How a Book is Made: A Video Series

HarperCollins did this inaugural seven part video series about the making of Lauren Oliver's The Spindlers. The first two videos discuss the author's process, then it moves into editorial, art, managing editorial, production, and the author reading. I already know a lot about the process of writing and editing the book, but I found the part about the art and the physical printing of the book very interesting, because that aspect is not often discussed.

Here's episode 4, about the art:

Here's episode 6, about the production:

You can find the rest of the video series at this link.

What Makes a Story Compelling: An Intern's Perspective

For those wondering about what makes a great story from an agent's perspective, this post from the Greenhouse Literary blog as well as its second part are a great read. The author of the posts breaks down how she knows when she's reading a submission if she's got something she wants to take on, both something that's a great story and something that's going to sell. Because make no mistakes, publishing is a business and anyone who doesn't treat it as such is going to get burned.

I agree with her wholeheartedly on all her points. If a manuscript isn't making me want to know what happens next, I already know I'm going to reject it. If I get interrupted after twenty pages and I come back to it and think, "Eh, if I didn't finish this, I wouldn't really care," that's a problem. I can't agree more with her points about the emotional resonance and themes of a novel being so important. Oftentimes when I can't put my finger on what's wrong with a manuscript at first, it's that the characters don't feel real. Their struggles don't resonate with me emotionally. I want the author to convince me to care fiercely about these characters. For me personally, plot can always be fixed, but characters are so important and hard to get right. And if you have well-developed characters, the plot will follow from putting them in challenging situations.

I like that she points out that the stakes can be high even in contemporary stories. Just because it's about a high school girl living in an ordinary town doesn't mean the stakes can't be high. What does she want most? Put that in jeopardy. And likewise, just because a story is set in a world alien to our own doesn't mean it doesn't need to feel real. For example, Marissa Meyer's Cinder sounds absolutely insane: a retelling of Cinderella where she's a cyborg in future Beijing, oh yeah and there's a race of people that live on the moon. But our protagonist wants what we all want: acceptance, freedom, love. She wants to move out on her own, away from her stepmother who hates her. She wants desperately to help her stepsister when she gets sick. She decides to try to help the prince even though it might mean revealing herself as a cyborg in a society where her kind are reviled.

Oftentimes, I read something and think, what is the point of this manuscript? The author introduces all these themes or motifs but doesn't say anything about them. To use another YA example, Across the Universe takes place in a setting alien to our own: a giant, self-sustaining spaceship. Many people dismiss science fiction stories as "not good literature," but the best science fiction stories are about what it means to be human (see The Twilight Zone if you want some amazing examples). And the Across the Universe trilogy (without giving too much away) explores what it means to be human when you've never lived on a planet. How much of our humanity comes from living on Earth? Can we still be human in an artificial world? How will a person who has only known life on a planet react to this spaceship? It also explores secrets and knowledge. The whole trilogy is like an onion, peeling back layers of secrets to get to the truth. When is it okay to keep secrets for the greater good? Do people always deserve the truth? Can you really love someone when you have no other options? In the face of unspeakable atrocities, how do you go on? Can you maintain hope and faith even when everything inside you wants to give up? I could go on and on about this novel, but I'll stop here.

I think something important to think about when writing is what makes you as a reader, engaged in a story? What about those characters and plots keeps you turning the pages? Use those techniques to construct your story, while adding an element that is completely your own.

A New Kind of Book Packager?

               

I've been very interested in the development of Paper Lantern Lit. Lauren Oliver is one of the co-founders, and she is one of my favorite YA authors. Her writing is beautiful and I will literally read anything she writes. For those not familiar with the concept, Paper Lantern Lit conceives of a concept and chapter outlines for the book and then audition people to write the story. On some levels, it makes sense. I see some agents putting in a lot of time and effort shaping a first time manuscript, that it makes sense to take that to the next step and become a book packager/agency hybrid. And because they provide an outline, there are no surprises plotwise when they get the finished product from an author. They can control the topics based on the trends they see being profitable. But I still feel like a book packager and an agency fulfill different roles in an author's career and in the marketplace. However, they have been very successful so far, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye on them as they grow.

