by Judy Bridges
The ideal is “one-time” rights (the right to use it, once) and “pays on acceptance,” which is when they take it rather than when it’s published. The truth is, we often compromise, especially if it’s a nice publication. When the assistant editor of a news magazine called me to accept an essay I’d submitted, she asked, “Would $250 be all right?” I had to keep myself from saying, “I think I can afford that,” as if I was going to pay her. I probably would have.
The Write-First Path for Book-length Works
Finish the book
Unless you have a relationship with the agent or publisher, do not approach either before you have finished the book.
Write your query letter
The query is based on the finished manuscript—you are asking the agents/publishers/editors if they would be willing to look at the book you have already written. (See Appendix B for a sample format for your letter.)
The query letter is probably the most difficult writing you’ll ever do in your life. Read every “how to” article and sample you can find, and plan on a few months of writing and rewriting to get your query right. You are rarely allowed more than one page in which to sell your concept, your writing, the book’s marketability, and your ability to help sell it. Do not waste your breath saying this is the one book you just had to write. First efforts rarely make it big, so they’ll want to know that you have plans for more.
If you know anyone who has had success writing queries for similar works, beg/pay them to help you, but never leave it all up to them. You need to do your own studying and follow your own star.
One bit of good news is that you can send several queries at a time. Make a list of potential agents and publishers, those who handle books similar to yours. Tailor each query, mentioning specific titles they handled and how your book fits into their market. At this point, you are asking them to take a look at your work. You can ask as many as you like at one time—five to ten is reasonable.
If you get a rejection, have a fit, throw a few things at the wall, then sit down and query the next prospect on your list.
Have your full proposal ready to send
Good news. The agent sees good things in your query. She might ask for fifty pages or three chapters or a full proposal. You will send what she asks for, of course. If it is for the full proposal, she will want all or parts of the following:
Cover letter: A businesslike response to the agent’s letter with a list of what you are including in the proposal package.
Title page: A practically blank page with book title and author’s name. Send if requested. Follow standard format.
Contents page: Usually not sent with novels. But do include a contents page for a collection of any type.
Synopsis: A very short (1-2 page) showcase of the book and your writing. Do your best to engage the reader in characters and plot, perhaps by leading with an excerpt from a vivid scene. Not a summary or “in this chapter” description of the book. Tips: Write in present tense, regardless of the tense used in your manuscript. Start with a scene or statement of the tensions rather than telling the reader what you think they need to know about the background and characters. Keep it short.
Chapter outline: Often a synopsis or a chapter outline is requested, sometimes both. If it’s a chapter outline, show off your writing. Engage rather than describe.
Author biography: The agent doesn’t care where you were born. She wants to know what makes you the best person to have written this book. She also wants to know you can help sell it. Although this is not a marketing statement, if you can gracefully refer to elements of your platform—your social network, web presence, speaking experience, or marketing savvy—all the better.
First three chapters or first fifty pages: Send what they ask for, no more, no less.
Endorsements (also known as “blurbs”): These are testimonials that might appear on the back cover of the book when it is published. They are best when written by people who actually read the manuscript.
The Sell-First Path to Publication
This path to publication covers things you usually think of as nonfiction or informational. With these works, the agent/editor/publisher bases her decision on your idea plus your proven or assumed skill as a writer. If you are a first-time writer, you may have to complete the writing so she can be sure you are capable. If you are an experienced writer, she’ll look at your query or proposal, your track record, and her own needs for the agency or publication. She doesn’t expect the writing to be finished at the time you propose your idea. She does expect you to have an excellent plan and a comprehensive list of marketing possibilities, especially for book-length works.
The Sell-First Path for Shorter Works
Query
The query is basically a sales letter written to the publisher’s gatekeeper, usually the editor of a magazine (online or print) or an editorial assistant. Your challenge is to keep it to one page that includes your concept, research, credentials, and a mini-writing sample.
See the latest edition of Writer’s Market for up-to-date tips on writing query letters. (See Appendix B for a sample format.) The overall approach includes:
An engaging lead, possibly the first few lines of the written piece
Details fleshing out the lead
Your credentials (what makes you the one to be writing this)
Contact information
It is okay to submit queries simultaneously to non-competing markets, i.e., publications that are not distributed to the same readership. If you are sending the query via snail mail, be sure to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE).
Agreements
When an interested editor contacts you about your idea, you will discuss any specific requirements she may have concerning slant, length, resources, etc. Then you agree on a fee (again, see market guides for the latest averages and adjust to your region) and whether you will be working “on spec” or “on assignment.”
