Emotional strength from a literary agent

Self-publishing is not a passing fad. It's been growing in strength for nearly a decade now and shows no signs of stopping. 

In a time when our world is becoming more automated and more digital, it's nice to know that there are still some real benefits to working with a live person; someone who's willing to be your cheerleader and work with you towards success. 

This article is a fantastic look at why literary agents are still worth their weight in gold - for your emotional sanity as an author if nothing else.  

"With self-publishing becoming more widely accepted and Amazon waging wars with publishers, more and more I get the sense from aspiring authors that they don't think landing an agent means as much as it used to.  

They believe traditional publishing is going the way of VCRs and none of the old rites of passage apply anymore. That's fine if you think that, but, in my experience, it simply isn't true."                                - Bethany Neal

Click here to read the full article. 

...and read more about Bethany Neal here:  http://www.bethanyneal.com/

14 Questions You're Afraid to Ask Literary Agents

This week I am re-posting a great article from Writer's Digest. 

It is well written, humorous, and worth the read.

(Full disclosure - if you are not interested in the publishing world, this one may not be for you.)

As an agent of more than five years with the Irene Goodman Agency, I am oftentimes approached at writing retreats, conferences, children's birthday parties, nail salons, shooting ranges and quinceaneras, and asked a variety of questions about my take on the inner workings of the publishing industry.  I have no problem straight-shooting the goods in those moments ("Honestly, Father McKenna? I think a young adult series based on Fifty Shades of Grey is a terrible idea...") and in fact quite enjoy the discourse. 

Earlier this year, Writer's Digest reached out and invited writers everywhere to anonymously - without fear of judgement or need to be overly polite - submit the questions they'd always secretly wanted to ask a literary agent, but had been afraid to voice. When WD then approached me and asked if I'd be willing to answer a selection of those questions in print - and to do so with a level of candor that writers would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere - I applauded their creativity and immediately grabbed my thinking cap (read: flask) and dove in. 

by Barbara Poelle

 

I found the questions to be insightful, and I hope I did the responses justice. If not, I am not Barbara Poelle - I am Enid Snarkleftitz and I have anger management issues.

Here's the full article:

Answers to 14 Questions You're Too Afraid to Ask Literary Agents

Co-Publishing

To Publish Together. 

The options that exist for getting your book out into the world are growing.

let's review:

There is the modern way of self publishing – there are many companies to choose from, you are responsible for all of your own illustrations, editing, marketing, but you retain 100% of the rights to your book. Usually digital only or printed on demand (when an order comes in, a book is printed and shipped)

There is the traditional way of submitting your manuscript to an agent. That agent represents your book and often prefers to work with a separate illustrator. They take control of the editing and layout and work with you to strengthen the plot and rework any sections that may need to be refined. For that, they take a cut of sales. They may or may not help with marketing efforts depending on the agency.

There is the less traditional way, but still very selective way of submitting your manuscript to a publisher directly.  Similar to working with an agent, they work with you on editing, layout and plot structure. There is less marketing and and in most cases, they take less of a smaller portion of the sales. The large majority of publishers choose to only work with agents. That vastly limits the options of publishers that you can submit a manuscript to directly.

And the one I most recently ran into, co-publishing. I’ll get back to this in a bit… but first, a story.

At the end of 2014 I buried myself in research and narrowed down a list of publishers in the US that might be a good fit. The publishing agency had to be:

• Willing to look at unagented submissions (I do not have an agent after all)
• looking for beginning chapter books (such is my current manuscript)
• open to topic content with elements of fantasy mixed with the struggles of youthfulness. (Pumpkin Lou is both fantasy and a kid) 

 

I came up with a list of eight.

So before Christmas, I sent out my eight manuscripts – some via email, some via snail mail, but all with very specific (and very different) submission guidelines.

Six days later, I got an email from Renaissance House. 

“We like your manuscript, we feel it has a lot of promise, we want to work with you, but…” 

I know I was excited too!

“… we aren't accepting new projects at this time. However our co-publishing partner is http://laredopublishing.com/ . Would you be interested in working with them?”

Still exciting. 

"Perhaps." I told them… let me ask a million questions and see where this ends up.

I learned that co-publishing is supposedly the best of both worlds – you get the control of your story and the fast turnaround time of self-publishing.  But you also get a professional editor, layout and graphics department, and possibly illustrator depending on the type of book you are publishing.

