Rejected manuscripts, query letters, resumes: A response

Note: Vin Suprynowicz is the critically acclaimed author of several works as well as a nationally syndicated columnist. (I read him on the Las Vegas Review-Journal website.)

When Vin tried to leave a comment pursuant to my post about whether it’s okay to query more than one literary agent at a time, Blogger rejected it as too long. “AFTER I GET DONE, your robot tells me I've exceeded the 4,076 character limit,” he wrote in an email. “Is that 600 words? I write 1,200 words while I'm waiting for the teakettle toboil.”

To this introduction I add that Vin said what I wish I’d have been astute and brave enough to write.

  The old model, pretty dysfunctional for half a century anyway, is collapsing before our eyes.

The unspoken assumptions are: 1) I need a big-time New York publisher because only that person/outfit has the money and expertise to publish my book in attractive, professional form, get it professionally reviewed and get it into bookstores. Therefore, 2) Because hardly any publishers will still look at an unsolicited manuscript, I need a New York literary agent to open the gates to one of those publishers.

But read the final page of Richard Russell's 2006 "Book collector's Price Guide." He reports the effect of the calcification of publishing into the hands of a few green-eyeshade houses is "to freeze the state of literature and writing in general, keeping it within the bounds of the type of writing that has a 'winning track record.'" As a result, "Books published in the last decade in the United States will, over time, become worthless and fit only for the dollar bins. ..."

He's right. The shelves and tables are now full of ill-written derivative potboilers, shoddily bound. Anything new and refreshing tends to come from "outside the system," often in small press runs, 500 copies run off as a lark by some science fiction club or a socialist bookstore in the Haight or the Minnesota chapter of the Baker Street Irregulars.

Agents are told to "Go find me someone who can write just like ..." James Patterson, John Grisham, Alice Walker, whoever. They don't expect to find these people in the slush pile. You'd be FAR more likely to attract an agent's attention if you said you could prove you'd had a homosexual affair with Mitt Romney, "but I can barely write a grocery list; can you find me a ghost writer?"

THAT they know how to pitch.

And they pretend to serve at the altar of "literature"?

I once had a New York agent (actually signed a contract, the works) who's since written a book about "how to write a best-seller." All he ever did was ask me with great urgency whether I could "crank out a fictionalized biography of David Bowie in six weeks." By the time I got him an outline, five weeks later, he'd moved on to some other scheme, based on a different lunch with some other impresario.

The "rule" against multiple inquiries is for the convenience of agents and publishers, who pretend they're still a gentleman's club editing Scott Fitzgerald with pencils and sleeve garters and rubber cement, and thus further pretend to be outraged over the implication that they should get in a quick bid for your services, rather than watching you grovel at their feet for a month or two before moving on to woo their equally unattainable cousin in the next block. They act as though they're Scarlett O'Hara and you've just announced you intend to propose to the 40 prettiest girls in town, announcing you'll marry the first one who says "Yes." 

It's not a courtship; it's a business. (If it's a courtship, send flowers and ask if they prefer the missionary position.)

Why send out what amount to 40 form letters, a month apart over three years, when you can mail them all the same week?

Either way, 3 to 7 percent will reject you with a form letter, the rest will never reply at all. And I say this as someone who's made my living exclusively as a writer for 40 years, all of my books printed at professional binderies, all produced with private investment capital, with not a penny of the proceeds owed to any German banker pretending to be a publisher nor to any Sarah Lawrence graduate pretending to be a "literary agent."

The Internet is destroying their distribution monopoly; the rest of their haughty house of cards will collapse soon.

The expensive collectibles of tomorrow, Mr. Russell concludes, will be unusual, innovative books "subsidy published" in small press runs today ... the same way Poe subsidized the first printing of "Tamerlaine," the same way John Grisham subsidized the first publication of "A Time to Kill" by Wynwood Press in 1989.(Current value of a nice single copy: $4,000.)

And today's academics and "publishing professionals," far from being on the lookout for the new and the good, will reject it out of hand, Russell concludes, realizing that "a 'new' novel makes their years of knowledge, study and expertise obsolete."

-- V.S. 

