STATUS: Another beautiful and sunny day in Daytona. Yippee!
What song is playing on the iPod right now? Just listening to ocean waves—the usual morning ritual. I could get use to that (but I don’t think I can get used to humidity).
And lest you think I’m just being a slacker for this whole trip, I’m actually working today (at least working in terms of writers seeing me and thinking, ah, she’s working). Have Blackberry, can work on beach.
I’m taking pitch appointments from 9 to 11 a.m. I’m doing a Paranormal/Fantasy panel from 11 to noon.
Then it’s off to the RT Awards Luncheon. My author Cheryl Sawyer has been nominated for her novel SIREN.
She lives in Australia so I’ll be present on her behalf. Keep your fingers crossed that we bring back a win.
Then I have the other half of the panel this afternoon. Then Linnea and I need to do some quality agent/author time (translation: having a drink at the bar).
Dinner with Becky Motew—the funniest lady at RT.
All in a day’s work!
Ps. If you are around RT, you should look for me. I’ve been wearing a sparkly frog brooch—the same frog on the cover of ONCE UPON STILETTOS.
It’s the cutest darn thing let me tell you. Shanna found it in a little novelty store and just about fainted with delight it was such a perfect match. Today it’s on my bag. Then you’ll know it’s me (if for some reason you can’t seen my name emblazoned on the name tag).
Can’t believe I just checked your website out, and find you are fifteen miles up the road from me, right now. Must mean you are the right agent for my query!
Try not to miss either end of the island of New Smyrna Beach, just fifteen miles down I-95.
On the north end, Smyrna Dunes park, a great inlet park (and the site of Crane’s The Open Boat). On the south, way, way south, Canaveral National Seashore. I recommend a cooler of your fav. beverage, a book, towel and sunscreen, at the parking area called “Castle Windy”. Heaven on Earth! And, a physical experience of the geography of my proposed memoir! Can you resist?
How cute about the frog pin!
I really love the both of those book covers.
Have fun!
So, is that Miss Snark in the stilletos?
Where can I get a frog pin?!!! Shana should sell them on her website or do a contest. That frog is the best thing about the covers, and they are great covers!
You are always so good giving advice on what an author should do in a pitch or query. What is the worst pitch you received and what made it the worse? Names taken out to protect the not so innocent of course.
Agent Kristin, I ask this question for a friend:
What if an author neglected to put “requested material” on a partial you asked for–say, while her three-year-old was repeatedly ringing the call-bell and industriously inserting postage stamps through the vents in the electric baseboard heaters at the post office?
Were you any other agent, this author would simply resign herself to waiting in the slush-pile until her mistake was discovered. But since you don’t take snail-mail queries, will you simply throw her envelope in the recycle bin, unopened, thinking to yourself, “geez, can’t people read the information on my website?”
Deep down, I believe you are just too nice a person not to open the envelope and give it enough of a glance to see the “as requested” in the first paragraph of the cover letter. But I would hate for my partial–ahem, my friend’s partial–to arrive on the day you finally decide to really get tough on people who can’t follow simple instructions.
Should I resend–I mean, should my *friend* resend the partial, properly addressed? Or will this just cause confusion and eye-rolling when you realize, three pages in, that you’ve already read this?
Yours on behalf of a chagrinned and frazzled writer,
A Nony Mous
P.S. I confess! It wasn’t my friend, it was ME! Oh, the shame!
Anon, Miss Snark mentioned this last week, I think. She said something along the lines of ‘Requested Materials’ being unnecessary, and even a little bit silly (which was music to my ears…er, eyes…since I forgot to write it on my envelope, too). So sleep well and fear not!
Elektra, you’re my hero.
Sleeping much better already. 🙂
Haunting cover, the first one.
Laughed out loud at Anon’s panicked predicament. Bless you.
:o)
I love the sound of ocean waves. I even have one of those “sound machines” that I play at night that have ocean waves as an option. I used to dream of living by the ocean when I retire. Now I know I would be at risk for being seriously narcaleptic.