Instead of a Portal World, Try Peeling Back the Layers of Our Own

This post about portal fantasies gave me some food for thought. The author of the post is wondering why no agents are interested in representing portal fantasies in the vein of the Chronicles of Narnia. Many agents feel that portal fantasies have low stakes because the danger never affects the protagonist's home world. I tend to agree with that sentiment. I remember that I liked The Magician's Nephew, the prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, much better than the actual first book. In the prequel, the White Witch actually comes into the human world and wreaks havoc, while in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the entirety of the action takes place within the portal world. I also find it a bit unbelievable when the residents of the portal world are these amazing, powerful beings who need a human to solve all their problems.

On another note, the author of this post notes that there is little YA fiction that involves space travel and alien planets. I think that is largely because for a long time, those premises were relegated to the hard sci-fi section and as YA doesn't have a ready made market for hard sci-fi, people may have been confused as how to sell these books in the young adult market. However, I think this is changing, due to the popularity of the Across the Universe trilogy and the recently published Mothership by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal.

Also, the author suggests that "Maybe the lack of portal fantasy is a metaphor for the belief that modern teenagers don’t want to travel to strange new worlds, even in their reading." I think this whole discussion about portal fantasy ignores the fact that perspective is crucial to the story being told. I have nothing against exploring a strange new world, but I don't need it to be introduced to me via a portal fantasy premise. To me, that seems like an extra step, and I'd like to cut out the middleman. Every time I read a new book, I, the reader, fill the role of the protagonist of a portal fantasy as I enter the world this book is showing me. I greatly prefer straight fantasy because the perspective is from the natives of that world. Some writers might find it hard to introduce their new world and use a portal world as a shortcut, however, for the most part, I find this to be lazy writing and story-telling. In Cinder by Marissa Meyer, for example, Meyer sucked me right into her futuristic Beijing retelling of Cinderella with a cyborg protagonist. I never say "never," so a well-written portal fantasy can certainly suck me in, but for the most part, I prefer a different premise.

A really good way for me to talk about this is to discuss a recent YA book I've read and loved: Croak by Gina Damico. This is a book that introduces the reader to a strange new world while still keeping the stakes high for the "real" world. In this novel, Lex is sent to live with her uncle after a recent run of delinquent behavior. Little does she (or her parents) know that her uncle is a Grim, someone who sends departed souls to the afterlife. Lex arrives in the little isolated mountain town of Croak, one of a few places where Grims live and work together. Non-Grims don't see these places for what they are, and the magic of the places send them away confused. The Grimsphere is another layer to our world, and Grims can still move freely through the rest of the world. One of the Grims goes rogue and starts Damning criminals (preventing their souls from reaching the Afterlife), but soon the Grim starts Damning innocent people as well. The eternal souls of the entire human world hang in the balance, which gives this story high stakes and makes it so compelling.

All in all, when I was younger, I read a fair amount of portal fantasies, but I've since left those stories behind, and I look with excitement to the future of YA fantasy. I'm only a lowly intern at the moment, but someday down the road when I'm an actual agent, I would love to represent something like Croak. For those interested, there are currently two books in the series with a third on the way. Add it on Goodreads here. By the way, how cool is that cover?

You Are Not Entitled to a Successful Publishing Career

Part of this post really resonated with me. Alvina Ling talks about an encounter she had with a writer at a SCBWI conference:

"'The problem is, agents and publishers aren't knocking on my door.'

I didn't have a response for this, and we were already walking away from each other, so I just continued on my way. But later I replayed the conversation and marveled at the woman's attitude. It was as if she felt she was somehow entitled to be published, that it shouldn't be so hard.