All for the low, low price of…?  Well in this case it was $2400

You do still have to be accepted by a publisher, so not every Random Joe off the street has this option. But at the same time, publishers can clearly be less picky about who they are selecting because there’s not quite as much time or effort at stake like there is for traditionally published books.

The question that I never got a clear answer to is that of “Returnability”.

What is returnability? Great question.  Let’s say you are Barns and Noble - book store giant. You have thousands of new books at your fingertips every day. How do you possibly narrow down which ones to put on your shelves?  One quick way to shorten the list is the “Returnability Guarantee.” If the book you choose does not fly off your shelves at break neck speed, those books need to be returned to the publisher ASAP. You are wasting useful shelf space!

This means that if the books cannot be returned, Barns and Noble will not risk putting them on their shelves. Or any other large books store for that matter. They may offer them online – because they don’t have to keep track of any physical stock - but that's the best you'll ever do.

With self-publishing, the publisher does not ever want books back. They are not in the business of helping their authors get books sold, so they do not care if your book flops. You can often pay extra for the option, but it’s usually a lot extra. From what I can gather co-publishing falls into the same non-returnability category.  This may not be true of all contracts, but if you find yourself with a co-publishing offer, you now at least know to ask the question.

Needless to say, I turned down the offer from Renaissance House. I have set my standards high and refuse to give in just quite yet. 

It’s coming up on one year since I first submitted the picture book manuscript of this same story. It has gone through major revisions, lengthened by about 9000 words and changed titles twice. 

I have learned a lot, and when I do finally get this book published, it will definitely be because of hard work and perseverance.  And that in itself makes for a good story – and hopefully an interesting blog.

Thanks for reading!

...unless you're donating blood.

While looking for an agent or publisher, the most repetitive thing I read is to “…only submit to people who are looking for your type of work.” Only submit your story to people who will care about the story you are telling. Which logically begs the question...

why should anyone care about your story?

Hopefully all authors think they have something to say. Unfortunately many of them just like hearing themselves talk (write) and don’t have much to say at all. It’s easy to tell who these authors are because when (and if) you finish one of their books, you are disappointed. You feel cheated out of your valuable time. 

For me it’s even worse because no matter how bad the book, or how bad the movie, I feel the need to finish it. I hear my mother saying, "Finish what you've started!" That's usually great advice. Thanks, Mom.  

I can count on one hand the number of movies and books that I've started, but never finished. It's much more likely that I will force myself to sit and waste countless precious hours just to see if it gets better, or if the ending will be worth my time.  It rarely is.

I like to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's not them, it's me. That this particular author does actually have something great to say, but I was not the target audience. There are likely hundreds, nay, thousands of people who, unlike me, loved the book.

Or, perhaps I was not in the right place in my life to enjoy such a book – in which case I'll try again 5 years ago.  I bet the five-year-ago me would have loved some of these books.

As an author, how do you make sure that your story is getting into the hands of the right people?

• You get the best agent and/or publisher you can for your book.  (see how we've come full circle?) 

In order for you to know who the right agent/publisher is, you first need to understand why your story matters.  You can't sell your story if you don't know why it's amazing.  And if YOU don't know why it's amazing, then how will anyone else? 

Who is going to care about your story? 

Don’t waste your time on everyone else. (There are a lot of everyone-elses out there)

Think of it like picking a new friend – you need to have things in common.  You need to enjoy each other’s company and have things to talk about and experiences to share. These agents are real people trying to make a living, just like you.  (or so I keep telling myself)  If your agent/publisher doesn't believe in you, you’ll have a much rougher go of the whole experience, why would you willingly put yourself through that?

Step 1. Decide why your story is an important one and write that reason down. 

Step 2. Tell everyone you know about the very important message behind your story. Why is your story is going to change the world? How many lives are you going to impact? What makes your message unique?

Step 3. Assess the reactions to your message. If your friends and family agree that this is an important and missing piece of the literary industry, then woo hoo! Start counting the millions that are coming your way (soon, I promise).

Understandably this is tough – what message does the newest vampire/zombie/pre-teen thriller have that is so important to the world?  That is a fair question.  All I can say is hopefully the vampire/zombie/pre-teens are evolving characters and through their trials and tribulations they teach other pre-teens life lessons about personality and personal character and gumption and young love… or something.