Rejected manuscripts, query letters, resumes

A few posts back, I posted a copy of an email from an emerging author who asked why an agent query should be so different from a resume submission.

To get a job, he noted, he would send resumes to as many contacts as possible. Why then should he be cautioned to send only one query letter at a time.

No one has answered his question as yet.

Should he obey the rule? (Who set that rule anyway?)

She he throw that caution to the proverbial wind and hit every potential agent with a query?

I don't know.

Do you?

Meanwhile, to make him feel less discouraged if and when he starts receiving rejections (or getting no responses at all), I sent him to this website.

I hope it made him smile and gave him hope.

Related articles

• Querying Agents (katebrauning.wordpress.com)
• Learning the Literary Ropes (answers.com)

Query letters versus resumes

Here's a copy of an email message I received from an aspiring best-selling author, a man who has written his first novel.

Tell me why applying for representation from an agent is any different from applying for a job. For a job you send out 20 or 30 resumes, and with one or more replies you complete the applications and go for the interviews. Whoever picks you first, well, usually you take the first job that comes along.
 
Tell me why a literary agent is any different; you send out 20 or 30 query letters and whoever comes along first you jump on it.
I know I'm naive, but what else is new.

Can anyone tell me how to answer that?

Also, I know the stock answer; but in this day and age, when snagging an agent, yet alone a publisher, is getting harder and harder, should we play by their rules?

The future of publishing -- from my view

Just because I published my first novel as an eBook doesn’t mean I’m thinking or hoping that the print book will disappear from the face of the known universe. I love print books, have a lovely little library of my favorites, mostly hardbound, and I read them--often. I’m also privileged to have good friends who loan me books to read.

I’m also not thinking or hoping that the publishing industry fades into the sunset. The inherent value of this media is obvious. Publishers have editors who find typos, grammatical errors, inconsistencies, talented cover artists, typesetters who know the difference between an inch mark and a curly quote, all of which, the independents probably can’t afford to hire. This leaves the self-publisher working within the boundaries of their own knowledge and education--and sometimes (probably most of the time) that isn’t enough to get the job done right.

I know, for example, I can’t proofread my own words. In fact, two people read the finished product before The Mine went live and while making their edits they presented to me I found two additional mistakes in the manuscript. (And we all know, most word processors fall short when it comes to recognizing grammatical errors and even certain typos.)

Publishers also handle all the accounting, the royalties, even (although not so much anymore), the publicity for their authors.

The biggest problem I see regarding publishers is their reluctance to take on new authors. They prefer the big name (celebrity, politician, guru) and established (published and successful) names. Emerging writers stand a miniscule chance of ever getting their work to a publishing house.

Then, that no-name writer has to try to enter the hallowed realm of the agent with a spot-on query letter and breathless hopes that the letter, the genre, and the sample chapters hit home enough to whet the agent’s appetite.

Now agents apparently have very little time to commit to unsolicited requests.

How is it, I wonder, that I can read a book in a day but agents can’t read a query letter for months or more?

When I was polishing up another novel, I sent one query letter by email to an agent. After months without a response I fired off a second letter to another agent who took three months to proffer a rejection message. A third attempt brought an almost instant “No thanks, not for me.”

If an agent does take on an unknown author, there could be a year or more lapse of time between a sale and the actual appearance of the work.

These observations (some could call them complaints) are so old they might even be considered tradition by now, but they make up the hurdles a novelist or non-fiction author has to scale in hopes of seeing his or her work in print.

Of course I’d like to see my books on the shelves of bookstores that still exist but I prefer not to go to my grave while waiting.

However, I love the look and feel of a hefty novel. I like sitting on the porch enjoying a glass of iced tea and a good story. I appreciate the way the words look on paper. So I will continue to support the authors who have been fortunate enough to make it in this tough field.

I will buy the hard covers I want to keep. I will buy the paperbacks I want to read. I will download whatever suits my fancy.

I’m sure there are a lot of other folks who, like me, will buy tangible books for their own personal tastes and reasons, for a long time to come – if publishers do a little trip into the present and realize they must make some changes, I figure they can last a long time as well.