I don't know the woman's background--perhaps she'd been coming to conferences for years and was just speaking from extreme frustration. Or maybe it was her first conference, and she was disappointed by what she had learned. But I'm really not sure what that woman wanted me to say. That it should be that easy? Did she want me to somehow feel guilted into publishing her? That I'd say, without having read anything she'd written, that I'd publish her book?"

The nature of my job as a literary agency intern means I have to reject a great deal of people every week. I work at a smaller agency (in terms of the number of agents, not clients), and we receive about 400 queries a month. I've been here 4 months, and out of all those queries, I've probably requested about 25 full manuscripts, and of those 25, I've actually reported on about eight I felt were good enough to show to one of the agents. And of those eight, they've taken on exactly...none. Since I've been there, I think the agency has signed two new clients. As a small agency, most of their time in the office (like other agencies) is spent on their existing clients. They talk to their authors, they call editors they think are a fit for the manuscript they're shopping, they discuss foreign rights, they talk to Amazon about problems with their authors' ebooks, they read their authors' new manuscripts, and type up editorial notes and pitch letters, among other things. Most of their reading is done outside of the office. Your manuscript may not be bad, it may be just good - instead of great. For an agent to spend their precious time reading your manuscript, it has to really pique their interest (I think it's safe to say every agent wants to find that manuscript that makes them miss their subway stop).

So you can start to see how hard it is to get published. 

There are plenty of reasons why an agent will pass on your manuscript that have nothing to do with the quality of your plot or writing. I've passed on things because they're too similar to books my agency already represents. This is a huge problem. I see a lot of queries where people gush that they love X author or X book that we represent, and then proceed to pitch something that is almost exactly the same. I'm glad that you have the same taste in books as our agents, but there's not room on our list for something that's exactly the same as what we always represent. Selling both books would become a problem.

I've passed on things because their premise is too similar to projects that have over saturated the market. For example, I will almost always pass on something with vampires, unless the query really grabs me. Sometimes a project just doesn't fall under the scope of what the agency represents. For example, short story collections, poetry, and books written for an academic audience are not a good fit for our agency. Also, every agent has their personal list of things that make them groan when they see them in their inbox, because it's just not their cup of tea. I'm just an intern, so I don't take my personal preferences into consideration, but personally, I groan when I see a story with fallen angels or a story where the protagonist is 'fated,' 'destined,' or 'bound' to their love interest. However, if the author makes me like the manuscript despite my biases, that shows they are a strong writer.

I see the attitude she's talking about a lot in queries. There was one query in particular where the author felt compelled to inform me that even if I pass on their work, they "intend" to get published. The people who praise their own writing in their query, or who blog about how easy it should be for them to get published (I do google you, authors, I do), really turn me off. If you send me a strong query, and your sample pages deliver on what was promised in the query, that's all you need. It's cool if you have writing credits, degrees, and memberships in various writing groups, but none of those are relevant if I'm not compelled by your story and your writing.

Not everyone is going to be a successful writer. Just like not everyone is going to be a successful doctor, lawyer, actor, artist, musician, etc. My family members joke around and ask me, "How many dreams did you crush today?" However, not everyone should be a published writer. For the most part, I'm confident when I reject people that they will keep writing for fun even if they never get published, or that even though they're not right for our agency, someone else will publish them. Fact: some people are just not good writers. Some people will never get better, and some people just need to write a couple more manuscripts to develop their skills before they query again.

Most published writers have day jobs, and only a very small percentage of writers can live off their writing. Even the most successful authors didn't get that way overnight. Meg Cabot has talked about the hundreds of rejection letters she received before she got published, and even then, her books weren't that successful. It wasn't until the Princess Diaries movie came out that she was able to republish her old books, and they became successful as well. John Green, arguably one of the most popular and talented writers in YA, wasn't a best-selling author at first, and he worked really hard to earn a devoted following that is largely responsible for his current overwhelming success.

