remember, the more credible your source for the statistic is, say the Centers for Disease Control as opposed to Mike’s website on chronic diseases, the more effective your calculation or statistic becomes.

In coming weeks we’ll be writing a query letter together, from top to bottom and back up again, so you’ll see how some of these options come to life in a very real and dynamic way. You’ll also see how each of the “top-5” questions every query letter should answer (see my last 2 posts) look in real-life, in real-time, and I think that will be exciting for many of you.

Until then, keep getting to know your project back and forth, sideways and upside down. The more you know what you’re writing about, the easier it will be to, well, write about!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

The Top-5 Questions Every Query Letter Should Answer

2009-01-05T08:54:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest complaints I hear about the writing of query letters is how hard they are to start. I agree, with so much riding on every word, beginning a query letter can be particularly challenging. But structure often leads to results, and by knowing what – exactly – to include in your query letter it might just “prime the creativity pump” and get you started sooner rather than later.

In my last post I hinted at the “top-5” questions every query letter should answer; well, here they are (at least, according to me)। Agents, publishers, other writers and even editors themselves might debate their particular order, or even what to put on this list, but for me these top-5 questions have worked – and worked well – over the last decade or so:

What is this book about? Busy agents and editors don’t have a lot of time for cute puns, witticisms or, for that matter, mystery। They want to know, and know quickly, what exactly your book is about। A lot of times your title can help with this. If you’re writing a book called Business Attire for Young Professionals, well, you’ve likely answered this question in the subject line of your email query. However, even a self-explanatory title should still warrant a paragraph about the benefits of your book.

Why should people read it? This question is vital, so answer it carefully। It’s important that the agent or editor know WHY people should read your book। If you’ve found a specific quote, anecdote or statistic that states, for instance, young people are not getting hired as often these days specifically because they don’t dress appropriately for interviews, that’s a great way to open this section of your query; you’ve just proven a unique need for your book, in particular.

What will they get out of it? This paragraph is slightly different from the earlier question in that here you can list specific benefits readers can expect from your book, such as learning the appropriate attire for a job interview or how casual to dress on casual Friday, as opposed to the more general reasons you wrote about above।

Why are you the person to write it? What specific credentials, interests or personal history do you bring to this project that makes you uniquely qualified to write it। For instance, do you work in fashion or human resource, thus making you uniquely qualified to write Business Attire for Young Professionals? You’ll hear this phrase a lot throughout the life of this blog, but agents and editors prefer to see “like with like।” What do I mean? If you’re a doctor, write on medical subjects. If you’re a lawyer, write a legal book. If not, show why your credentials in one field (medicine) lend themselves to another (such as writing a medical thriller). In other words, here you would want to give people more than just your resume but why, specifically, your qualifications make you the perfect author for this particular project.

Who – and how many people – could/should read it? At the end of the day, publishing is a business। No matter how much my clients and I dream of making the world a better place through our collaborations, agents and publishers want to make a buck; knowing there is an audience, and preferably a large one, for your book helps them decide whether or not to pursue it. The more facts and figures you can throw behind this number, the better. For instance, if you can find a great, credible source that says “x amount of people apply for a job each day,” that is a great line to help prove to agents and editors that “x amount of people x 365 days per year x the life of Business Attire for Young Professionals” will be interested in your topic!

If you can answer all five of these questions simply and succinctly, you are well on your way to creating a compelling, tightly-pitched query letter that WILL get an agent or editor’s attention. The rest, of course, is up to you – and your book proposal. (But more on both of those later…)

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Which Came First: The Query or the Proposal???

2009-01-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

The query letter – your original “pitch” letter of introduction to an agent or publisher – is probably one of the most critical phases of the pitch process itself. This not-so-simple one-to-one-and-a-half page letter can often “make or break” the chances of anyone ever seeing that book proposal you’ve worked so hard on.

What’s more, the first few paragraphs – sometimes just the first few sentences – of your query letter determine if anyone will read the rest of it. I’ve had several agents tell me they knew whether or not they’re going to “bite” on the query by halfway through the second paragraph. Clearly, that’s not a lot of time for you to state your case, so anything – and everything – you can do to create a compelling query letter should and must be done.

This often brings to mind a common client question: should I write the query or the proposal first?

Many people write the query before the proposal; I write it only once the proposal is completely done. Why? Simple; by the time I’ve written a client’s book proposal I know their project about as intimately as I’m going to. Between writing, reading, rewriting and rereading the Overview, Table of Contents and Sample Chapters, specifically, it’s often much easier for me to craft a quick, tight, compelling and most of all accurate query letter.