Related articles

• The Dilemmas of a Struggling Writer Part 2 (bruceblake.wordpress.com)

I made a cartoon video of my last post

This site is a hoot. It lets you make a video ... free at first but you can dress the videos up if you register and pay a fee. I edited it three times and ran out of free publishing minutes so the final product is in the can but not ready for release.

Take a look.

Query letter from the Holy Ghostwriter

(In my last post, I wondered how the authors of the Old Testament might query an agent regarding publication. I’m sure this isn’t an original question but since I’ve never heard it asked before, I think I’ll just make a feeble attempt to guess—with apologies to whomever—how this might work.)

Dearest Agent:

The Old Testament is the story of how a superior entity, who goes by the name of God, created the world in just six days, seven if you count His 24-hour coffee break.

In the beginning, He just wants to create Earth but somehow that doesn’t seem like enough. After all, what good is this big round beach ball if it’s just rotating around the sun? God has this drive, this need to populate His universe, to see where his invention goes. Maybe He is just playing a game; maybe it’s an experiment; maybe it’s for real.

If God knows, He isn’t telling.

As the hours and days go by, God tinkers with His project, adds a little day and night to the mix, some firmament, a bit of fruit, even a couple of human beings and a creature that lurks around apple trees.

It’s hard work, creating the earth. After six days and nights, God was a bit on the weary side so He takes a day off -- and when he does, all hell breaks loose.

The Old Testament follows up on God’s creation as it progresses from those early days to the birth of His Son, ages later. Between the two events, we experiences a horrendous flood, watch towers being built, learn how to worship idols, get some important commandments, discover a Holy Land, and realize how God’s children had to come to terms with their sins.

The Old Testament is a fast-paced 500,000 word (more or less, depending on which version will be submitted) mystery manuscript, part of a two-book series, the second of which (titled The New Testament) is in the rewrite stage.

We respectfully await your response.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

P.S. I think the ebook version will be a gangbuster!

Shoot the messenger or ...

I’ve queried agents a mere three times in my writing life so my actual experience with these individuals is rather scant. However, I’ve been reading about agents for ages so my vicarious experience is monumental. I think of myself as an armchair expert, and as an independent observer, I think I qualify as a person who has a right to comment on the subject of agents.

***

We know the drill: take that Great American Novel (GAM) (yours, not mine), break it down into a 500-word summary, and slip it in the mail with your manuscript and sufficient funds to have it returned to you (in other words, for the inevitable rejection), and then wait (how long before the finality of the Mayan prediction?) for a response

Right away there’s a certain sense futility you have to overcome when you engage in this process. You’ve spent how long(?) putting that puppy to bed, what with writing it, rewriting it, editing it and repeating the process, and now you have to tell someone what you’ve written – in 500 words. I’m thinking here it didn’t take but a couple hundred words more for God’s Holy Ghostwriter to get to the last sentence of the introduction to His Great Not-Necessarily-American Novel … “And on the seventh day….”

Let’s pretend for a moment that Holy Ghostwriter had to convince an agent to rep the Old Testament. How the heck would that query letter read?

Here’s what I’m wondering:

If an agent can read a 500-word synopsis of a novel, why can’t he or she just read the first 500 words of the manuscript?

Same number of words, same writer, different slant. What comes across in a novel is fiction; what has to come across in the query letter is nonfiction. So to satisfy an agent, a fiction writer has to step out of that pair of working shoes and step into a pair that probably doesn’t fit.

Here’s what I’m next wondering:

Who came up with these agent submission guidelines, 

when did they come into existence, and why has no one broken with the tradition?

Surely this isn’t the only way for a potential representative to decide whether nor the act of welcoming a particularly good query-letter writer into the stable will profit her or him. 

The publishing industry is changing almost as rapidly as the technology industry. Publishers have fought (ignored?) the change but how long they can continue the battle is the question of the day. Observers say that soon, publishers will accept work only from individuals who have already established a name for themselves -- former presidents, wives of former presidents and writers who have already penned a best seller, I suppose.

This means the agent business will change as well – if it hasn’t already started to change.

Doing something just because it’s always been done that way won’t cut it in near future.