Hope in the Mail

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  “I have no idea why,” I told her, and in my mind it was a simple matter of Girl being on their list and them knowing I’d be at the conference.

  Which was all it seemed to be until midway through the meal, when the editor who’d been assigned to take over Girl duties told me that they were interested in…

  A sequel to Girl.

  It’s a good thing I hadn’t just taken a bite because I would have sprayed it. How could they want a sequel when they almost hadn’t published the original?

  The boss there hated it!

  Plus, I didn’t see a sequel. I liked the way Girl ended. Maybe I was too close to it. Maybe the story line was too much like my childhood’s. Maybe I was in my own way. But in that moment, I couldn’t see where a sequel might take the story.

  But what flashed through my mind was that it would be interesting—cool, and really funny, actually—to have a story from the neighbor boy’s point of view. It could be How I Survived Being a Boy…(In a Neighborhood with That Girl) and chronicle the same time frame as Girl, only from the neighbor boy’s perspective.

  The idea tickled my brain, so I shared it with the editor as an alternate idea, but she politely dismissed it and said they were interested in a traditional sequel.

  I told her I’d give it some thought, but the more I thought about it, the more closed to the idea I became. So much about it felt wrong, and my mind was still reeling.

  A sequel?

  To a book they’d hated?

  After dinner, I admit it: I phoned my editor, then zipped up to her room. Once again, we were crisscross-applesauce and I was spilling what had happened.

  She was calm. Kind. Gracious. “You can do it, Wendelin. If you want to, go ahead.”

  “But why do they want a sequel? It doesn’t make sense. They didn’t even like Girl.”

  So she explained to me that Girl had already “earned out” (more on this later), and with an Edgar on my mantel, I was now an award winner with a series they’d missed out on. Clearly, she said, I had a really bright future.

  Sitting there hearing this, I remember feeling the blinders come off.

  Oh. It was business.

  It wasn’t the story, it was the success.

  Something about hearing this was kind of crushing. What about craft? What about story? My mind snapped back to the years of rejection, to trying to break in, to moving past financial considerations and just wanting someone, somewhere, to love my writing enough to give it a chance.

  And then, the revelation.

  Crisscross-applesauce across from me was the one person who had given me that chance. And in that moment I knew that this was more than business to me. She was the one who’d brought me to this dance; it’d be wrong to cut out or flit around.

  So even though she’d said it was okay to write a sequel to Girl, I was done with the idea. “I’m not going to do it,” I told her. But since it was still tickling my brain, I told her my idea for Boy.

  She thought it was charming, with lots of potential. “Maybe we could publish it?”

  We both pondered that for a moment, but it was clearly an idea rife with potential problems.

  “I could start all over?” I suggested. “Tell a story from both a girl’s side and a boy’s side?”

  “You could,” she agreed.

  And a few years later, I did just that, writing the book that became Flipped.

  So what’s it like, holding your first book for the very first time?

  For many it’s magical.

  For me?

  After ten years of waiting, I think mine’s one for the books, but not in the way you might imagine.

  I was on my way out the Box House door, late (as usual) getting my young children to their swimming lessons, when I noticed a FedEx mailer on my porch.

  FedEx?

  To someone who carefully weighed her mailings and precisely calculated postage, this seemed extravagant. Who was FedExing me?

  I dead-bolted the front door and the security screen and scooped up the mailer.

  Return address: my publisher!

  Mailer weight and size: a book!

  My heart went into overdrive. “Wait up!” I called to my kids, who were already racing toward our car at the curb. “I think this is my book!”

  It was.

  Only…it wasn’t.

  It had my name on the cover, but…but they’d changed the title!

  My knees buckled. I crumpled to the porch step as I absorbed the cover.

  How could they have changed the title?

  I opened the book and…and…they’d also changed the words! The character names were…different and…and…I fanned through the pages…it was so different. How could they do this?

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” my son asked because, yes, there were tears. And because I had no words, I simply showed him the cover. And he said, “Looks like Quasimodo!”

  We’d recently watched Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and he was right: The cartoony character on the cover of my book—the girl with the wild short hair, cockeyed face, and hugely hunched shoulder—did, indeed, look like a young, female hunchback.

  I wailed, “She does!”

  And he said, “Who’s it supposed to be?”

  And I wailed, “Me!” Because as much as I plead the Fifth, the story I’d written was a fictionalized version of my childhood, which made the main character a fictionalized version of me. And no, the character didn’t have to look like Esmeralda—the beautiful woman in Hunchback—but did they have to make her look so much like Quasimodo?

