Hope in the Mail

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  They may have a foreign rights department and/or subagents throughout the world who will pitch your book to foreign markets (and negotiate and collect, etc.).

  They will handle other unsold ancillary rights.

  The agency tracks and collects all moneys owed to you, and disburses them to you (minus their commission), while providing a full accounting of all payments. With the financial details centered in one place, an agency is a great resource when accounting questions arise.

  An experienced agent can also provide overall career guidance (which is increasingly important, considering the complexity and ongoing evolution of today’s publishing landscape). They are the author’s advocate and ally, especially when there are issues within the publishing house that need to be addressed.

  Bottom line: If you decide to seek representation, make sure what you’re looking for in an agent is included in the services they and their agency provide. Use the list here to craft some questions for them, and be sure to also ask detailed questions about the agent’s methods (like their response time to emails and calls, their transparency, preferred practices, etc.).

  Last suggestion, and something I wish I’d done: Get educated about the industry. Read, investigate, absorb. And attend writers’ conferences where editors and agents are faculty members. Listen to what they have to say. Find ones who are looking for the sort of thing you write. It’s always a plus if a query you send later mentions that you met them at a conference. And once you have an agent, it can be helpful to pass along to them information you’ve gathered about editors you’ve met or heard speak who are looking for the sort of thing you’ve written.

  And please. If you get turned down, don’t be discouraged. Understand that it’s just part of the process, and that the way forward is to try, try again. Keep at it consistently, persistently, and for exactly as long as it takes. Being armed with this fundamental knowledge should definitely help speed things up.

  What’s a copy editor, and how does a copy editor differ from an editor?

  The copy editor’s job begins after the author and editor have gone back and forth on a manuscript and have revised it to a point where they both feel it’s in great shape and is ready for a different kind of scrutiny.

  My (usually) affectionate name for the copy editor who weighs in on one of my manuscripts is the Comma Queen. They are not all women, but I don’t usually know who the copy editor is on any given project, so whenever I’m in the throes of their notes, I call them the Comma Queen.

  They. Are. Precise.

  And it can be so maddening!

  Although their titles seem similar, the copy editor’s job is quite different from the editor’s job. It doesn’t matter if the copy editor likes your book (although when they say they do, it’s always nice). It doesn’t matter if they think it makes a worthwhile contribution to literature. Their focus is on syntax, continuity, and clarity. They also fact-check and sometimes save your bacon.

  For traditional publishers, a copy editor can be someone who works in-house or freelance. They go over the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb (and yes, nitpick it), and then they return it to the editor, who reviews the copy editor’s comments, weighs in (in the margins, formerly in colored pencil, now usually electronically), and sends the manuscript back to the author to consider all the copy editor’s notes.

  Copy editors do much more than monitor commas, but it’s the commas that drive me nuts. I can spend half an hour staring at a comma that the copy editor wants to add (or subtract), trying to determine if I really want to add (or subtract) that comma. “What does it matter?” I ask myself after the first ten minutes, but there I am, ten minutes later, still agonizing over that little curve of ink.

  It takes time to consider every note a copy editor makes. Even after so many revisions and so much attention to detail, it’s a rare page that makes it past the Queen unscathed, and it doesn’t take long for irritation to set in. This was especially true for the Sammy Keyes series, which seemed to have a different copy editor for each book, and every one of them threw the entire manuscript into past tense. They hated the way I switched tenses back and forth between past and present, since it did not adhere to standard grammatical style, and the pages came back to me completely bloodied with “corrections.” It took many books for the copy chief to develop a guide that dubbed my style “California casual” and informed the copy editor that the switching of tenses was intentional, not author ignorance.

  The flip side of that was my reluctance to recognize where improvement in the prose was needed. Early in my career I would have a knee-jerk rejection to the notes, telling myself that what I’d written made perfect sense and how could the Queen not understand what it meant?

  But the fact was, she didn’t understand. And if she didn’t understand, maybe other readers wouldn’t either. So, pages later and often grudgingly, I’d go back and revisit where the gap in understanding might have occurred. And usually, still grudgingly, I’d concede that there could be an element of confusion.

  Which, over time, grew into the editorial version of “the customer is always right”: The reader is always right. If the reader doesn’t get it, it’s probably not on the page. And being defensive or trying to explain what you meant is not going to lend clarity to what you’ve written. There’s always another way to say it, and working to find it is part of your job as an author.

  Now sometimes, despite their superior knowledge of syntax, you are right and they’re just wrong. What’s nice is if the editor has run block in this situation before you see the marked-up manuscript. If the editor disagrees with the copy editor’s correction or note, she will line out the correction and write stet beside it. (Stet derives from Latin and means “let it stand,” or, basically, “ignore this correction/comment/suggestion.”) When my editor’s not sure about a correction, she’ll write Wendelin? or just W? alongside the copy editor’s note, and then it’s up to me to decide if I’m going to take or stet the change.

