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)

What's your novel about?

One of the toughest tasks for a writer comes after the last period on the last page.

It's summarizing all that hard work, all those words, all those characters and plot developments into a comprehensive summary for submission to an agent or a publisher or to use as detail information on their ebook sales page.

I found this very interesting and helpful blog post from another author's site. Mike Wells has done a good job of identifying the points to include by using The Wizard of Oz as his example.

If you have a kindle, you can download this and the entire related archive for free.

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)

Genre jumping

I’ve always been bothered by the word genre, not by the word itself but by the expanded definition that meant a writer had to fit his or her words into a singularly defined category.

My mind doesn’t work like that. The people who live in my head come from outer space, from little towns, from all over the world. They’re romantics, killers, demons, maniacs, ancient ones.

But agents and publishers and even booksellers don’t want that. They want writers who can stick to be creative within a formula – or at least that’s how I understand the world of publishing.

That kind of thinking makes me wonder. 

What would it be like if Stephen King wrote a titillating romance book? Could Jonathan Kellerman pen a hard-hitting western? Would Danielle Steel like to write an edgy science fiction tome? Could Mehmet Oz pen an epic poem?

Would they even try?

I think not.

I think they’ve written themselves into a genre corner and can’t get out because someone (and not the invisible “they” and definitely not their fans) would not accept it.

I’m thinking this whole requirement that a manuscript fit into a genre before it fits on the printed page could come crumbling down now that ebooks are appearing everywhere. I’m betting King could write that historical romance, Kellerman could do the western, Steele could venture into science fiction – and their fans would gobble them up. (I’m reserving judgment on the Dr. Oz question.)

I believe good writers can cover a wide spectrum of plots and scenarios and would do so if not for skeptical handlers and unwritten but strictly followed definitions. I believe we might even see some genre jumping by noted authors some time in the near future.

What do you think?

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.