In fact, I believe the two work hand-in hand. For instance, knowing the query can’t be fully informed until after I craft the full proposal helps me keep the query in mind as I’m actually writing the book proposal itself (and helps me cut “fat” from the proposal itself by losing those sentences, phrases or paragraphs that aren’t purposeful). Likewise, knowing bits and pieces of the proposal – most likely from the Overview – will be used in the query letter itself, and often verbatim, help me make that portion of the proposal tighter and more solid as well.

There are several basic questions the query – and, by association, the proposal – should answer:

What is this book about?
Why should people read it?
What will they get out of it?
Why are you the person to write it?
Who – and how many people – could/should read it?

I’ll go into more detail about each of these questions, specifically, in my next post. For now, though, keeping these questions in mind throughout the proposal process makes writing the query letter that much easier. So, short answer, the query should typically come after the proposal. (For the long answer, re-read this post!)

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Make Mondays Meaningful: 3 Things You Can Do EVERY Week to Get Published Sooner

2009-01-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

I always look forward to Mondays; it’s a new week, a new opportunity for me to help my clients get published. It can be daunting in these challenging times to face the already competitive publishing arena with a bright outlook, but if you stay positive and proactive about getting published, you can defy the odds and make 2009 your year to debut that new book. The following three tips will help:

Tip # 1 – Browse Your Bookmarks: The web has made my job increasingly easier over the years and there has never been a better time to make it work for you. I have a bookmark folder called “Every Monday” filled with the five top sites I use each week. These include the links for Publisher’s Weekly magazine, Writer’s Digest and http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/, among others। By fully digesting the news on these sites once a week, I stay prepared for the next seven days with news, updates and developments I might not have read if I hadn’t bookmarked these sites years ago.

Tip # 2 – Set a Goal: Monday is a great time to set a realistic goal, publish your intentions (by writing it down somewhere) and working hard all week to achieve it। It could be something as aggressive as “starting my book proposal” or as simple as “finish those last five pages of Chapter 2.” The point isn’t to gauge your progress on how big the goal is, but by how close you get to reaching it.

Tip # 3 – Submit, Submit, Submit!!!: If your goal is to be published, you should always be submitting. Or thinking about submitting, or researching who to submit to or polishing your draft or filling in your proposal or tightening your query letter. We will cover all of these issues in greater detail throughout the life of this blog, but the important thing here is to remember that ALL of these things count as submitting. So every Monday, do something active and physical to move you toward the ultimate goal of submitting your query, proposal or manuscript.

Mondays don’t have to be a bummer; when you want to get published, every productive day brings you one step closer to your goal – even Monday!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Miscellaneous Publishing Tip # 1: What Agents Know That You Don’t (Or Can’t)

2009-01-01T10:23:00.002-08:00

Let me pause in this discussion of the submission process to explain something it took me a long time to learn: believe it or not, you and I don’t know everything there is to know about publishing!

We can read Publisher’s Weekly every day, scour http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ every hour on the hour and have a lifetime subscription to Writer’s Digest carefully organized on our bookshelves, but we’re still not in the trenches of publishing getting the inside scoop from editors that count.

We’re still very much on the outside, looking in.

Agents are on the inside, and they can tell you the various reasons why you might get rejected and/or be asked to rewrite your proposal. Things like:

Several publishing houses are coming out with books just like yours next year: What we see on the bookstore shelves, or even on Amazon।com, can be months or up to a year from when they were accepted. This often leaves huge, gaping gaps in what you and I see in our pre-publication research and what agents know about months in advance.

Two books like yours didn’t sell/lost money for publishers last year: The closest we can get to seeing how well – or poorly – a book sells is its amazon।com sales rank. But agents and publishers can see up-to-the-minute sales stats (via Nielsen BookScan) and know quickly if a book is doing well or not. If eight books on recruiting did poorly last quarter, chances are editors won’t be looking too favorably on your new recruiting book.

Editors aren’t interested in this genre anymore: From time to time, book genres go in and out of vogue। Be it legal thrillers, chick-lit or do-it-yourself, it’s hard to predict what publishers are going to be excited about in 2009-2010; agents typically know because they’re talking to them every day.