  It’s always a relief to have made it through the dance with a Comma Queen. When it’s over, you do a little curtsy, send back your revision to the editor, and bow out.

  Phew.

  And then, a couple of months later, you get called back onto the dance floor by a different Comma Queen.

  That’s right. After the corrections have been made to the final manuscript, it goes through the mill again; now it’s set in type, emerging as a first set of page proofs. And instead of going back to the original copy editor, the page proofs are sent to a new person: a proofreader. This person’s job is to make sure that the page proofs match your final manuscript exactly—but also to find any errors that the copy editor, or your editor, or you, the author, might have missed. New eyes. New approach. New commas to consider.

  And here’s the hair-pulling part:

  A comma that the copy editor added—a comma that you might have agonized over for half an hour and finally agreed to—the proofreader may cut out.

  Oh, for the love of Oxford commas.

  I think adding one makes things clear, precise, and readable.

  Others, however, find it to be superfluous, overused and fussy.

  So you as the author are forced to choose, which sometimes means taking a stance against the in-house style guide. (By the way, this whole process is usually performed one more time—when the first set of page proofs is marked up with corrections and a second set of page proofs is created and sent to a second proofreader. And if there are still more corrections, there could be still more corrected page proofs.) Eventually there comes a point where you are so completely sick of looking at your novel’s pages that you don’t even care anymore. Or, at least, that’s the lie you tell yourself. Because after my book (meaning the page proofs) has, once again, been returned to my editor for final-final corrections and a few weeks have passed, I always panic. What if the correc
tions weren’t done right? What if I missed something?

  In that panic, I email my editor and beg, “Can I please, please give it one last look before it goes to press?” and promise her I’ll turn it around in twenty-four hours.

  And guess what?

  I always, always find mistakes.

  Sometimes substantial ones!

  And I’m always, always glad for that last look through the page proofs before they become an actual book.

  And then, finally, it is a real book. And guess what?

  Someone finds a mistake in it.

  Still, sneaky errors aside, when I was a new author, I had no idea what went into prepping a book for traditional publication or how much time and effort got devoted to making sure everything about the book was just right. I’m grateful to the Comma Queens (and the King in-house at Knopf who has overseen the final page proofs for almost all of my books), because I know that without them, there would be a lot more errors caught by readers, and some of them (like the time I misspelled Shakespeare) would be downright embarrassing.

  I am not an artist. However, like most people, I have definite opinions about art. So it’s hard to be left out of the design process of a book I’ve spent years writing and perfecting. But typically, authors—especially new ones working with larger publishers—are not consulted much if at all on art or design.

  Obviously, I had a pretty rude awakening to this with How I Survived Being a Girl.

  To the author, excluding the person who wrote the book is a bit of a head-scratcher. Who knows the book better than the author? And it’s their book. Why can’t they have the art they envision?

  The answer is that we can’t be masters of everything. Publishing houses have designers who (with input from the editor) either create the book jacket or work with an artist to create one. Their career focus has been on book art and design. It is their profession. And although art is in the eye of the beholder and we’d like to see our own book dressed in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing to us, we may not be aware of what look will best serve our book in the current marketplace. It’s the design team’s job to create a cover that will entice the intended audience to pick it up, open it up, and sink into the magic of our words.

  For your first book, you will likely get a preliminary rendering with a note saying something like We hope you love it as much as we do!

  And that’s sincere. They hope you do. And maybe the cover is better than you could have imagined…and maybe it’s not. If it’s not, take a step back, cool off, and understand that that hunchback may be a much better choice than you can know, given that your expertise is words, not art or the marketplace.

  The most befuddling case of being-kept-out-of-the-art-loop is with picture books. If you’re a writer-illustrator, that’s obviously not an issue. But if your dream is to write a picture book and you don’t have art skills, know that it’s the design team at the publishing house that selects the illustrator. Do not submit illustrations done by your friend or neighbor or someone you know from your writers’ group, even if you think they’re perfect or brilliant. That is not how it’s done. (There are lots of resources on how to format and submit picture-book manuscripts. If you want to join that field, study them!) Editors and art directors choose the illustrator, and you will likely have little say in who that is.

  You will also not be allowed to talk to them.

  That’s right. It’s your story, but they don’t want you weighing in on the art. Sounds nuts, but let me de-befuddle it a little:

  We authors have a vision for the art. We have opinions. And we’d like to tell the illustrator what we see and think and want, all the way down to the freckles on our character’s cute little face.