  I couldn’t see anything anymore. There were tears everywhere. And somewhere in the wailing and gasping and trying to explain, the cover came off the book and it slowly dawned on me that I was holding…somebody else’s book?

  Yes. Somebody else’s book. This wasn’t a first copy of my book after all. It was a different book with a mock-up of my book’s cover wrapped around it.

  My editor later told me that she had sent the newly minted jacket around another book to try to show how terrific the cover would look. And oh—oops about the title. Hadn’t she discussed that with me?

  Uh…nooooooo.

  What I then learned was that people in-house thought my title (Walking on Sensitive Grass) was too literary—that the book needed a title with a lighter, more humorous feel. Apparently my editor agreed. They made a long list of alternate titles. How I Survived Being a Girl won.

  It took time to embrace the look and the humor of the situation, but eventually, I did. And after innumerable compliments on the jacket from booksellers, I stopped seeing the hunchback and started seeing an effective cover—one that stood out and made you want to pick up the book.

  And although I still like Walking on Sensitive Grass better as a title, I don’t know that it would have been a more effective title. Maybe the book would have bombed with that title. Or maybe not. At the point when I learned about the change, it seemed to be beyond discussion, so really, the only choice I had was in my reaction to it, and I chose to be gracious about it. The bottom line is, you work with people at your publishing house, and if you have a conniption or act like a diva, you’re not going to be someone they’ll want to continue to work with.

  My editor was apologetic, and as I later learned, Girl was her first solo acquisition, so I wasn’t the only one climbing the learning curve. To this day, she cringes at the memory of that oversight.

  So changing the title of your book without your consent is not standard or something you should be worried about happening, but if something similar happens to you, step back, cool off, address the problem but keep things in perspective. Someday you’ll be able to look back on the incident and laugh.

  Eons ago, I thought editors edited. You know—nipped and tucked your story and gave guidance for making it bett
er.

  And they do.

  What I did not know was that editing is only a small fraction of what they do. The actual job is so broad and complex that it still leaves me scratching my head. From negotiating the terms of book contracts, to presenting books at conferences, to working with sales and marketing and publicity departments, how is one person supposed to juggle so much? As time went by, the tasks I learned were part of my editor’s job kept mounting. It wasn’t until I had known her for twenty years that I finally asked her to tell me everything.

  You ready?

  Here’s what she does at her desk/in the office:

  Email. It’s a biggie for all working adults, but she has to field email from all over the place. She gets questions from authors and agents; updates from marketing, publicity, and sales; book reviews; industry newsletters; notices of reprints, first prints, out-of-prints; requests for meetings; and submissions. Then, of course, there’s the responding to emails: answering those questions from authors and agents; passing on the good and bad news; requesting information from others and then disseminating the answers.

  She prepares a case for new books that she’d like to acquire. This is a written appraisal of why the book is great, who will love it, who will buy it, how they’ll pitch it in-house and out-of-house. It also includes a long-term plan for the author, an estimate of how much revision the book requires, and a profit-and-loss statement with some supportable guess of how many copies will be printed, how many will sell, what the costs to the company will be, and what the potential profit might be.

  She writes long, thoughtful letters to authors. These are always “compliment sandwiches,” where she begins and ends with what’s so great about your work and in between gently explains what she feels could use work while also giving constructive suggestions for how to make the book even stronger.

  She writes the copy for book jackets, sales reps’ tip sheets, and online book descriptions. (After we’d worked together for a while, she started asking me for input on some of these. They are much harder than they seem.)

  She preps manuscripts so they are in the proper format for copy editors and designers to deal with.

  She reviews books that are in progress as they’re copyedited, set in type, proofread, corrected, and proofread again. And she does this as many times as it takes to get it right.

  She meets with designers to talk about the illustrations for picture books and the possibilities for jacket art for novels.

  She prepares presentations of her acquired books for meetings with sales and marketing and publicity, and different presentations for meetings with librarians and teachers, all in an effort to get them familiar with and excited about each new book.

  She attends meetings, meetings, and more meetings. First she prepares; afterward she follows up.

  She talks on the phone with agents and authors and colleagues.

  After acquisitions are approved, she negotiates the terms for new contracts with agents.

  She also meets with authors, agents, and foreign publishers who have made appointments. (In my experience, this takes time, including a tour through the office where you get introduced to the team of people in-house. And despite all of the many facets of her workday, she has a way of making you feel like you’re the most important thing she’s got going on.)

  What she “rarely, if ever” does in the office is read (submissions or revisions) or edit. That’s right. With all the other aspects of her job taking up so much of the day, she winds up doing the manuscript reading and editing during off hours and weekends.