You could really catch an editor’s eye if you’d just add this aspect to your pitch: Agents often say things to me like, “I was just talking to an editor the other day and she was asking if I had read any good parenting proposals lately…” Or, “If you get a client who has experience in pre-foreclosure, send him or her my way…” Believe it or not, publishers are actively on the lookout for good books that fill good slots and produce good sales। If you’re willing to adapt and are the least bit flexible, a savvy agent could help you fine-tune your pitch and/or proposal specifically to meet publishers’ high expectations.

It’s easy to “shoot the messenger” and see literary agents as know-it-all snobs who just treat you like a number while forwarding you daily rejections, but in many cases there are specific reasons WHY you get rejected and it’s the agent on the front lines who can help you avoid rejection next time।

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

A Few Words on WHY the 3-Step Process Works

2009-01-01T10:23:00.001-08:00

The one thing I’ve found in doing this for nearly ten years is that there is a process in place because it works; it works for you and I, it works for the agents and it works for the publishers.

Publishers look to agents to “filter” out not only the bad or ill-timed ideas but also to help potential authors craft what I call “camera-ready” projects that can go into the publication pipeline quickly and easily. This 3-step process helps your agent help you because he or she can easily step into the creative process at any time during one, two or all of these three steps.

For instance, if an agent or editor likes your query letter but not your proposal, occasionally he or she will step in and offer a few solid tips on how to rewrite the proposal so they will like it. I am constantly rewriting proposals I thought were “final,” either one or two sections or the entire thing, to please an agent who knows what I’m cutting out – or adding – will help the publisher accept it more readily.

Just the other day I had to rewrite one single, defining paragraph of a General Overview because the agent “couldn’t get past it.” He could, literally, but it had stopped him in his tracks the first time he read it and bugged him long afterward. (And, I had to admit, he was right.) This kind of thing happens all the time, so it’s important to buy into the three-step process and treat it as a living thing. In other words, the proposal is never done until an agent says it’s done.

And even then, it might not be done! Over the summer I had several publishers respond to agents that they liked a client’s idea but wanted to see it changed “dramatically” before they’d agree to publish it. Sometimes the title was the problem, other times it was the outline or Table of Contents. Whatever the case, be prepared to rewrite the proposal multiple times – particularly in this troubling economy – before an agent agrees to sign you or a publisher agrees to put their confidence in you.

Yes, it’s a pain but that’s why it’s called a process!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Part and Parcel of the Publishing Process: 3 Simple Steps to Standard Submission

2009-01-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

Nearly every day clients ask me to sum up how I go about submitting to agents and publishers and I have to give them this big, long schpiel that I know leaves them confused and unsatisfied.

For some reason I never saw fit to document it… until now.

Although there is a lot that leads up to, goes into and follows each of these steps – and we’ll cover them in detail throughout the life of this blog – for now it’s probably a good time to at least get comfortable with the three steps of the submission process:

Step 1 – Query: Your first step is to submit a 1-page query letter to the agent/editor। We will be going through the query letter process extensively through this blog, not only what goes into writing a good one but how to submit one as well, and you can find countless samples elsewhere on the web। Where? I’ve found the best places are on agent’s websites। Many agents post sample query letters that work – and don’t work – right under their submission guidelines and this can be very helpful in tailor-crafting a query letter that works.

Step 2 – Proposal: AFTER an agent or publisher sees your query letter and writes back asking to see more, you send them the book proposal you’ve worked so hard on। NOT at the same time you query and NOT if they reject you and you think they’ll “change their mind once they see the proposal।” Query first, get a “yes” or “let’s see more” response and then send your proposal.

Step 3 – Follow-through: Once you’ve pitched an agent with a query and sent in a proposal to an interested party, there is a third follow-up step where either a.) the agent is interested and wants to see more or talk to you or b.) the agent has some questions he or she emails or calls you with, such as how often you speak in front of an audience or how soon can you update your website, etc. This third step can change depending on the project, but typically a good proposal will result in the necessity for a third step.

Like I said, you could write an entire blog – or book – about each of these 3 steps, but it’s surprising how many people skip one or two steps altogether। I’m always getting clients who pitched an agent last year with a query letter, but had no proposal to follow it up with (and missed a great opportunity with an interested agent), or vice versa who just attached a proposal without a query letter or enticing “pitch” of any kind and were surprised – shocked – to find the agent “un-responsive।”

Following the bare-bones of the process at the very least ensures that you are taken seriously by any reputable agent. And that’s reason enough to familiarize yourself with it now and throughout the life of this publishing blog.