Step 4. Don't pick an agent who doesn't understand you!  easier said than done, I know. Once an agent wants to sign on the dotted line, how could you possibly ever dream of telling them no...?!    

I'll leave that moral dilemma up to you.

The other important piece to this puzzle is the following:

Only send out work that you are proud of. 

Even the revisions that you are sending out for critique, should be the best rough drafts that you can put together. If you only send out revisions that you are proud of: 

• You will get better feedback, 
• you will be able to take those critiques more seriously, and 
• you will be more well respected. 

Ultimately, you will have a better platform on which you base your skill as a writer. 

If you only send out your best, then people can only judge you on your best. 

This is true of anything in life.  If you think you are a great chef, but you only ever cook Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, how will anyone else ever be able to say, "hey, I know this great chef..."

If you think you are an amazing photographer, but you only ever use a disposable camera, how is anyone ever going to be able to say, "hey, I know this amazing photographer."

Do your best, be proud of the work you do, and the world will reward you. 

Good luck.

How are you creative?

Just over a decade ago I went in for a job interview. In the end it was down to me and one other person who I knew was far more qualified. Although I would have loved to work for this organization, I did not have high hopes. I'm convinced this fact alone made the interview

more relaxing than it probably should have been. I walked out feeling great about the conversation I had just had with a couple of higher-ups except for one less-than-shining moment.  They asked the best question that I have ever been asked in an interview. A question that I believe tells you volumes about a person and how they view themselves. If we all asked each other this question on a first date, we'd save so much time trying to figure out if we were compatible or not... okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but you see where I"m going with this...

Unfortunately I'd fail at my own quiz because even after a decade, I still don't have a good answer. 

Q: How are you creative? 

If you're first reaction is, "I'm not.", you are wrong.  Everyone Is Creative. 

Some people are artistically creative; they draw, they paint, they sculpt.
Some people are musically creative; they play, they sing, they dance.  
Some people are creative with words; they are writers, they are public speakers.

 
Those are the obvious ones.

I'm pretty sure my answer in the interview consisted of something along the lines of, 
      "I am very visual. um, I am kind of an artist, I guess. I can take colors and put them together... Oh and also I am a creative problem solver."  
I should have ended the statement with something like, "Was that the right answer? are you happy? did I do a good job? can I call my mommy now and ask her to tell me I did a good job?"   

Not the most eloquent moment of my life to be sure. 

As the years go on, and the more people I meet, the more I realize that the world needs creativity of all kinds.  
Some people are the most creative child care givers I have ever met. As a mother, I really, really (really, really) love those people. I know stay-at-home moms who teach and occupy their children 365 days a year AND they love it.  I will be very honest here and tell you that as much as I love my kids, I am a better person because I leave them at daycare every day. I am NOT that kind of creative.

Some people are creative with electrical innovations.  I work with some incredibly smart people who could spend 10-12+ hours a day tinkering with electrical bits and pieces trying to turn them into the next big thing that will make us all a ton of money and put our kids through college. I am NOT that kind of creative.

Some people are creative people-people. I know salesmen, for example who can talk anyone into buying anything. They know how to read people, how people think, how they reason and then, those salesmen present a creative and surprisingly personal sales pitch.  I am NOT that kind of creative.

My suggestion to each of you is to figure out how you are creative and use that to your advantage in life. 
A wise man once said, "If you are going to be a dig ditcher, be the best dig ditcher you can be!"  
And although that's not exactly the message I'm trying to get across here, it is still relevant. 

Find something you are good at, find something you love, and do it to your full potential. This however is not a self help blog. 
                      So writing junkies (whoever you may be) 
                                                                     how does this pertain to you? 
Well, the easy answer is, you are a writer. You are creative with words. Once you acknowledge that you are a writer (often easier said than done), you're there! Nice work. 

Feel free to call it a day, go buy yourself something nice. 

Another possible answer is: when you are creating your characters, consider how THEY are creative. If they are creative problem solvers, use that to help resolve physical conflict. (Think Macgyver, a toothpick, a green banana, and half a fanny-pack.) 

If they are creative people-readers, use that to build and break relationships. (Think Frank Underwood manipulating the world to get what he wants.)

If they are creative artists, use that to help inspire other characters to be more artistic, well rounded people (or dogs, or monkeys, or trolls... whoever your characters may be.) 

