Pub Rants

Posts from November, 2006

Nobody’s Saint in Three Languages!

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: My auction is still unfolding. Given the time of day, looks like it won’t wrap up until tomorrow.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? THE WEAKNESS IN ME by Joan Armatrading

I just had to share. Just this week, I finally got the foreign editions for my romance author Paula Reed’s latest historical romance entitled NOBODY’S SAINT.

Of course I love ALL my author covers but I have to say there’s a little special place in my heart for this very sexy US version. When looking at it, it just makes me want to pop on a little Julio I. and maybe indulge in some vigorous fanning or a nice mild swoon.

My hubby just laughs.


But truly, I think Paula’s publisher Kensington just nailed this cover (except Paula would say they didn’t have stripped sheets back in the late 1700s). I know. It should bother me but I don’t mind a little historical leeway as long as it isn’t blatant like zippers on blue jeans for a historical Western. Now that would drive me crazy.

So I’m pretty enthralled with the US version but then I got a load of the Dutch edition.


That guy surely doesn’t look like anybody’s saint. You betcha. I think this cover could work in the US without blinking an eye.
So it was doubly interesting to me to see the semi-clinch cover from her Brazilian publisher (and it’s the first of my clients to sell in South America). And I find the “Don-Juan” in the title very fascinating.

Brazilian edition

But what is clear? It’s a fun, sexy read that you should get your hands on if you haven’t already. What other romance in the world has a Spanish Gent, an Irish lass, and Mary and Mary Magdalene as interfering saints? In some respects, I still can’t believe that Kensington let us get away with this book and for that reason alone, it’s worth picking up.

Myth Buster #4—Anybody Say Launch Party?

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Tomorrow I have an auction happening and late on last Friday, I got a first offer for a different submission I currently have out. Deals are in the fall, crisp air!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? CHURCH OF THE POISON MIND by Culture Club

What about all those publishing parties, say you? Surely that’s yet another advantage to being an agent located in New York. There are all those extra networking opportunities at launch parties, book store events, and whatnot, to make business happen.

Snort.

Do you know what agents, editors, and other industry folks do at launch parties and other publishing events? They have fun. They drink. They eat and generally talk about all sorts of things that have nothing to do with publishing.

And there are all kinds of other secrets I could share about what goes down at those parties and who might have partied too much but alas, to paraphrase a line from ALMOST FAMOUS again, there are some things that’s good for a few people to know rather than millions. This would be one of them.

(And I know I don’t have a million-person readership. I just wanted to use the line!)

Tagged

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: It was a little bit nippy here in Denver. Actually, I think it’s just normal weather but after the sultry days in PR… The first day back in the office is always a wash. I have grand ideas of how much I’ll tackle and the reality is that I’ll end up checking off one thing from my list of 25 items.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? DRIVE MY CAR by The Beatles

On Monday, my good agent friend Deidre Knight tagged me from her blog to reveal 5 interesting things about myself.

I swear, it took me all week just to come up with five that would be worth sharing. To quote a line from ALMOST FAMOUS, “I’m uncool.”

But here goes.

1. When I was in the 7th grade, I was caller 600 on a phone-in radio station contest and I won two free tickets to go see Olivia Newton John in concert (yep, the Let’s Get Physical tour). I thought I was so hip and cool.

And you can see how Junior High could go down hill from there.

2. I have two tattoos and I have had them going on close to 20 years.

3. I broke my right arm when I was 24. A girlfriend of mine worked in the music industry and we were backstage a lot that month while I had my full-arm plaster cast. I still have it and it was signed by Michael Hutchins and the boys from INXS, Crowded House, Lenny Kravitz (What a gentleman! We even had tea with him, and I’m not kidding. Tea.) and Material Issue.

Also that summer, I had a whole conversation with Harrison Ford while sitting on the steps of the administration building of Paramount studios and I didn’t initiate it. He did.

4. I’m the youngest of three children in my family. Not once has anyone guessed that. They always think I’m the oldest. It must be my bossy ways.