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

How to Land a Literary Agent in 2009: My Top-5 Quick Tips

2009-01-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

The other day I got an email from a famous writer’s magazine promising me all I’d need to know about “How to Land a Literary Agent” for around 200 bucks. I had to admit, even knowing all I know about agents – from speaking to, working for or querying them directly – the offer was tempting.

Was there something I was missing? Did someone else know more than I do? Was there still something else to learn after nearly a solid decade of pitching to, being rejected by and finally landing some of the better agents in the biz?

Well, of course there was! Obviously no one knows all there is to know about literary agents, absolutely someone – or many someone’s – know more than I do about lit agents and of course there will always be something new to learn about the publishing industry with each passing day.

In fact, I learned something the minute I got that email; people are willing to pay big bucks to learn how to land a literary agent. I’m lucky; for me, it’s the other way around: I actually get paid to find people literary agents!

Okay, okay – clients actually pay me to help write their books with them but part and parcel of that process is helping them land a reputable literary agent in order to find a solid book publisher. So, as part of their fees, clients are literally paying me to land a literary agent.

I like to think I’ve put their money to good use। And now I’d like to return the favor and use this FREE blog to give you a quick injection of FREE advice about HOW TO LAND A LITERARY AGENT. In fact, here are my top-5 tips for doing just that:

Tip # 1 – Know Where to Look: You have to have a trusted “database” of agents you recognize, respect and who sell the kinds of books you write। Over the course of this blog I will share with you my favorite(s), but it’s important to get familiar with and bookmark your top two or three favorites to use over and over अगं.

Tip # 2 – Know What They Want: Some agents handle only one thing, some handle everything; most handle a little bit of a lot but typically tend to specialize in several of their favorite genres। For instance, you know a good romance agent when her website is covered with romance covers in the “Recent Sales” department! So as you’re scouting agent websites to add to your personal database (see Tip # 1, above) don’t rush; spend some time to get to know who you’re pitching and what they really represent।

Tip # 3 – Know What You’re Good At: I always get excited when I find a great, new agent but that doesn’t always mean the agent is right for me or my client(s) at the time। Just because a great business agent is open for submissions doesn’t mean he or she is right for you if you’re writing a memoir, know what I mean? If you know you’re meant to write romance, great; find a great romance agent। But don’t try to write romance just because an agent is eager to find new authors!

Tip # 4 – Know Who is Who: Clients come to me because I pay close attention to agents and what they’re up to। For instance, I can look at a list of my favorite 50 or so agents and tell you who is on maternity leave, who is no longer accepting submissions until February ’09 (even though she just hasn’t updated her website yet) and who is eager for a hot new business title by an expert in his or her field। Agents are real people; they have personalities and plenty of ways to get to know them। Plenty of agents these days blog; others attend local or national writers’ conventions or “pitch sessions” or even keynote annual publishing conventions. Before you pitch an agent, Google him or her and find out as much as you can about their personal interests.

Tip # 5 – Know Why People Would Want This Book: Finding an agent is important; landing an agent is even more so। And to land an agent you have to know how they think, and how they think is single-minded: they want to get books published. And every publisher every agent pitches to is going to ask them just one thing: Why would people want to buy this book? The sooner you answer that question yourself, the sooner you can answer – and land – an agent.

Of course, the life of this blog revolves around finding agents and securing publishers, so we’ll be adding to this list over the weeks and months to come. But this is a great way to focus your agent/publisher search in the New Year!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Top-3 New Year’s Resolutions for Soon-to-be Published Authors

2008-12-30T09:23:00.000-08:00

Nearly every day I speak to writers who want to be published authors. That’s the main reason I started this website: to help good writers become published authors. Good writers don’t want silver bullets or magic spells to help them be published; they just want a little inside information to help them over the slush pile. Throughout this blog I will be providing whatever inside information I can; today I wanted to start this new blog – and the New Year – with the best way I know how to start getting published today.

It all starts with you. Agents will change email addresses and submission guidelines, publishers will change editors and ongoing needs. What can you do to keep up, anticipate and respond to these nearly daily changes? You have to stay true to your goals and desires, but first you have to KNOW those goals and desires.

