Tag: editor

The Real Secret to Getting a Literary Agent

Or:

How to succeed in your search for literary representation, sell your book, and ultimately buy a castle in Scotland so your kids can go to Hogwarts.

With a special nod to Daniel Weaver, whose books will eventually earn millions and you heard it here first.

 

So. You’ve got a book written (if you haven’t finished writing your book, get off my damn page and go write your fucking book, goddammit, this is your writing time and you’re wasting it on this shit???) …and I mean written. Finished, done, ping, the end, edited a fucktillion times and shiny and all ready to go. You’ve researched literary agents and found one that you HAVE to have, because your manuscript is brilliant, right? The most brilliant thing since toothpaste in a tube. You’ve also found a few that aren’t Agent #1, but Agent #1 probably won’t look at your manuscript anyway because it’s the worst idea since toothpaste in a jar, right?

Yeah, we’re all little balls of angst wrapped up in precious snowflake paper. You are not alone. (Okay, I lied, you really are. To write a Book of Power is to be alone.)

You get your first ten thousand words/first three chapters /synopsis/OMG are you serious, all this awesomeness in a one-page outline? Crap!/ all ready to go, and you write the most beautiful and succinct and engaging query ever to make the rounds of the Halls of Agents, and you send off a batch of queries, kissing them on the cheek and waving goodbye to the school bus with tears in your eyes, knowing that your little darlings are going to come home that evening with offers of representation and sales contracts all ready for you to sign.

You’re so cute, all eager and optimistic. Let me look at you for a moment and weep for what is to come.

Most of your darlings are never heard from again (maybe you shouldn’t have queried Pennywise the Clown. Just sayin’). The ones that do come back tumble off the bus crying, with skinned knees and black eyes and swollen lips, and stories of school bullies and horrible, horrible math teachers.

Congratulations, Aspiring Author! You have received your first round of rejections. Now it’s time to get to the shopkeeper and buy your ultimate weapon:

Big Girl Panties. +1 Constitution, +3 Resolve, and they’re waterproof besides.

After you pull those ugly buggers up and mop your snotty, tear-stained face, and brush the taste of whiskey from your mouth, it’s time to take a look at what the rejection letters say. If they say anything at all, that is huge. Scribbled notes and encouraging one liners are gold. Sometimes you’ll get the polite equivalent of “keep your day job”, if you HAVE a day job, and if you’re good at keeping one, which a lot of writers aren’t. Sometimes you get good advice.

And sometimes you get “I loved this, but…” your book is too weird. Doesn’t fit in. Too much like every other book in your genre. Not enough like every other book in your genre (yes, I’ve gotten both of those, and in the same week.) If an agent looooves your book, this is a very good sign.

And right now you want to hit me over the head with something (don’t. I can take you.) because “I loved this but…” is NOT an offer of representation, right?

And here’s where I tell you the ONE THING you need to know about traditional publishing:

Traditional publishing is nuts.

Traditional publishing is no longer a venerable editor hiding in a dungeon of magical books, wheezing as he labors to make your manuscript a Book of Power (meaning he deletes that one comma you had out of place, of course, snowflake) and grooming you to be the Tolkien of your generation. The big publishing houses have all been bought up by goblins—actual goblins, I am not speaking in metaphors—and as we all know, goblins care for nothing but the bottom line.

(Yes, I am doing this so that I can avoid using actual numbers and showing my sources and shit. Trust me: my version is close enough to the truth to bite it in the ass.)

These trolls keep our beloved editors chained in dungeons (or worse, CUBICLES) where they slave away at—you might want to peek through your fingers at this one, it’s horrifying—PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENTS.

Go ahead, cry. Have a shot of whiskey. I know I did.