Bottom line: Getting published is hard. Getting published is a business. Agents want to represent good writers and stories, and editors want to publish them, but nobody owes you anything. You have to work for it.

Oyster to Create the Spotify of Books? I'm Dubious.

I don't know how I feel about this news about Oyster deciding to try to make the Spotify or Netflix of books. I'm sure it works out well for publishers, but I'm not sure how agents and authors would feel about this model. I'm not sure how much money this would really give agents or authors (probably not a lot). I'm not sure how it would affect ebook sales (I'm sure it won't touch print sales, since not everyone is an avid ebook reader). I'm sure that's a question they'll have to worry about once they launch this to the general public.

It definitely sounds like it's targeted toward people who don't read a lot and want recommendations. I feel like people who read a lot and are active in their reading selections either have a Goodreads account or they have friends with whom they can exchange books and book recommendations. Since you're paying a monthly fee, I guess the extent to which people get their money's worth out of this depends on how fast they read. This is also targeted toward people who primarily read ebooks. I can't imagine paying a monthly fee to only read ebooks. I read books from a variety of sources and in a variety of forms. As a literary agency intern, I read a lot of unpublished manuscripts on my laptop. I also read books I get from the library. I read physical books I purchase. I also read ebooks I get from the library. I don't think I'm the target audience for this ebook library project, so maybe I'm not the best person to comment on this, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents before this actually hits widespread distribution. It's something I'll be keeping an eye on - we'll see how successful it becomes.

Choose Your Own Adventure Gets New Life

Seeing this news story on Galley Cat made me nostalgic for my childhood days spent reading Choose Your Own Adventure novels as well as the Give Yourself Goosebumps novels. If tablets had existed when I was a kid, reading these books would have been so much easier! I wouldn't have had to bookmark the pages to go back to and then get upset when I lost track and had to start all over. Look at that beautiful format! Ah, to be a child again.

How it Works: An Intern Reads Your Queries

I just thought I would clear up some misconceptions people might have about querying and how it works at an agency. I can only speak to the way it works at my agency, but maybe it will be illuminating for someone.

We have an email address for submissions, and we start at the oldest email and work our way up to the latest, although we occasionally just skim through to see if there's something that catches our eye.

Generally, I at least read the first few pages of every submission, regardless of how stellar the query letter is. Exceptions are:

1. If English clearly isn't the author's first language. Their best bet is to try to get published in their own country, and then the book can eventually be professionally translated into English.

2. If the query letter is novella length. At that point, I've already spent more time than I would like on that submission and I haven't even gotten to the manuscript yet! And usually when the query letter is that long, I finish it without a clue what their book is about.

Also, I'm only an intern, and we are only allowed to respond with a form rejection letter. There are many times when I would like to give more specific feedback, but I just can't. Anything I say is as a representative of the agency, but not as an actual employee. So don't be offended by the form rejection letter. A lot of agencies don't respond at all, and we really do look at every submission.

We also get snail mail submissions, and there's nothing wrong with that, but to me, it just seems like a waste of money between the paper, printer ink, and cost of postage. It's much easier for us to respond to email queries.

So, what happens if I like the first few pages? I'll keep reading the full partial, and reevaluate at that point. That's when I ask myself, do I really want to keep reading this? Am I dying to know what happens? Am I invested in these characters? If the answer is no, I send the rejection. If the answer is yes, I request the full.

Then, the full may sit in my maybe pile for awhile before I get to it. I have many other duties as an intern: filing, reading other queries, preparing mailings, etc. A lot of the reading of full manuscripts happens when I'm not in the office. And I'm not even getting paid! I want to read your manuscripts, but it takes time.

But even if I request the full manuscript, two things may happen.

1. I may not finish it. I may get to a point where the plot takes a turn, or it really starts to lag, or characters become inconsistent. I'll send a rejection at that point.