  What I have come to see is that editors—not just mine—are all in. They love what they do and devote themselves to making a difference with the books they put out. From picture books to young adult novels, mine acquires about twelve manuscripts a year, and each one is special and important to her.

  And now, knowing what all is involved in the job an editor does, I have a little more understanding of why things seem to take so long, why some things slip through the cracks, and why one of the best traits you can cultivate as a writer is patience.

  One of the most common questions I get asked by writers interested in getting a book traditionally published is Do I need an agent?

  The realistic answer to that question is yes.

  It’s not the definitive answer, but your chances of placing a work of fiction with a traditional publisher are much better with an agent than without one. Editors rely on agents to find the best—most gripping, publishable, or marketable—manuscripts being sent around by authors. Reputable agents have connections to people inside publishing and know which editors may be interested in the type of thing you’ve written.

  So an agent can greatly increase the odds of at least getting your manuscript read by editors, and they can negotiate to improve the numbers of an offer and the language in your contract. However, there is no guarantee that agent representation will actually result in an offer from an editor. There are thousands of manuscripts looking for homes. Your role in all of this is to write something that will stand out in that flood of pages. Do not underestimate the value of the work. Having contacts is helpful, but it’s the work that will end up doing the talking. Make sure it’s your best effort and has something compelling to say.

  The catch-22 of the agent representation thing is that it can be almost as difficult to land an agent as it is to find an editor, but it has become more and more difficult to find an editor without an agent connecting you, and many publishers won’t look at unagented manuscripts anymore.

  Again, your best chance of getting an offer for representation is if your work really stands out. The bottom line is, if an agent reads it and loves it, she or he will be excited by the possibility of placing it.

  So, okay. Let’s say you believe you’ve written a great story. You’re ready to try to place it. How do you find an agent who’s right for you?

  This is not a how-to guide for that, but I can say one thing for certain: A good author-agent relationship is a partnership. Beyond my agent looking out for my interests, I’ve relied on her many times for advice, insight, and just moral support. Go in with the optimistic view that you’ll be working together for a long time, with your agent being your home base when working with what might become multiple editors at various publishing houses (since most authors don’t necessarily have a single editor or a relationship with only one publishing house). Ideally, you want an agent whom you like personally as well as professionally. The publishing industry can be a roller-coaster ride, and it’s nice to have someone to scream with you through unexpected drops and help keep your career on track.

  So don’t just send your query to Friendly-Sounding Agent or blanket Manhattan with emails. Do your homework and scout out agents who seem like they’d be right for you. It’s not hard to find out who represented or edited a book you think compares to yours. (For starters, online searches and digging into the book’s acknowledgments can prove to be very fruitful.) And most agents have a social media presence you can use to glean lots of information about them.

  When you feel you’ve found someone suitable, send them a personalized query (there are a slew of resources out there to guide you in writing a query letter—study them!) and the odds of them requesting a sample of your story will go up.

  Social media can also be a good way to get a heads-up on what an agent (or editor) is looking for. Especially someone who has recently joined an agency or been promoted. In their new position, they’re excited to make their own mark in the industry, and sometimes they’ll put a call out on social for something specific. So follow and listen.

  Even though I was concerned about making a contractual mistake with the Sammy Keyes series, I was still a little on the fence about retaining an agent. Wasn’t the hard part finding an editor? And since I was pretty sure I’d
already done that, why would I give a percentage of everything to an agent? So before I retained my agent, I found a polite way of asking her exactly that.

  After making a case for herself, she arranged for me to speak to a couple of her clients. Of course these were authors who were happy with her representation, but still, not knowing much of anything about the business of publishing, I was surprised to learn of the number of ways agency representation can benefit an author.

  So, although agencies vary, here’s what I hope is a helpful list of the main things a full-service firm is likely to provide for their authors:

  Some literary agents will make editorial suggestions to help get your manuscript into submission-worthy shape, while others may offer less specific or broader market advice.

  Once your agent thinks your manuscript is one they can place, they will shop it to editors they believe may be a good fit for your work. (A successful agent will have many contacts and personal relationships within the publishing industry.)

  They will regularly follow up with those editors, doing their best to keep things on a timely track.

  When an editor makes an offer, the agent will negotiate the terms of the contract. (This includes the advance payment, the payment schedule, royalty rates, and exactly which rights will go to the publisher and which will be retained by the author.)

  The agency may have a film subagent or a film rights department that will work to place your book as a screen property (basically doing all of the above regarding rights and payments, only as a film property instead of a book).