Managing Expectations

It’s one thing to have a fantastic manuscript and big dreams, but it’s another to have unrealistic expectations about how the industry will unfold in front of you. Each manuscript has a different path to publication–if it’s destined to be there–but, there are certain realities that never change:

1. Be prepared. Know how the industry works and the processes involved. Know that not all first-time novels make it to publication so how are you setting yourself up to succeed in the long term?
2. Don’t quit your day job. It takes a long time to see money come in from a book. Advances are split into three parts and you only see royalty payments come in twice a year, provided you’ve earned out your advance.
3. Always keep writing. Whether you book is currently being shopped by an agent or you already have a deal, keep working on the next project. You never know what will happen so in the meantime: write!

How to write fiction: Clare Conville and Francis Bickmore on getting published via The Guardian

No second chances

An agent or editor will almost certainly only read your script once. Choose your moment. Edit like hell and get informed opinions about what further work is needed. If necessary, pay for professional help. There is a demand for specialist agencies that offer this service because objective feedback is hard to come by. Close family and friends will usually only tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to know. If you can join a creative writing course or a local writing group so much the better.

If the book just isn’t ready yet, bide your time and do further revisions. Alasdair Gray’s Lanark was in genesis for 30 years before publication; Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White took 20. Ripeness is all.

Prepare your submission

A strong and hopefully successful submission to an agent or publisher takes work. It involves getting distance from the writing process and thinking about your book as a commodity. Lewis Hyde’s The Gift is excellent on the necessary tension between artist and salesman. Ignore what you’re trying to achieve creatively and think about the book from the outside. What would make someone pick it up? Study the cover copy for authors you admire.

Researching your submission is crucial. Publishers and agents can sniff out a generic letter within a few lines. It may be hard to get to meet people in the industry, but you can professionally stalk them through various means. Don’t get too personal – the letter should be professional – but do get a name of an individual within each company. Find out which other writers they work with and what they have had success with. Pick out the books on your shelf that you think most happily sit alongside your work. Look at the publishers on the spine. If there is an acknowledgments section, the agent and editor will usually be thanked. There’s your lead. And when you write, explain why you have chosen them and why you think your book might fit their list.

Entitlement

A world-weary editor or agent can be startled back to life by a strong title. The title for a first novel has to work on a number of levels. It must grab attention, be memorable, it must convey in part a substantial aspect of the book and it must resonate at an emotional level, whether it is comic or tragic or a mixture of both. Take time to make a list of possible titles and ask fellow readers for feedback, then rework the title accordingly.

The right one-line pitch cannot be underestimated either. It may compel the first reader to put your novel at the top of his or her pile. It may carry through into the agent’s submission letter, it may be subsequently taken up by the editor as a way of persuading his colleagues that they must back the book and it may finally appear as part of the jacket copy.

Should American Writers Submit to Canadian Agents?

A question that often circulates query forums and discussion pages is:

Should U.S. writers query Canadian agents?

Concerns include:

• Do Canadian agents have editorial contacts in the U.S. like American agents?
• Are there financial hoops to jump through when it comes time for money owing to the writer from a Canadian agent?
• Do Canadian agents have the same literary interests as American agents?

These are great research questions for writers.

From an author’s perspective, it can be pretty seamless, as many Canadian agents treat the U.S. as a home territory.

The optimal skill set of agents is the same, no matter where they are located: good network, talent spotting, negotiation experience, industry knowledge, project management experience, and great communication skills. The idea that a ‘bad’ U.S. agent is better than a ‘good’ Canadian one is false. A good agent is a good agent whether they are Canadian or American. And, a good agent means that they have the optimal skill set as noted above, work in your genre, and have a network that encompasses the territory of your work. I.e. If you are an American writer who wrote a book about a mystery set in Florida, you want the book submitted to U.S. editors which Canadian or American agents can do. 

Q: What can writers do to make agents’ lives easier?

Twitpic from 'Agenting Today' (via @kingvonelk)

Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of co-hosting the BookCampTO ‘Agenting Today’ session at Ryerson University with my esteemed colleagues Sam Hiyate, The Rights Factory, and Chris Bucci, Anne McDermid & Associates. We fielded great questions from writers and industry professionals alike. Didn’t make it to BookCamp? Want to know what we discussed? Here’s one question that generated a lot of conversation:

What can writers do to make agents’ lives easier?

Here are 10 answers from the BookCamp session and debriefing afterwards:

1. Don’t announce deals until they’re public knowledge.
2. The agent and author relationship is a mutually beneficial relationship. Be honest with yourself and your agent if feelings ever change.
3. If you are a writer wanting to be ‘found’ make sure you have clear and up-to-date contact information on your website, blog or Twitter bio.

Authentic Writing: ‘write what you know’ or stretch your imagination?

Every writer has gotten the advice to ‘write what you know’. It was my first bit of writing advice too. I believe there are two scenarios to look at when discussing ‘writing what you know’. Firstly, authenticity. Secondly, the limits of your imagination.

Authenticity is paramount to my decisions about taking on authors. The authentic voice that doesn’t seem forced, that seems effortless (but requires extensive effort to create) paired with natural dialogue is what lets you leap into the book with the characters. This authenticity often comes from knowing what you are writing from either having lived it or being closely connected to it.

Research, research, research for authenticity.

However, career writers should be able to write about any location or type of character and make it authentic. The best compliment an author can get is a review that proclaims the writer must have lived in the location of the book setting to get such prolific accuracies of culture, voice, and characters when actually, they had never been there at all! This is the gift of imagination paired with extensive research. For example, the amazingly talented Helen Dunmore’s critically acclaimed pair of novels The Siege and The Betrayal set in Leningrad from 1941-53 were pure research that ‘grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature’.