Unsolicited Advice

Today my guest is Cicily Janus. As a published author, a journalist and sleep deprived intern for one of the best agencies on the planet, Cicily would like to think that maybe, just maybe, that her unsolicited advice helps others.

Being a published author, I was hesitant to tell people, mainly other writers, that I wanted to move over to the dark side. The agent side. Trust me, this isn’t some kind of power-trip. I honestly wanted to help writers become successful in their goals.

The question was, how to do this without losing myself and becoming, what much of the writing world considers agents, a member of the dark forces. To tell the truth, there wasn’t a way around it.

Let me explain.

This process has afforded me considerable perspective as a writer. When I set out on this journey I was optimistic that good writers were in abundance. But after working for two of the best agents in the country for over two years, I’ve learned that it isn’t about being good, it’s about being sparklingly impressive from word one in both your query and MS.

These days the market is overly saturated. The effect it has on agents (and their interns) is this: We’re simply unable to give feedback, advice or anything BUT a form rejection. So...here’s a new angle on agents. Over one year I rejected 3,000+ writers. Among these: 90% were form rejections, 9% didn’t follow published rules for queries and 1% had pages requested. Of that 1%, only one...and that’s one person...was signed. So I began to ask myself, how do writers go from good to great?

Turning the Tables

In the world of writing, one of the dreaded chores is submitting. Whether it's a simple query letter (or is that an oxymoron?), a proposal, a partial, or the exhilaration resulting from a request for a full manuscript, you're still left relying on the decision of someone else. And, odds are, given the percentages of acceptances in the business, you're going to have to deal with a dreaded rejection letter.

Right now, I'm waiting to hear from one publisher about a full manuscript submission, and from my agent about a new proposal. To avoid stressing, I'm also back to working on my 4th Blackthorne novel (although that's stress enough, since it's book number 3 that I'm waiting to hear about). I'm a little over 200 pages into it, and I'm still a non-plotter. Yesterday was one of those two steps forward, three steps back days. However, even though I'm writing 'on spec', with no guarantee of a sale, I find even a day of frustrating writing is better than a day of not writing at all.

As followers of the 'real life' portion of this blog might recall, we've been renovating and remodeling our house. Whereas the upper floor was a simple matter of swapping out existing materials, downstairs, we're converting a basement that's basically one large L-shaped room with a bathroom and laundry area into functional living space, including a tv room, an exercise area for those snowy days, and a dedicated guest room..

Who Needs Directions?

What I'm reading: Hard Rain, by Barry Eisler

Thanks, Randall, for being my guest. You've given me a wake-up call too. Time to stop procrastinating and start submitting. Where to start?

Way back when, when I was in school, teachers would give a test to see if you could follow directions. You've probably seen them. You're told that you have to finish within a specific time limit, which seems all too short when you look at how many questions there are. You start reading, ignoring the first item, which says "read all the questions before proceeding." That's a total time-waste, right? Maybe you read the first few, but you want to get on with it so you finish. Only trouble is, at the end, it says, "Only answer the first three questions" or some other sneaky variation. Needless to say, there was a lot of groaning as those who answered all the questions found they'd failed the test.

Have we learned the importance of following directions? (I'm not touching the male-female question here.)

Moving along to writing:

The manuscript is finished. It's time to query. Agents? Publishers? Either way, you have to create that proper first impression. Hubby grumbles when I nag about all the staging when we have a house showing, but it's no different for a writing project. Home buyer or literary agent: you've got to grab them from the outset. They don't care that at this time of year the trees are shedding leaves and it's a losing battle to keep them away. The buyers look at the property and see "LEAVES TO RAKE." The editor sees "REQUIRES MASSIVE EDITING."

What Agents Are Looking For

What I'm reading: Nothing to Lose, by Lee Child.
My last RITA entry, 9 of 9.

Our RWA chapter hosted a literary agent at its last meeting. She was kind enough to share some of her hints for making your query stand out among the hundreds that cross an agent's desk.

Some of these are so basic, you'd wonder how in the world anyone could screw up something as simple as reading the submission guidelines and following them. Yet she gets a significant number of those who don't. This is a red flag, because the agent/author relationship has to be one of trust.

She told the story of an author who offered an exclusive read to agent A. Only trouble was, he'd also sent the same offer to agent B. And put the wrong cover letter with each, so agent A got the one intended for agent B. The literary community is small. Agent A called agent B and said, "Shall I decline for both of us?"

Keep Reading...

What's attractive to an agent? Your voice. The story concept. Your hook. All of these are necessary because an agent has to get your work to an editor, right? Right. But it doesn't stop there. The editor sends the manuscript off for at least 2 or 3 more reads. It has to be presented to the marketing department, the sales department. There are a LOT of people on board, and they work in sound bites.

Things to consider:
Style and Flow. Read your work aloud. Hear what it sounds like. Polish to the point of minimal distractions. Nobody expects perfection (or editors would be out of a job), but it should be as close as you can get it. There's not much time anymore for taking a diamond in the rough and fixing it. You need to get it beyond that stage before submitting it.

Plotting and Pacing. Don't dump the entire problem at once. Layer in conflicts. Escalate the tensions. You need to up the stakes in every chapter. It can be related to character development, the plot, or in a romance, the relationship.

Her advice for queries.
Paragraph 1: Introduce your work. Genre, word count.
Paragraph 2: A brief summary
Paragraph 3: Any relevant information – bio, writing credits, platform, awards.
The tone of your query should reflect the tone of your book.

Turnoffs:
Oversized manuscripts – "A 250,000 word novel that is part 1 of a series."
Mislabeling. She's seen many queries saying, "this isn't science fiction," etc. Agents need to know where they can sell something.

And, back to where we started – not following submission guidelines.

From here, we divided into groups and were given 3 words to work with and about 15 minutes to come up with a pitch. The 'catch' was that the immediate response to the words would be the mundane, been-there-done-that story. She recommended taking the 1st three reactions to the word and throwing them away, because they would be the obvious, and would lead to a 'stock' story – and to the rejection pile.

Our words? Riot, Wing, and Poison. Feel free to leave your pitch in the comments!

Tomorrow. L C Hayden is my guest. She's going to tell us about how she gets to cruise for free. Be sure to check in.

Is it real yet?

What I'm reading: Sweet Revenge, by Diana Mott Davidson

What I'm writing: Chapter 23

I got my very first advance check the other day. It wasn't anything remotely resembling what those NYT Bestselling authors get, but it made me feel one step closer to being a 'real' author--especially since the check came from my agent, with her cut subtracted. It motivated me to pull out the book that's been sitting around waiting to see where it might find a home. It's a kind of spin-off to When Danger Calls, but I'm editing it so it can stand on its own.

Then, in another reminder of what this business is like, I got a request for a partial for When Danger Calls from an agent who saw the first chapter in an on-line contest I entered several months ago, before I'd found an agent or had my contract offer. While it's nice to know the work is strong enough to garner attention, it's total frustration to get this request because that same agency had the first three chapters of the book for over six months and turned it down. Not only that, but when I had my contract offer, they turned me down because they didn't love the work enough (at least that's the reason they gave --- although there's this niggling suspicion that the low advance helped make their decision.) Felt kind of strange being on the sending end of a 'rejection'. But nice, too.

On the other side, I'm one of the featured authors at The Romance Studio, so that must mean I'm a real author, right?