2. Another possibility is that I finish the full.

At this point, there's three possibilities:

1. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't anything special. Form rejection.

2. I liked it a lot, but I'm not quite sure if it has that special something. I'll usually start reading another full, and if I'm more excited about that one, I'll probably reject the first one.  At the end of the day, I have to be really selective as to what I pass on to the agents.

3. I love it, and I want to read the sequel, and I'm so excited about the idea of it someday getting published.

If I really love it, then I'll write a reader's report. I'll start the report with a summary much like the jacket copy on a book. Then I'll write up what works and what doesn't. I'll write about the character development, exciting plot points, similarities to other books, and its potential to be published, among other things. Then I'll send that reader's report and the full manuscript to one of the agents.

Then I have to wait for them to get around to reading it. And the thing is, EVEN if I love it, and EVEN if I write the report, the agents might still pass on it. In fact, they probably will. They're very selective and with good reason. Taking on a new client is a big deal, and it takes away from the amount of time they have to spend on their existing clients.

So I hope that helped someone, somewhere. Time to go bury my head back in the slush pile.

Book Publishing Basics: Taking the Smoke out of The Smoking Gun - A Bookish Broad

"It is very easy to point fingers at 'the big bad publisher' when a story like The Smoking Gun’s makes the rounds, but without knowing the intricacies of the book business, I’d be cautious about placing blame and think about the broken promises made by authors signing contracts which they do not fulfill."

via Book Publishing Basics: Taking the Smoke out of The Smoking Gun - A Bookish Broad.

As a literary agency intern, I get to read contracts, and I've learned a lot about the business side of publishing. And that's the thing: publishing is a creative industry, but it's also a business, and at the end of the day, authors enter into contracts with publishers which are often fiercely negotiated, and just as authors expect publishers to hold up their end of the deal, authors must do the same.

I encourage everyone to write, but I firmly believe that not everyone that tries to will or should be published. And even of those that are, not all of them will be wildly successful. Many published authors have a day job. To be a published author in this day and age, requires a certain kind of personality. They have to be willing to have an internet presence, to do interviews and book tours, and above all, to work hard. You must deliver the goods/services (the novel) that you have legally agreed to provide on the date agreed upon.

An Intern's Thoughts on Queries (Maybe Pick One Genre, Not Fifteen)

I came across this post about categorizing your manuscript in the query letter and it made laugh, since it definitely makes me think of things I've seen while reading the slush pile at my internship. Especially when she talks about the mistake of categorizing your manuscript too specifically. My fellow intern once read a query that said their work had fifteen genres. I also agree with her about having "killer pitch" and "tight, great polished writing in the actual ms." Regardless of genre, we all just want to read something that piques our interest and is also well-written.

She's also right about it not being true that agents just reject queries because of minor formatting issues or because you categorized your manuscript "incorrectly." Believe me, I have gone on to read the sample pages from queries that had more than just formatting problems wrong with them. Unless you sound like a stark raving lunatic in your query letter, I will probably read your sample pages. To me, I'd rather read a short and to the point query letter with a couple of typos than a novella length query - at that point, I feel I've invested all the time in your work that I can possibly afford.

"Agents are just people. People who love books, and who want to help facilitate the making of books. People whose job it is to advocate for authors."

This is so true! Like in any profession, I know there are agents out there who aren't the best, but the ones I work with truly love their authors and work really hard to sell their books all across the globe, to play hardball and get them the best possible deals, and most of all, they love discussing their authors' manuscripts around the office.

My basic, basic tips on querying fiction would be to read the jacket copy on every book you come across. Make a note of what works and what doesn't. When I read your query, I should know who the main characters are, what the inciting action is, and what complications will arise over the course of the novel.

So get out there and send out well-written queries, authors! And please have someone read it over. Writing is a passion, but getting published is a career, and you need to be professional. You wouldn't send out a cover letter without looking it over ten times; the same should be true of your query letter. Good luck!