That’s right, Buttercup. Before the Dark Editorial Overlord can make an offer on your magical manuscript, she has to run it through a gauntlet of red and black ink, and prove that it can make money for the goblins, who don’t even read. Then she has to show it to the other editors, who also have to prove that it will sell, and take it to a committee, who will want to run it through the numbers…

Agents know this. Agents don’t make money unless they sell books, and they sell books to these editors, who have to run everything through the goblin overlords before releasing any money or all these fine people risk losing their jobs. So it’s impossible for an agent to offer representation to something that can’t be sold, and it’s impossible for an editor to run a profit and loss statement on something that hasn’t been done before, because DUH. NUMBERS.

You get the idea. Traditional publishing is about the numbers, not the words.

But…

Always.

But my book…

No.

But I’m diff…

Stop. Just stop. As one of my Arabic instructors was fond of saying, “It is always, always, always this way. Except when it is not.”

Yeah, you perked up at that last bit, right? That’s the secret to getting your (well written, edited to death, ready to fly off the bookshelves) book agented, and sold, and ultimately roll in the dragon’s hoard (which only LOOKS like a small pile of one dollar bills) that will be the end reward for all your hard work. The one thing you need to know about publishing? The big secret to success is:

Agents are crazy. So are editors. You have to be certifiably batshit to ever think this can work, and these people believe, deep down, that this can work, that they can reach down into a dark pit of sludge and adverbs and horrifyingly bad sex scenes and draw forth something beautiful and brilliant and new. And they can get this thing past the goblin overlords and into people’s hands, where they will read it!

If you write a good book (again, if you haven’t done this yet, get off the internet and finish the damn thing, knucklehead), even a great book, one that is close enough to your genre that readers will love the things they love, and new enough that readers will put it down feeling that they’ve had a wonderful new adventure, if you follow the rules of querying (write a killer query letter, do your research, follow submission guidelines and for the love of Cthulhu don’t be a dick) and just keep at it, head-down horns-out and plowing through the screaming crowd like it’s not even there, eventually this will happen:

Somewhere, in an office that reeks of rotting dreams, an agent will be sitting with his head in his hands, hating life. He got into this business because he loves books and he dreamed of big things, of better things, of making the world a more magical place. If he has to run one more brilliant manuscript through that damn Excel spreadsheet, if he has to do one more “Harry Potter meets Twilight” comparison, he’s gonna…

That’s it. He’s had enough. He’s gonna quit and go sell cars with his uncle Patty in Detroit. But before he goes, by gum, he’s going to do one thing right. If he’ going to throw his career down the shitter, he’s going to do it in style, he’s going down in flames. There will be a day when an agent says “Fuck it!” and offers to represent a brilliant new author because he LOVES THE BOOK, dammit, and today is that day!

Fire in his eyes, he logs into his email and…

Crap.

Crap.

Crap.

Adjective hell.

Paranormal porn, wtf…

And then your query shines forth, like a shining white hand rising from the misty lake, offering up treasure. This is it! THIS is why he took this rotten job in the first place!

Knowing full well that he’s throwing away a lucrative career, (almost as lucrative as the average author’s, one hopes), he pounds out an offer of representation.

This is the literary equivalent of the vorpal sword, and snicker-snack, and galumphing with a severed head, and so forth. The agent will have sobered up by the following Tuesday–agents have to eat, too, one cannot subsist solely on a diet of shattered dreams–so make sure you snatch up that offer of representation before he regains his sanity.

Okay, you ask, but how can my agent (who is trying not to show he has buyer’s remorse, and will work three times as hard to sell your book because now his career is on the line and he really does not want to sell cars) sell this book to an editor, who cannot rationally make an offer on a book that doesn’t fit into the numbers game?

Heh. You said “rationally”.

Some day, perhaps some day soon, an editor will be sitting at her desk, head in hands, weeping with despair, and she will also have a moment of disconnect from reality and decide that TODAY is the DAY…

So, there it is. If you have written a very good book, the best you can write, the best book every written, by Smaug’s hairy toes…if you do your research and query by the book and don’t be a dick, it is a statistical certainty that eventually you will hit the perfect convergence of insanity between an agent and an acquisitions editor, and your book will sell.

And then comes the hard part.

