It never hurts to seek your information from the horse’s mouth, and in these days of declassified information, police and military field manuals are readily available through various outlets. Some of the better ones include the Special Forces Handbook; Special Forces Operational Techniques; U.S. Special Forces Recon Manual; the Ranger Handbook; Ranger Training and Operations; the U.S. Navy SEAL Combat Manual; Guerilla Warfare and Special Forces Ops; Border Security and Anti-Infiltration Ops; Survival, Evasion and Escape; the U.S. Army Special Forces Medical Handbook; Combat Survival (published for the British SAS); the U.S. Army Sniper Training Manual; U.S.M.C. Sniping; the Police Pursuit Driving Handbook; the South African Anti-Terrorist Operations Manual; and the French Foreign Legion Para Combat Manual. All of these, and many more, are currently obtainable through mail-order, at various sporting goods outlets, and at gun stores.
If your characters aren’t facing enemy troops on the battlefield, odds are they will be engaged in some manner of covert activity. For background on intelligence-gathering techniques, check out Tom Kneitel’s Guide to Embassy and Espionage Communications; The Complete Spy by Robert McGarvey and Elise Caitlin; or American Espionage and the Soviet Target by Jeffrey Richelson. Peter Helms instructs us in the fine art of Countering Industrial Espionage, while Gregor Ferguson explains techniques for toppling hostile governments in Coup d’Etat.
Our list of titles barely samples the available material, but it should give you an idea of all the goodies that are out there, waiting for you to incorporate their “secrets” in your fiction. Given the variety and wealth of information at your fingertips, it seems incredible that any modern author would attempt to wing it, sprinkling the text with clumsy errors. Still, it happens.
If you keep your wits about you and devote the necessary time to background research on your subject, you can rest assured it won’t be happening to you.
11. Breaking In
In QB VII, author Abraham Cady is invited to address a class of would-be Hemingways upon the subject of creative writing. “How many of you want to be writers?” he asks. Every hand in the auditorium is hopefully raised. Cady studies the expectant faces for a moment, then he drops his bomb. “Why the hell,” he asks, “aren’t you home writing?”
Gotcha. And he has a point, of course … but, then again, there’s more to life than art and poetry. You don’t believe me? Fine. Come lunchtime, slap some mustard on your latest manuscript and have a ball.
I grant you, many modern authors qualify as artists (though the best of them have difficulty with pretentious labels). Many more are adequate mechanics, tuning up their prose until it has the guts to leave a standing start and break the mark at seventy across a quarter-mile. A few of those will go the distance and aspire to art or affluence—the two are not synonymous—but dreams don’t mean a thing unless their writing finds an audience. Picasso didn’t hang Guernica in a closet, and you’ve got no business hiding all your best ideas in drawers and notebooks, either.
Here it is;; we’ve reached the bottom line. Unless you want to live and die a “wanna-be” who never was, you have to publish. Not just think about it, mind you, or discuss it with your family and friends. You have to do it. And, despite your best intentions, your determination of the moment, doing it may not be quite the piece of cake that you imagine.
In my teaching days, before I managed to escape the rat race and devote myself to full-time writing, I was treated to a case in point. One of my colleagues was a more-or-less professional musician, playing nights and weekends with assorted bands around Las Vegas. On the side, he cranked out more than fifty songs, complete with music, demo tapes, the whole nine yards. He hired a printer to prepare and package his material. He registered the songs with ASCAP and applied for copyrights. From all appearances, he was prepared to make it big and kiss the school good-bye.
The rest is silence.
Why? Because my friend devoted all his time and energy to “getting ready” for success. He scoured each and every word for typos, agonized for hours over glitches in his tapes, had copies of his music printed up in several sizes, bound in handsome covers. And he never sent the damned things off to a prospective buyer.
I’m no Sigmund Freud, but I can recognize the fear of failure when I see it. Then again, I may be off the mark. It’s possible my friend was frightened of success. No matter. Either way, it all came out the same. He sat around and talked about his work, the songs collected dust, and he was going nowhere fast. I’m betting he’s arrived by now.
It’s normal to be jumpy, nervous, apprehensive when your work is on display for strangers. Seasoned veterans live with fear of failure and rejection just like any first-time writer, but they don’t allow anxiety to paralyze them in their tracks. They keep on working, and if this or that beloved project hits a snag, they’ve always got another waiting in the wings. I’m not convinced that cheaters never prosper, but I guarantee that quitters haven’t got a chance.
Scoping Markets
Before you can attempt to make a sale, you have to know your market. If you’ve done your homework, you already know which publishers are turning out adventure novels, what their product looks like, who their leading authors are. Before you make the leap toward offering your work for sale, consult a published guide like Literary Market Place or Writer’s Market. Both list publishers of books and magazines, their editorial requirements, subject matter preference, and rates of pay. (They also offer lists of literary agents, but we’ll come to that in time.)