My point is: creativity is a powerful personality trait that often goes un-analyzed. 

Unfortunately, a decade later I have yet to come up with an answer for myself that I am personally happy with.  Maybe I'll make that a New-Year's resolution for 2016.  (2015 is already booked with things like, exercise more and be more patient.)

Good luck recognizing your personal creativity!

Thanks for reading

Conflicting Conflictions

• Insanely long book finished (check!)

• Veggies growing in my garden (check!)

• Camping trip a success (check!)

• Various other fun summer activities (check!)

It is absolutely time to get back to this blog. 

CONFLICT and CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

• When a tornado rips through the town mere miles from your house in the middle of the night, memories are created that last for years.

• When your friends go on vacation without you, then you later find out they took two other couples in your place, you feel hurt or maybe a little jealous.

• When your four year old comes home crying because she wants a swimming suit just like LuLu’s even though there are already three perfectly good swimming suits in her drawer…  well, you roll your eyes for a moment and remember when you were a child and only had one swimming suit that was getting too small because you had already worn it for three summers.   

But that is not the point.  She’s sad, drama has entered her life and she will need to decide how to deal with these uncontrollable feelings.  Just like you with the tornado, and you with your former friends – conflict happens. Conflict keeps our lives interesting. 

We would have far fewer conversations if there were no conflict in our lives. Our lunch time stories would be boring and our friends would get bored with us.  (and us with them)

For better or worse, conflict (and conflict resolution) keeps our lives interesting. 

Perhaps this is why so many American’s love reality TV.

The best novels, like our lives, are filled with conflict.  What the characters do with their conflicting situations is what makes them relatable. We want the characters in our books to grow and change and evolve by the time the book is done.

There are two kinds of conflict: Emotional and Physical.

Physical conflict is created by the uncontrollable, or unknown world. A tornado, a forest fire, a car that has run out of gas, a relative that is late to dinner.  

Emotional conflict is created by the character’s emotions and how they relate, respond, and react in a given situation?  Who is oblivious? Who is deceitful? Who is overly dramatic? Who gets angry and reactive?

Relationships are misunderstood, situations become overly dramatic, feelings are hurt. 

This is the best kind of conflict to present to your characters. 

Emotional conflict opens up a world of possibilities for the growth of your characters.  Will they learn and grow from their situations? Will they retreat and hide?  Will they refuse to take responsibility for their reactions? Will they swear off coconut and volleyballs forever just to be stranded on an island for 15 years?

It’s not who your characters are at the beginning of a story that makes them interesting, it’s who they are at the end.

And although this individual journey is easier (not easy, but easier) to convey over 300 pages, it can also be done over 30.

As a children’s book author you have to keep in mind that the drama in our kids world is much smaller and simpler than it is in our adult world.  The drama that might take 6 months to unfold and resolve itself my world might only take 6 hours in my daughter’s. 

Use that perspective when helping your characters grow and change. 

Instead of an Ebola outbreak in the US keeping our kids up at night, it’s a lost shoe or the fact that; “mom made mushrooms again with dinner even though she knows I hate mushrooms!”

Check out this link to get a better idea of the kinds of things that create conflict for our kids… and for a good laugh.

http://themetapicture.com/why-my-kid-is-crying/

and although there are a few overlapping photos... 

http://www.studentbeans.com/mag/en/news/23-best-pics-from-reasons-my-kid-is-crying

Use these dramatic, mundane events as inspiration and remember:

• Kids are scared by things that may seem funny or unimportant to adults
• Kids worry about things that may seem trivial
• Kids are just starting to learn about human interaction and relationships.

Your children’s story conflicts do not need to be deep or involved, but they do need to exist to make your story memorable.

Go forth and make your stories memorable!

Balance

BALANCE

'balans

noun 

• an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady. 
• a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions. 

verb

• offset or compare the value of (one thing) with another.

Balance is not a word that is foreign to any of us.  Whether you are talking about a life vs career balance, or a literal yoga balance, we all get it.

• Don't fall 
• Stay focused 
• Don't let anyone else fall.  

And you'll be fine!

Balance can be found in nature. 

Balance can be created from nature. 

 


These are awesome, I know.  I'm totally going to try rock balancing once it warms up around here. 