“On spec” means “on speculation.” The term means that you write the article, submit it, and then the editor decides whether she will use it. In other words, “on spec” means “write it, we’ll look at it.” There is no promise to pay you for your work.
“On assignment” means that you are writing with a firm assignment. Sources often ask if you are writing on assignment, especially if they are interviewed frequently and hesitate to spend time with a writer who is writing on spec, because there is no guarantee that the article will be published. If the editor kills an article you wrote on assignment, she may pay a “kill fee,” a small fee to acknowledge your labor.
Best Terms
Pays on acceptance rather than on publication. Pays a rate that seems fair for your region.
Rights
The issue of rights is enough to drive a person crazy. In an ideal world, from the writer’s point of view, the publication would agree to purchasing “one time” rights—the right to print your work one time and one time only. The “one time” might be the first time it’s published (first rights) or the first time it’s published in North America (first North American rights). Now that all or parts of a publication may be online, publishers frequently want “world rights.” The argument bounces back and forth between the publisher saying, “I need world rights because we need to put everything online,” and the writer saying, “If you need world rights, then pay me for them.”
You can negotiate, but to do so you need to know what’s legal and what’s customary in your region, this week. This is another good reason to belong to a writer’s group, in this case a group of savvy freelance writers. Do not depend on yesterday’s information. Use your research skills to find out what’s happening.
The Sell-First Path for Book-length Works
Query
As with shorter works, it is okay to send queries simultaneously to several agents or publishers. Make sure they are tailored to the specific agency. (More information on queries is in the previous section.)
Proposal
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Have your proposal ready to send when you receive a request, but check the agent’s guidelines for specific requirements. A full proposal can include:
Cover letter
Title page
Table of Contents
Overview of book (short) or chapter outline
Marketing information—a competitive analysis and ideas for promotion
Author biography—your credentials
Sample chapters or first fifty pages
Endorsements—testimonials that would be appropriate on the back cover
Contract
Negotiate the contract with the help of your agent or attorney.
Write the book
Oh, No. Not a Rejection!
One of the first real writers I met worked at her home on Chesapeake Bay. I spent a lovely afternoon there, sitting at a craggy picnic table, eating bouillabaisse cooked in a big black pot on an old, wood stove. After lunch, we took a walk around the little town, and as we passed the post office, the writer looked wanly at a trash can. “I threw a good manuscript in there,” she said.
The manuscript was one of her first short stories. She had submitted it to Reader’s Digest, which was publishing only reprints at the time. The day she opened her post office box and found her self-addressed, stamped envelope with a form rejection inside, she threw the envelope—story and all—into the trash. It was her only copy.
Years and many publications later, she still thinks about that story.
You do not submit your only copy of a story, ever. But if (when) you get a rejection, you might, as she did, feel the urge to yell, “Screw it!” and walk away from the whole business of writing.
Fine. Do that for a while. Go to bed and whimper for a week. You don’t have to get over it immediately—we are, after all, human beings, and if we liked rejection all that much, we’d ask more gorgeous people for dates. Few among us can toss a rejection off as the publisher’s loss or a step on the way to success, which it is. We bleed for a while, and then we go on. The trick is to set things up so you can go on as quickly as possible.
Make a list of several potential markets, so if your piece is rejected, you can submit it to another publisher immediately. Keep three things in the mill, so you can look at the rejection you just received and remember you have other things out there. (With any luck, you won’t get three returns on the same day.)
Keep pieces circulating even though you know you could rewrite them better. You can rewrite while the current version is out there. There is some possibility you will shoot yourself in the foot by submitting slightly inferior work to the best editor, but it is more likely you would otherwise keep the piece home while you wait to rewrite—and wait, and wait.
There is a time to ditch lousy work. You know, in your heart, when a piece is below par, when you’re sending it out just to be sending something out. Don’t waste the world’s time with writing like this. Just go write something else.
Write a lot of something elses. One of the worst things you can do to yourself is make a career of one piece. Some people write two, three, four, five books before they achieve the smoothness an editor needs to see to make her want to publish. The same goes for short stories and articles.
To be successful, you must keep writing, learning, polishing your craft, creating new work, reading others’ work, studying markets, rewriting, and submitting again and again and again.
4. Be Creative
In old movies, all a writer has to do is write. An agent drives a hapless author to a cabin in the mountains and leaves him there with a case of canned beef stew and orders to “Finish the book.” The author finds an abandoned rowboat, goes fishing, rescues the girl across the lake, brings her back to the cabin to dry off, the power (if there was any) goes out, and, well, you know. As the movie ends, the agent swoops in and rushes off with the finished manuscript, the girl heats the skillet, and the author splits kindling for the fire.