Hey, I never said this story had a HAPPY ending. Suck it up, Buttercup; we’re all mad, here.

 

Jai tu wai,

 

Debi

 

Evil is a Matter of Perspective

A couple of months ago, I was surprised and delighted when Adrian Collins of Grimdark Magazine asked whether I would consider contributing a short story to an anthology he was putting together.

Well, I thought, I don’t really do short…

…stories told from the villain’s point of view, he went on…

oh HELLZ yeah.

Now, it’s probably no secret at this point that I enjoy reading and writing ambiguous characters. And by ‘ambiguous’ I really mean dark, disturbed, and bloody-minded. Write what you know, eh? There’s nothing much I enjoy more than turning over the slimy rocks of a human (or humanish) psyche to see what lies beneath.

What makes us tick?

What makes us…kill?

I am pleased to announce that the Kickstarter was fully funded, and the stretch goals are falling like main characters in one of my stories. Look at this author lineup. LOOK AT IT:

And it’s a pretty book too, Precious; not only does it have a gorgeous cover, but the stretch goal for interior art has been met, as well:

My own story, BLOOD PENNY, introduces Awitsu and Kanati, two daeborn children from Sindan trying to survive in a world that wants them dead.

Cute kids, aren't they?

Cute kids, aren’t they?

Spoiler: they survive…more or less.

Teaser: the rest of the world may not, by the time they get done.

If you haven’t backed this Kickstarter yet, do it now while there is still time. This is a volume you will NOT want to miss out on, trust me. I’d hate to see you kick yourself later on when all your friends have this awesome book and you are stuck rereading your mom’s old Agatha Christie novels.

Ok, I lied. I’d love to see you kick yourself. Because that’s how I roll.

Which may or may not be evil…

…depending on your perspective.

Jai tu wai,

Debi

Split Feather is SOLD!

I am beyond delighted to announce that my urban fantasy, SPLIT FEATHER, has been sold to Titan Books in a two-book deal by my rockstar agent Mark Gottlieb.

Book 1 is set to be released in May 2017, most likely under a pseudonym to avoid cross-genre confusion as the first book in my epic saga, THE DRAGON’S LEGACY, is set to release April 2017.

I am very excited to continue this journey with Titan Books, and especially with my Dark Editorial Overlord Steve Saffel.

Stay tuned for updates!

Jai tu wai,

Debi

Gold Standard

As a new writer, still in my original packaging and waiting to be put out on the shelves for people to buy (or not), I am at a weird and enviable stage in my career. Weird, because while I’ve sold a book (or three) my work has yet to be made public, so I’m still Nobody. Enviable, because I’ve successfully leapt the hurdles FINISH THE BOOK, GET AN AGENT and SELL THE BOOK, so I’m kinda Somebody, as well. Enough of a Somebody that I find myself fielding the “how-did-you” questions, enough of a Nobody that I’m easily approachable and still have a few minutes’ free time to spare for giving advice of dubious merit.

One question that is often asked but difficult to articulate, even for writers–perhaps especially for writers, and I imagine other artists as well–is: “How did you DO it?”

Q: “What is the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything?”

A: (That one’s easy): 42.

Q: “How did you DO it?”

A: That one’s a bit more difficult…

“How did you DO it?” You ask. Do you mean ‘How did you get an agent’,  or ‘How did you choose a point of view’, or ‘How did you get past editing Chapter One till you’d worn the letters off your keyboard and gave up to go play mini golf’?

All of those and more, of course.

“What writing tools do you use? What is your revision process? How did you decide on POV characters?” The aspiring author sees that first impossible hurdle–FINISH THE BOOK–and asks, “How did you DO it?” When she is really asking, “Can I do it?”

The answer she fears, echoing deep in the dank and slimy pit of her soul, is “No, you can’t.”

That was the answer I always got, anyway. And then my demon would laugh as I shut down Word and logged onto Facebook instead. Because that bitch wants nothing more than for you to give up, so that she may remain in the shadows and nibble at the edges of your soul without interruption.