Despite the popularity of action novels—an estimated fifty series are in the stores at any given time—the field is dominated by an even dozen of the country’s several thousand publishers. Appearing alphabetically, they are:
Avon Books
105 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Avon’s action offerings include the Killsquad series; they have produced single titles such as Glitz, Mr. Majestyk, Tales of the Wolf, and The Fifth Horseman.
Ballantine Books
201 East 50th Street
New York, NY 10022
Ballantine publishes the Chopper 1, Kane’s War, and Private Eye series under its Ivy imprint. Single-title offerings include The Traveler and In the Heat of the Summer.
Bantam Books
666 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10103
Action offerings from Bantam include the Hatch and Dennison’s War series. Genre entries in the single-title field include Child of Blood and the various best-sellers produced by Robert Ludlum.
Berkley/Jove
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Adventure series from Berkley/Jove include the M.I.A. Hunter, Deadly Force, The Guardians, The Hard Corps, The Brotherhood of War, and The Corps. According to its recent listings, Berkley/Jove does not accept unsolicited manuscripts or queries. In plain language, that means you’ll need an agent if you hope to break in here.
Critic’s Choice Paperbacks
31 East 28th Street
New York, NY 10016
Critic’s Choice is the new kid on the block in action publishing. They turn out an average of 96 titles per year, selected from an estimated 100 submissions. Those are pretty fair odds for beginners with talent, and may compensate for the company’s low average advance payment ($1,000). Recent action titles include Morning Ran Red.
Dell Publishing Company
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
New York, NY 10017
Action offerings from Dell include the Death Merchant and Traveler series. Single titles include Crossfire and Centrifuge. Dell has strict procedures for submission and does not release the names of editors. Check Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market for specifics here, and follow their directions to the letter.
Gold Eagle Books
225 Duncan Mill Road
Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9
Dominating the market created by Pinnacle in the late 1960s, Gold Eagle leads the modern field with serie
s like Mack Bolan, Able Team, Phoenix Force, SOBs, Vietnam: Ground Zero, and Deathlands. After years of concentration on series work, this publisher is now coming on strong with single titles, including Kiev Footprint, China Maze, Nuke Hill, A Talk with the Angels, and Night of the Running Man.
New American Library
1633 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Under its Signet imprint, NAL produces action series such as the Destroyer, pioneered by Pinnacle. Hot single titles include Year of the Dragon and Confessional.
Warner Books
666 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10103
Switch-hitting with its Popular Library imprint, Warner turns out the Cody’s Army and Avenger series. Single-title entries include Cover, Scorpion, and Hour of the Assassins.
Zebra Books
475 Park Avenue S.
New York, NY 10016
Running close behind Gold Eagle in the action market, Zebra shows a strong affinity for postapocalyptic fiction in series like Endworld, Ashes, The Survivalist, and the Doomsday Warrior. Vietnam fiction is represented by the Black Eagle and Gunship series. In 1988, Zebra also revived the Pinnacle imprint, beginning with reissues of the original Executioner novels by Don Pendleton.
Picking Out an Agent
Before we tackle the mechanics of submitting work to these (or other) publishers, a word about selection of—and the desirability of working with—a literary agent. Do you need one? Why? And, if you do, how should you choose one from the hundreds currently available?
Unfortunately, there are no pat answers. Agents have their uses, but they aren’t infallible, and signing on with one is not a guarantee of fame and fortune. At this writing, I’ve sold eighty books; two of those were sold through an agent, and some of the others were sold from outlines and proposals he declined to handle. It’s a fickle, crazy business, but the unpredictability is part of its allure … at least, it is for me.
Working with an agent offers some definite advantages. If you choose correctly, you will have the benefit of widespread contacts in the business, expertise with contracts, and your agent’s skill at pulling down top dollar on a sale. Some publishers (and most screenplay producers) deal exclusively with agents, trashing unsolicited material without a second glance. A decent agent also offers criticism of your work, from start to finish, keeping manuscripts on track and putting mammoth egos in their proper place. (Okay, I know it hurts to hear your work described as less than perfect, but I’d rather take my lumps at the proposal stage, correct my various deficiencies, and grab that sale. My ego doesn’t pay the rent.)
Selection of an agent isn’t quite as complicated as it sounds. Obtain a list of possibles from Literary Market Place. Listings should include an agent’s field of interest (general fiction, Westerns, mysteries—whatever), fees, and possibly the titles of some recent sales. The number of an agent’s clients may be listed, and some well-known names might be thrown in for emphasis.
Some agents charge a “reading fee” for first-time, unsolicited material, but you should check out the fine print before you part with any cash. Is it a one-time-only fee? Are you entitled to a refund if your manuscript is sold? Will you be getting anything besides a simple “reading” for your money, such as helpful criticism and advice? The reading fee is perfectly legitimate, but you should stay away from agents who depend on fees instead of book sales for their daily bread and butter.
When you’ve settled on an agent—and the agent has agreed to work with you—you may be asked to sign a contract. Understand its terms before you take the plunge. Will your selected agent handle all your work, or only items in a certain subject area? If he or she rejects a book, will you be free to sell it on your own? And if you do secure a freelance sale, are you required to pay your agent a percentage, even though he took no part in the negotiations? Will you be “typecast” by your agent, forced to stick with mysteries or action novels when you’d like to take a fling at science fiction?
Literary agents come in every shape and size; their capabilities and ethics run the gamut of the human rainbow. Before you make a final choice, I recommend you take a look at Michael Larsen’s Literary Agents: How to Get & Work With the Right One for You. It’s cheap insurance and an education, all rolled up in one.
Close Encounters
Regardless of your final choice, an agent or the more direct approach to publication, you will have to put your grand ideas on paper and submit them for review. There are two basic schools of thought on the mechanics of submission: many authors start a book and see it through before they seek a publisher, while others try to make the sale ahead of time, with query letters, a proposal, and/or sample chapters of their work. I’ve tried both angles of attack, and I prefer the latter, thereby saving loads of time and keeping several projects on the fire, in case one doesn’t make the cut. I don’t keep stacks of dusty, unsold manuscripts around the house, because they don’t exist.
Whatever your approach, a query letter should initiate submission of your work. (Do not—I say again, DO NOT—approach an editor by telephone without a personal, advance request. At best, your call will be rerouted and ignored; at worst, the editor will carry memories of what a pushy, egocentric amateur you are.) Unless a publisher specifically requests completed manuscripts, don’t even think of sending off a finished novel. It’s like picking out a total stranger on the street and asking him or her to marry you; you may not get your face slapped, but the chances are you won’t be picking out a silver pattern, either.
Query letters lay the basic groundwork for submission, introducing you and your ideas to a prospective publisher. They should include a “hook,” a brief synopsis of the story, and a summary of published credits for the author. If you’ve published many articles or books, select a few of recent vintage for your list. If you’re a novice, skip the credits, and for heaven’s sake don’t call attention to yourself with lines like: “While I’ve never published anything before, I’m certain I can do a bang-up job.” Experience is not essential in the writing game, but flaunting inexperience can be the kiss of death.
I’ve reproduced below a query letter that I used to sell a book in early 1988. The project wasn’t fiction, but the principles involved remain the same. (Names and addresses have been changed to protect the innocent.)
_______________
Mr. Amos Quigley
Editor: Bonanza Books
711 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90052
Dear Mr. Quigley:
America today is caught up in the grip of what one expert calls a “homicidal mania,” besieged by transient monsters, dubbed “serial” killers or “recreational” murderers, who stalk their human prey at random, killing as a grisly form of sport. According to the FBI’s best estimate, the random killers in our midst assassinate 5,000 victims annually—for an average body-count of thirteen murders each and every day, year-round.
I am a professional author with 68 books published since 1977 and nine more under contract at the present time. (For a partial listing of my work, please see Contemporary Authors. Volume 108.) My latest novel, Child of Blood, is scheduled for release by Bantam Books, in May. My contributions to the “Executioner” series, from Gold Eagle, have sold more than three million copies in paperback.
I propose the publication of a new, encyclopedic volume covering case histories of some 400 serial killers identified in the 20th century. The working title for my book is Hunting Humans, and I will be happy to supply you with a sample of my work, on spec, at your request.
Sincerely yours,
Mike Newton
_______________
In a fiction query, you may wish to lead with your credentials (if you have some), or insert a hook that rivets reader interest in the central premise of your plot. Don’t lay the story out in detail. Sales aren’t made from query letters; hence, your offer of a sample done “on spec”—that’s free of charge, with no commitments made on either side—to show the publi
sher your style. A fairly detailed outline, breaking down your story into chapters, normally accompanies samples, so intended publishers can sit in judgment on the plot. (And please remember, once you sell an outline, you are duty-bound to keep at least the major points intact. If you surprise your editors with unexpected twists, they may withhold approval—and your paycheck—while you burn the midnight oil to bring your story back on track.)
An outline’s length will be determined by your story, its complexity, projected length, and so forth. Editors are flexible in that regard, but watch your step on sample chapters. If they ask for two, don’t send them ten; if a prospective buyer asks for thirty pages of your work, don’t send off fifty or a hundred. Likewise, sample chapters are consecutive, from the beginning of a story. Don’t send Chapters 1 and 12 because the latter happens to contain your favorite scene. The editor is interested in seeing how your style and story flow; he doesn’t want to hop around and hit the “highlights” like a moviegoer watching previews of coming attractions.
If you’re working with an agent, she may ask for a proposal, rather than an outline of your book with sample chapters. A proposal, generally speaking, is a long synopsis of your story. How long? For an average paperback, a length of ten or twenty pages may suffice. If you’re shooting for megabucks in hardcover, you may have to crank out sixty to a hundred pages, throwing in whole scenes and snatches of dialogue, preparing what amounts to a Reader’s Digest condensed version of your novel. Either way, your agent and your editors will want to know the ending of the story, and they may suggest revisions in the plot from time to time. Consult your agent for specifics on the length and format of proposals prior to putting anything on paper.
How to Write Action Adventure Novels Page 16