Today is a new day; give yourself over to opportunity and action in the New Year with these Top-3 New Year’s Resolutions for Wannabe Published Authors:

Resolution # 1 – Stop Making Excuses: We’re writers; it’s easy to make excuses about why not to write today, why not to finish that story, that query letter, that book proposal. But the choice is ours; to write or not to write. I know it sounds corny, but it’s true. Even though I make a living from my writing, every day is filled with choices; write for this client or write for that client. There is no clock to punch or boss looking over my shoulder. If I really wanted to I could watch soap operas all day, but I really want to write and so do you; so in 2009 let’s pledge to write more and make fewer excuses.
Resolution # 2 – Start Making Plans: You need a concrete goal to reach, even if it’s a small one. What does it mean to be a published author? It’s different for everybody, but in general it means seeing your name in print, either online or off. You’re reading this blog because you want to get published; so make getting published your goal. (Even if you’ve already been published, you’re obviously here because you like the feeling and want to get published more often!) Be specific; what do you want to publish and where? Do you want to publish your memoir, your self-help article about breastfeeding in public or your funny kids’ poems? Pick one, narrow your choices for publication down – the top six memoir publishers, the best 10 blogs about new motherhood or the top-5 kids poetry websites – and then start submitting. Don’t make a far-reaching goal like, “I want to get published this year”; that’s too broad. Make your goal more specific, like, “I will submit to one publication per week in 20090.” Now THAT’S a resolution you can stick to!

Resolution # 3 – Think of Where You’d Be THIS Year if You Started LAST Year: Getting published is a lot like going on a diet; the sooner you start, the faster you get results. If you never start, or if you keep quitting after two weeks, if you constantly cheat and make excuses, you’ll never lose weight; i.e. get published. This year resolve to do it; even if it’s just to get one story published in one magazine, one article published on one website or simply to self-publish your self-help golf book – set a goal and reach it. Even if you fail, even if your magazine piece doesn’t come out until 2010 or you have to scrimp your pennies to save up to self-publish your book and it’s just not gonna happen in 2009, at least you’ve set a goal and reached it. To me, that’s the test of a truly published author!

That’s it; if you just focus on these three resolutions, your chances of getting published in 2009 – and beyond – will increase dramatically. But how will you ever know unless you try? Thanks for reading, and best to you and yours in 2009!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty

Hope for the Future: A Word On Why You Shouldn’t Give Up Your Publishing Dreams in 2009

2008-12-30T09:13:00.000-08:00

All December long I told my clients not to even think about hearing back from agents and publishers past the 15th of the month. “They’ll all be gone,” I said, “decorating trees at their houses in the Hamptons.”

I just looked in my “old mail” folder and saw responses to queries on the 23rd, the 22nd, the 21st, the 20th, et al.

The last, on December the 23rd, said the following:

“Thank you for your query. We would be interested in seeing your work. Please send a full book proposal with author bio and marketing plan to the following address. Make sure to mark the envelope ‘Requested Material’ on the front…”

I guess it just goes to show that writers, clients, agents and publishers are individual; we all have our own schedules and we work in our own ways. True, the majority of agents and publishers virtually shut down for the last two weeks of the year – and some even for the first week of the New Year – but not everybody.

Which brings me to the point of this post: what will 2009 bring for authors wanting to get published?

We heard a lot of bad news in December. Best Buy’s profits down 77%; Circuit City going out of business, to say nothing of job cuts at nearly every major magazine, newspaper, publisher and even some of our favorite websites.

Not surprisingly, a lot of doom and gloom was spread about the publishing industry; I heard rumors over the last few weeks that some publishers had even “frozen” new submissions.

Well, that’s certainly nothing new; every month I see notices, mostly in big, bold ink and ALL CAP lettering, saying “submissions are closed until further notice” at agencies and publishers large and small.

I spoke to an agent just before the holidays who was rejecting a client’s proposal; she didn’t want me to fume over the break and when I asked her what 2009 might hold she said, “Good authors will find a way to make this work for them; tell your clients to remember that publishing is always a year ahead of the curve, and editors are always a year behind – act accordingly!”

I thought this was good advice, particularly as every proposal I wrote during December had the words “recession proof” in the title or subtitle and the phrase “now more than ever” in the opening paragraph.

Follow the headlines, but don’t believe every word you read. Pay attention to the news, but only to spot the trends. Know that plenty of agents and publishers are doing business and that books will come out in 2009, 2010 and beyond. What books? Who’s to say, but new alternatives, positive spins, unique ideas and fresh voices will always find a way to get published in ANY economy.

Persevere, take rejection professionally but not personally, and persist to make your publishing dreams come true. I have high hopes for 2009, and hopefully you and I can share great news together on the pages of this blog!!

Yours in Publishing,

Rusty