So, what changed? How did I go from someone who desperately longed to be an author to someone who has written THE BOOK and shepherded it all the way to a sale? How did I elude the ubiquitous lack of self-confidence that hunts artists and eats them for breakfast?

How did I do it? Was it Scrivener? A workshop? A critique group?

Did I sacrifice a goat???

Nope. No goats were harmed in the creation of this book.

I found a superhero, someone who believed in me and my work, someone who cheered me on and freaked out in a good way with every new chapter and wheedled and cajoled and kicked my ass every step of the journey. Someone who believed in me even though I never did. I found my #1 fan.

The Author and her #1 Fan

The Author and her #1 Fan

If you are an artist of any color, the world is going to judge you and find you unworthy. It is likely you will judge yourself unworthy; I know I did. But if you have one person lighting a candle in the darkness for you, one person who hangs your painting on the wall or taps her foot in time to your singing or stays up till two in the morning reading your latest chapter and then threatens to break your arm if their favorite character stays dead…

That’s the good stuff, man. That’s the gold standard.

This one’s for you, Kristine. I couldn’t have done it without you.

I'm writing as fast as I can!

I’m writing as fast as I can!

At a recent visit to the insane asylum. We fit right in.

At a recent visit to the insane asylum. We fit right in.

Life is Short. Go Long.

I am posting this in thoughtful response to the stir caused by a comment I posted on social media last week. In a nutshell–hardly realizing I was cracking open a nutshell–I suggested that it is counterproductive and even illogical for our society (and especially artists) to be so discouraging of a career in arts. Of course my focus was writing, but I would extend this message to any career in the arts. Further, I declared my intention to personally ignore such fallacious and harmful advice, and suggested that anyone who was so determined to believe that a career in writing is simply not possible was welcome to remain behind flipping burgers as I proceed to storm the castle.

I was surprised and dismayed at the vehemence with which some folks not only cling to, but defend the argument that writing is a poor and foolish career choice. After all, this is a writers’ group. A couple of people attacked the idea that writing is a valid choice of careers–and attacked me personally–so angrily that I ended up blocking them.

I don’t have time for internet duels; my siege engine is only 50% edited. A 165k word count trebuchet takes a lot of perfecting.

I was even accused of being biased against those who work in the food industry. As if my time in the Army was not often spent at more distasteful duties than flipping burgers. Let me assure you, I don’t think less of anyone for their choice of careers (or, in this economy, whatever job someone can scrape up in order to make a living).

The same, evidently, cannot be said of those who would insist that writing as a vocation is a path littered with the bones of fools and miscreants.

Writers, for the most part, do not have an easy time of it. I can tell you just from my experience that finishing a fantasy doorstopper has taken more work and skill than anything I’ve ever attempted, and that includes learning Arabic, getting  Bachelors’ and Masters’ degrees concurrently, and raising a houseful of children as a single parent.  A lot of 4 am, a lot of taking crap jobs so that I could keep a roof over our heads for just one more chapter, a lot of learning new skills and letting go of ego. I would say that the willingness to work hard, a willingness to let go of preconceptions, and blind tenacity are more important than sheer writing talent. If you wish to make a living at this, you need to be able to stop wishing and start doing. treat it like a career. Read trade journals, study study study, learn learn learn, write and toss, lather, rinse, repeat till your spine is screaming and your wrists are swollen and your eyes are begging for mercy.

But don’t listen to those who say it’s not worth it, it’s impossible, only xyz percent of people ever sell, advances suck, indie publishers suck, self publishing is for idiots and the Big Five will never publish another book. For those folks who say it is impossible, get real, be grateful for the opportunity to flip burgers and keep your eyes firmly fixed on the ground, I say, you’re right. A career in writing will always be out of reach for those who refuse to lift their gaze to the stars.

As for me, I am casting my fishing-net at a dragon, I am storming the castle. Life is short. Go long.

I hope you decide to breach those walls, too.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure