Agents and authors have more in common than you might think…

I know you writers think that agents have a pretty great gig. And we do! We do it because we love finding emerging writers and developing their career while sharing their work with the world. However, there are parts of our job that not all writers are aware of and I share some here:

• We get rejected too! We manage the careers for multiple clients and if you think getting passes from editors for your book is tough think about us: we love all our clients’ books and get passes for the majority of them until we find a home.
• If you think writing a query letter is difficult, we write pitch letters for all our clients’ projects. We do our research, tailor them to each editor, carefully proofread and re-read to make sure we nailed the hook, and send them out with nerves just like you do as writers.
• Like non fiction writers sending proposals to agents, agents write proposals for our clients to send to editors. Now it varies how much we assist in this process, but often I’ve written 85% of client proposals to get them up to industry standards. If you think all that research is tough, we do the exact same thing: overview, author bio, your market, a marketing plan, comparative titles, and sample material.

Deconstructing the Rejection Letter: What does it really mean?

Agency rejection letters might not look like a lot of thought has gone into them, but we take extreme care in crafting the response we give to writers whose work we pass on. We appreciate the time it takes to craft your query letters and do the research on our agency.

The P.S. Literary Agency’s rejection letter looks like this:

Dear Author

Thank you for your submission to the P.S. Literary Agency; unfortunately, we are unable to offer representation as it is not right for us at this time.

Our agency receives over 600 submissions per month and we only take on a few new clients per year. With the publishing industry being extremely competitive we need to feel a strong conviction when representing your work. While it is not for us another agent may well feel differently.

We apologize for responding with a form email, but doing so enables us to respond quickly so that you can continue querying without delay. We wish you luck elsewhere.

 Let’s break this down.

• We address the email Dear Author has we do not have time to address each personally. You can imagine the time it takes our submissions manager and intern to do rejections let alone the time it would take to additionally check spelling on names etc.
• We honestly appreciate the queries that come in unsolicited because you never know what we’ll find in there. That’s why we’re in the industry: to find and cultivate new writers and help them find their footing in the industry while we manage the business of their books.

9 Publishing Terms You’ll See More Of In 2012

If you don’t know these terms yet, you will hear a lot about them in 2012:

Author Portals

Transparency is going to be a big feature of publishing in 2012. Traditional publishers are shirking Amazon’s vague operations by implementing portals for authors to check sales data and other information. See this NYT article for more about this feature in 2012.

Discoverability

With Oprah’s book club gone and broadsheet newspapers minimizing books coverage how are readers going to hear about your fantastic fiction? They need to be able to find it. Seems simple? It’s not. There are hundreds of thousands of books published in English each year. Use metadata, co-ops for front of store placement, author blog tours and other innovative methods of publicity to lead readers to discover your work. This is not only the publisher’s job. This is your job as a writer in 2012. From the recent FutureBook conference: “Discoverability starts with awareness and moves through attention and desire before action is taken to buying a book. This can be almost instant online. Personally, if I see a tweet recommending a book or from an author I network with, I immediately download the sample to my Kindle. If there’s no ebook, it’s a lost sale and I think I’m typical of the digital ‘heavy‘ reader market.”

DLP or Digital List Price

This is the price the rights holder places on a copy of their digital content. Unlike print books, digital list prices are easily changeable to encourage sales, optimize promotion with timely events, publishers can determine what prices best suit particular markets, and self-published authors can find their ‘sweet spot’ (where maximum dissemination meets revenue). For more see this PC World article and this NYT article about pricing.

DRM or Digital Rights Management

This is software encryption that discourages piracy and includes features like making your ebooks from the library disappear after the term of the loan. From TechTerms.com: “By controlling the trading, protection, monitoring, and tracking of digital media, DRM helps publishers limit the illegal propagation of copyrighted works. This can be accomplished by using digital watermarks or proprietary file encryption on the media they distribute. Whatever method publishers choose to employ, DRM helps them make sure that their digital content is only used by those who have paid for it.”

10 Reasons Agents Are Not Gatekeepers

I read Publishing Perspectives‘s recent article “What is the ‘New’ Publisher?” which got me thinking about the ways that agents breakdown the gatekeeper stereotype and how the role of the ‘gatekeeper’ is changing in the face of digital publishing. (If you haven’t read the article I highly recommend it. It follows the recent Futurebook conference in London.)

If you think agents are gatekeepers you are holding yourself back from a world of possibilities and not bucking the traditional model, but making yourself jaded and adverse to the opportunities that are unfolding every day.

Agents are not gatekeepers.

1. Agents’ skill set is not to close doors (which many querying authors think we do), but to open them. When we find a talent we are passionate advocates of we will knock on every door, throw rocks at every window, sift through every contact page, and not rest until our clients are happy with the work we’ve done for them. We don’t land every book, but we build our reputation on the ones we do so we keep working hard.
2. Agents project manage. We are not keeping good writing from reaching the marketplace. We are project managing on the editorial, marketing, sales and publicity side of books to make our authors successful.
3. Agents are contract experts. If you are published traditionally, indie, or self-publishing successfully you want an agent looking at contracts for clauses that can trip you up. Agents help you to know what you are signing.
4. Agents negotiate. Again, no matter what avenue you are taking to make your work public agents are needed to negotiate terms. Territories, length of term, royalties, subsidiary rights, warranties and indemnities–these all need to be combed carefully.
5. Agents can be publishers. While agents are steering away from calling themselves publishers they are facilitating ebook arrangements with companies like Smashwords to get their client’s work to market in ebook form. Agents are one of the most flexible people on your team: we can reach out to companies that do short ebook work like Byliner and Amazon singles; we can set you up with ebook only publishers like Carina Press and Entangled; we can find you a freelance publicist; and the list goes on.
6. Agents can be third party facilitators. Agents can work with companies like Open Road to develop brand properties. We work with film agents and talent agents.

Fellow Agent Blogs

These agent blogs you might already subscribe to, but I link to 15 of the best agent blogs in my opinion:

PubRants: Agent Kristin Nelson does a fabulous job of informing writers and budding publishing professionals about the inner-workings of the industry.

Rachelle Gardner: One of most-read agent blogs out there. Want consistent posts and great info? Read her blog.

Jennifer Represents: Jennifer Laughran’s blog. She reps children’s and YA books and writes really great posts for writers in this genre.

Jill Corocan: Her blog is filled with information about her deals and authors. She reps MG and YA.

Janet Reid: Agent blog that posts industry info with archives going back to 2004.

Dystel & Goderich: A blog updated by all staffers featuring industry news, client info and what they are reading.

Ask the Agent: Carefully planned and written posts about the state of the industry. 

The Environmental Impact of Book Publishing

While most people prefer the look, smell, and feel of print books how often do we consider the environmental impact of them and how much better ebooks and books printed on recycled paper are for the environment?

In an article by MarketWatch today they outline a new company called FutureMark Paper Company that is doing their part to convert publishers to using recycled paper. They have introduced “the first high-recycled premium coated paper produced in North America especially for textbooks, cookbooks, children’s books and other picture books requiring premium print fidelity.”

From the article:

100 tons of Future Book 90+ percent recycled paper delivers the following conservation benefits when used in lieu of 100 tons of conventional, non-recycled book paper:

• Saves more than 800 million BTUs of energy, which is enough to power nine average American homes for one year
• Saves more than 570,000 gallons of water
• Eliminates more than 84,000 pounds of greenhouse gases
• Saves approximately 1,450 trees

Editors: from developmental to proofreading what do they do?

Editing is a rare art. It ranges from developmental editing to substantive editing to copy editing and to proofreading. These are all different jobs that have different purposes. As an agent I’ve signed up for all four, but through the publishing process you’ll come to understand what each type of editor does and what the definitions mean.

From the Editors’ Association of Canada:

Developmental / Project Editing Co-ordinating and editing a project from proposal or rough manuscript to final manuscript, incorporating input from authors, consultants and reviewers. May include budgeting, hiring, design supervision and project co-ordination. Substantive or Structural Editing Clarifying and/or reorganizing a manuscript for content and structure. Changes may be suggested to or drafted for the author. May include negotiating changes with author. Stylistic Editing Clarifying meaning, eliminating jargon, smoothing language and other non-mechanical line-by-line editing. May include checking or correcting reading level; creating or recasting tables and/or figures; negotiating changes with author. Copy Editing Editing for grammar, spelling, punctuation and other mechanics of style; checking for consistency of mechanics and internal consistency of facts; marking head levels and approximate placement of art; notifying designer of any unusual production requirements. May include metrication; providing or changing system of citations; writing or editing captions and/or credit lines; writing running heads; listing permissions needed and/or obtaining them; providing or editing prelims, back matter, cover copy and/or CIP data. May also include negotiating changes with author.

Fact Checking / Reference Checking Checking accuracy of facts and/or quotes by reference to original sources used by author and/or from other sources. Indexing Producing an alphabetical list of names and places and/or subjects and concepts, etc., that appear in a work. Proofreading Reading proofs of edited manuscript. Galley proofing may include incorporating and/or exercising discretion on author’s alterations; flagging locations of art and page references; verifying computer codes. Page proofing may include checking adherence to mock-up (rough paste-up), accuracy of running heads, folios and changes made to type in mock-up, checking page breaks and location of art, and inserting page numbers to table of contents and cross-references if necessary. May also include checking vandykes and colour mats (press proofs). Production Editing Co-ordinating typesetting and design in the mock-up and assembly stages; includes ensuring integration of design and content. May include actual mark-up, proofing, mock-up, page proofing, indexing and/or checking vandykes and colour mats. May also include locating, negotiating with and supervising designer, artists, typesetter, and printer and creating production schedule.