  It’s hard to be creative when someone’s looking over your shoulder, breathing down your neck, rendering opinions. Shoot, it’s hard to breathe when someone’s doing that. How would you feel if you were at your computer, typing your story, your imagination frolicking along, and all of a sudden you realized someone was standing behind you, reading every word.

  You would slap them back and say, Go away! I can’t write like this!

  So, there it is.

  That’s why.

  They can no more create art knowing you’re watching and wanting to guide them than you can write with someone looking over your shoulder.

  Let them do their thing.

  Once you’ve built a relationship with an editor and have demonstrated respect for the restrictions and decorum, they will start to let you in a little. For The Running Dream, my editor sent four potential covers and asked if I had a preference. I definitely did, and they went that route. That was a first in almost fifteen years of working together.

  For the Sammy series, the original hardback covers—the puzzle-piece design—were created by an illustrator and the publishing house’s design team. The books were beginning to come out in paperback with the same artwork, but when Hotel Thief won the Edgar, a decision was made to change the paperback art to a more realistic look, while the hardback art continued in the puzzle-piece design.

  About six books in, the paperback covers were changed again, this time with bright packaging and a focus on the humor of the books. The hardcovers continued in the puzzle-piece design, and the paperbacks were now more cartoony. And although I thought the art was fun and well done, I started to get feedback from teachers and booksellers that the covers weren’t hitting their mark. The art appealed to boys in third and fourth grades, the name Sammy implied a boy protagonist, and middle school kids—especially girls—were not picking them up without being told what was inside the covers.

  When the end of the series was on the horizon, it seemed like a good time to consider a new look, but repackaging an eighteen-book series is an expense that needs justification. And if you’re going to do it, you want to do it right. So I embarked on a quest to gather information. I came up with a questionnaire that I sent to book people, solicited input via social media, listened to booksellers, and got feedback from thousands of kids during school visits.

  After a good nine months of gathering data, I compiled all the information in an easy-to-process summary and sent it, along with some general art ideas (realistic middle school girl, skateboard, high-tops), to my editor. The steps between that and the approval for repackaging seemed to take forever, but in the end, repackaging was approved, and then began the process of deciding on the art.

  Sammy Keyes books mix adventure with humor with mystery with coming-of-age with serious themes. How can you capture all of that in the cover design? What do you focus on? Should the art be realistic or stylized? Humorous or scary? Should it have a bright background to catch the eye? A dark background to convey a different vibe? Or maybe a white background to pop the art and have it fit in nicely with the look of many of my stand-alone books?

  The evolution of the current covers did not happen overnight. What the experience taught me is that the choices are infinite, and that a seasoned art director is invaluable. It was fun to be involved, but even though I was the person who had written all eighteen books, even though I was the one who had gathered all the data, I did not have final say. Which, in the end, I was fine with, because they backed up their decision with marketing data. As long as we were in the ballpark of a style that addressed the data—whether it was data I’d supplied or from the publisher—I was just grateful to have my series get the boost of a new look.

  One last note for those of you who want to be illustrators: Like authors, sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board. Be willing to do so. It’s part of the process. Also, keep building your portfolio. Find your style, but keep an open mind. Being flexible, agreeable, and willing to revise will make art directors and editors much more open to working with you.

  While we were living in the Box House, our exit plan involved a piece of land a short drive north that had a view of the
Pacific Ocean. It was an unimproved lot with difficult access and a steep footprint, but oh, the view. Part of the reason we continued to live in the Box House was that we were making payments on the land, but also because we were paying to engineer the foundation of a house we hoped to build on that land. It wasn’t a fancy house—a basic two-story rectangle—but wow, the engineering that was needed to access the lot and secure the house to the bedrock. It became a big black hole sucking up our paychecks.

  Fortunately, one of my former students mentioned that her father was a building contractor. He was an immigrant from Holland, so there was the Dutch connection, but he also had a deep respect for teachers and became committed to helping us get the house built.

  With our savings completely spent down and now up to our eyebrows in loans, we finally moved out of the Box House and into our own at about the time that Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief won the Edgar. And uh-oh, the assumptions our new neighbors—and my old colleagues—made. You could see the wheels turning in their minds as they looked around, took in the view. Their reaction had nothing to do with Dream big, work hard, don’t give up. After all those years of us working long shifts and weekends and teaching extra night classes, after all our juggling of schedules and chronic sleep deprivation, what people thought was This is the house that Sammy Keyes built.

  Because everyone knows: Authors are rich.

  There was a time when I thought that getting a book published would mean my family’s financial troubles would be solved, so I was guilty of similar thinking. And since it’s not polite to ask about money (and since most people like to promote an aura of financial success and don’t mind the misconception), that assumption tends to be perpetuated. So instead of leaving you wondering (or perpetuating the myth), let me outline the financial basics of being an author.