In real life, the agents, editors, and publishers who used to mentor writers are busy trying to keep their doors open. Writers have to manage their own careers, which means that until you reach the top few percent of wildly successful authors, you have to rent your own cabin. This is bad news and good news. Bad, because it puts more pressure on you. Good, because it keeps you in the world, intensely aware of the needs of readers, agents, editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers, and everyone who is a party to your success.
Writers Find a Way
As I write this, more than thirty writers in my inner circle are having their books published, some by respected New York publishers, some by small, mid-sized, e-book, or self-publishers. If I cast the net a little wider, beyond the inner circle to people I just know, the number increases to over a hundred. To these book authors, add the writers who are seeing their articles, essays, poetry, and short stories appear in print or on respected websites and blogs. Despite the gloom and doom, there are plenty of opportunities and plenty of writers who are making it happen.
Wisconsin novelist Karen McQuestion had more than one agent representing her work, and at times publishers seemed interested, but none of the deals came together. After several rounds of spent expectations, she decided to take a chance on offering her novels for sale as e-books on Amazon’s Kindle. Before long she had a following—readers were buying her books and asking for more. Then a Los Angeles film company optioned movie rights to her novel A Scattered Life. Shortly after that, A Scattered Life was one of the first novels selected for hardcopy publication by AmazonEncore.
What’s most important about Karen’s story is that when one set of doors closed, she looked around for other opportunities and found a door she could open. If e-book publication had not worked for her, she’d have found another way, you can bet on that.
Doug Jacobson is a business owner whose first novel, Night of Flames, is a World War II story inspired by the wartime experiences of his Belgian relatives and his own Polish heritage. You’ve met him before in this book, when he came into my studio, asked what I thought of his book, and managed not to choke when I asked him if he was up for devoting two more years to it. Two years later, when he had a really nice draft, he skipped the agent step and went directly to McBooks Press, a well-regarded, mid-sized publisher specializing in historical fiction. The McBooks editors liked his query, asked to see the full manuscript, liked what they saw, and worked out a contract.
The next step was one that often unsettles first-time authors—when an editor makes suggestions to improve work you thought was finished. Doug didn’t waste time balking. He took the suggestions, went back to the keyboard, and created an even deeper, better novel. Night of Flames was published in a well-edited, well-designed, hard-cover edition that would make any writer proud. As I write this, Doug and the McBooks editors are putting the finishing touches on his second novel, The Katyn Order.
Stacey Kannenberg is a mom who saw the need for a small, accessible book to help parents get their kids ready for kindergarten. Although she had a good enough concept to interest well-known publishers, Stacey opted for self-publishing because she knew she could sell the book herself and didn’t want to share the profits with an outside publisher.
She visited schools in her area, asking teachers and administrators, “If you could have this book to give to parents, and it didn’t cost the school anything, how many copies would you like to have?” Then she took that information to local businesses and asked them if they would like to donate the books to the schools. With creative win-win marketing campaigns like this, Stacey sold more than 75,000 copies of Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! She also published Let’s Get Ready For First Grade! and started HerInsight, her own media company.
When Kirk Farber finished writing his first novel, Postcards From a Dead Girl, he queried a list of agents he hoped would represent him with traditional publishers. While working his way through the queries and rejections, this web-savvy writer spotted news of the first Amazon Penguin Breakthrough Novel contest and alo
ng with thousands of other hopeful writers from all over the world, submitted his novel for consideration. To his joy, Postcards was accepted, and the first chapter was posted online, where it received positive reviews. Kirk (and three other Redbird writers!) made it into the contest finals. This experience was not only exciting for Kirk, it was useful to his agent—yes, he did get one—who used his online success to interest publishers. Postcards From a Dead Girl was published by Harper Perennial.
I could go on for a long time with stories about people who not only write well but are creative in their quest for publication. The route from keyboard to reader is not as direct as it once was, but as one path to publication turns to quicksand, enterprising authors like Karen and Doug and Stacey and Kirk blaze new trails and find many ways to get through the woods to Grandmother’s house.
The Big Secret
When you have written “something good,” when you’ve mastered the pen, look for opportunities to get published and figure out how to make it happen. Rather than waiting for someone to show you the way, use your creativity and lead your own parade. Put yourself on the agent/editor/publisher side of the desk to get a better understanding of what they need and how you can work with them. And once you start trying to get published, you keep at it.