Balance can be  used as a way to pass the time in your Australian private school (you should click on this one, it's a little ridiculous, but I kind of wish I had been part of it.) 

Let's face it, balancing can be exhausting and terrifying...

where is this guy's mother?

...but if we do it right, it can create a calming, peaceful effect on us and those around us. 

So what, you rightfully ask, does this have to do with children's stories?
Well, intelligent friend of mine, I am glad you brought that up!

Point #1

Visual Balance

There are several things that can be done as an author and illustrator to improve your reader's experience. Not least of which is balance.

The appearance of your pages must give some semblance of balance.  Let's think waaaaayyyy back to the yoga guy (five sentences up). There is a center and a balance to this photo that is relaxing, calming.  For those of you following along, you'll remember I have mentioned the reader's experience before. Well, here it is again. (must be important.)

There is a classic children's book that shall remain nameless, but includes a small choo choo that may or may not make it over the mountain unless some help arrives quickly.

I often wonder if the author of this great story composed his own pages, or if they were composed by his publisher. For those of you who are not familiar, or aware of my subtleties as to which book I'm referring to, each page is comprised of great images of kids and candy and trains. It is one emotional roller coaster after another for small kids.

     Will they make it over the hill? 

           Will the kids get their food and good candy to eat?

Ahhhhh! The suspense! My three year old brain is going to explode!

Yet it contains one major downfall, each page starts a sentence and each page makes you turn the page to finish the sentence. Start sentence, turn page, finish sentence.

Once upon a time there were three...(turn page) bears.


There is no time to linger and absorb the pictures, or let little minds ask questions or point out the things that excite them. Nope, must finish the sentence and plow through the book as fast as possible!  In my house this leads to a lot of, "Wait Mom, just go back, I just have to show you one thing!"Mary had a little lamb who's fleece.... (turn page)  was white as snow.

Now I don't care if your story is about how Mother Nature allows wolves to befriend (read: eat) little bunnies. The actual meaning of the words has very little to do with my point here.  Take for example, a page like the one below. You can see how your eye is drawn to certain portions of the picture. The sentence starts and ends. Your eye moves across the page before you even know what the words say - there is a natural movement. This is no accident folks.  This is art.  Beautiful art none... (turn page)   -the-less.

Although it's safe to assume that most authors are not illustrating their own stuff, I'd like to think it's a collaborative proces. So, for this team, a few things to keep in mind:

• color balance
• words vs. images
• symmetry

Point #2

Cut out all the extra stuff!

The best way to achieve life balance is to evaluate what is most important to you and get rid

of all the stuff that isn't. I have to admit, I'm not very good at this.  When I start to feel like I have a little extra time, I immediately fill it up, and usually with long term projects.  This means that two months later, I'm again feeling like a plate spinner, desperately trying to get rid of something and put down some of those proverbial plates. 

So if you too are feeling overwhelmed, clean up your life, gain some relaxation time. Set down some of those plates on the table in front of you. Get your family or friends together and eat a meal off of those plates. Hopefully there wasn't food on the plates when you were spinning them, that could get messy. You don't want egg on your face.  But then again I guess life is messy at times so maybe putting down a plate before you are ready to put down a plate will make a mess... this analogy is going downhill very quickly so I am abandoning it. I am setting down my plate balancing plate.

The same goes for your writing. Cleaning up a story is one of the hardest things to do. The editing process (which we will talk more about later) is one of the hardest and most important things you can do for your book. This is true of children's books, novels, screen plays, etc.  The extra stuff will cause you (and others) to loose site of your point very quickly. Extra details do not always help and extra words can be your worst enemy.  

When I figure out a formula for eliminating all the junk from a story, I promise to share, but until then... it's a process.  A long process.  

In the end, you will be a better writer.  Guaranteed.

Keep asking yourself why - why did my character do that? Why do I need that sentence? Why did he run and hide if he wasn't scared? 

If you can't answer intelligently, then my guess is that whatever it is, is worth cutting and will make your story stronger in the end. Sometimes that's a sentence, sometimes an entire paragraph, sometimes an entire side plot.  

You will find your story to be more balanced (and improve the reader's experience) when you: 

• Stick to your point
• Stay true  to your characters 
• Leave out unecessary fluff

Good luck and happy writing! 

... and reading, hopefully for all of you non-writers reading this blog, you are gaining a greater appreciation for what you are reading as well.