5. On average, once a month, a stranger will come up to me on the street or in a store or at the airport convinced that they know me. They will ask if I grew up in XYZ or went to this high school or was at this job. Some folks have even called me by some other name and given me a hug, convinced that they knew me.

My hubby used to laugh and tell me I was exaggerating until he got to experience it first hand. It literally happened last night when we flew from Miami to Denver. The guy sitting next to me said, “I just have to ask. Is your name Kim and did you grow up in Mississippi?”

I couldn’t make this up folks. Makes me think I might have had a brilliant career in crime since it would be hard to pick me out specifically in a line up. I look like every other women in the United States!

Myth Buster #3—Out To Lunch

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Feeling a little despondent. It’s my last day in the tropics. I hear it’s going to snow in Denver on the day we return. How’s that for climate shock?

What’s playing on the iPod right now? No little iPod. Why I didn’t travel with it is a mystery to me.

So just what exactly to editors and agents do when out to lunch?

We eat of course—and the good stuff. After all, editors don’t get paid a ton of money (until they’ve been in the biz awhile, have a couple of big sellers on their rosters, and have worked up to being senior editors or higher). One of the editor perks is that they have expense accounts to take the agents out to lunch.

Yep. You heard that right. Publisher pays for lunch.

Nothing crazy exorbitant (unless you are the agent of one of the big sellers on the editor’s roster) but definitely nice. And editors have their favorite joints—usually within walking distance of the publishing house because as I mentioned yesterday, lunching is time-consuming and both parties pretty much want to jump right back into work. No wasting time in a cab or on the subway to hightail it back to the office.

What do we do?

We talk. I’d say, on average, 10 to 15 minutes of the lunch might actually be about business. It depends on whether the editor has a client of mine or not. If there is big business to discuss (like an issue, or a publicity/marketing campaign outline, or something along those lines, then that meeting is always done at the publishing house so all the key players can be involved—lunch or dinner then comes afterwards). Sometimes all the key players will come and other times, just the editor.

Publishing folks are busy. It took two months of scheduling to set up a meeting with me, my client, her editor, the editorial director, the head of publicity, and the head of marketing. The publisher just popped her head in to say hello. To get all these people together for lunch might take more than 2 months of scheduling. Big smile here. It happens though.

So lunches are usually just with the editor. What writers need to understand is that the business of publishing is all about who you know and your connection to the editors. If the editor is new to me, lunch isn’t about pushing business (how rude would that be) but about getting to know the editor, his or her tastes, what writers he or she has on the list. Can you send me copies of your list favorites? When the copies come, I read those books and take notes in my database regarding that editor so I’ll know what she likes and what submissions of mine might work for her.

Agenting is about relationships and that’s what is solidified over lunch. The agent is a person the editor wants to do business with and vice-versa.

If I have something in the submission hopper, I talk about it. I’ve certainly sent a project to an editor who wouldn’t have originally been on the submission list because of a lunch conversation. (But to be honest, the majority of sales don’t happen this way. I have better sales history when my submission list is carefully targeted but you never know. Sometimes an editor has a secret passion that is only revealed over lunch and boom, I’ve got a new submission where that passion is the main subplot or propels the story. Suddenly that editor is the perfect person to look at it. It happens.)

Often, I’ll give a copy of my client list to the editor so they can have it as a reference. Editors often request copies of my clients’ books. Maybe they have been hearing buzz and want to read what everybody is talking about. I’ll send Sara a quick note to get a copy out to the editor.

And yes, sometimes editors want to take you to lunch so they can casually chat about a client of mine published by another house. It’s their job to find out if that client is perfectly happy because if they are not…

But for the most part, we talk about life. What we are doing. Our hubbies, boyfriends, or girlfriends. A new baby. A recent trip. A fun movie we saw. Something crazy that happened on the subway literally on my way to this lunch (and for some reason, this happens a lot to me…). We create a powerful connection.

This is what lunch is actually all about.

Myth Buster #2—Lunching Is No Daily Event

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’m heading to the beach in 5 minutes. What mood do you think I’m in?

What’s playing on the iPod right now? No little iPod.

Writers have a romantic view of agents dreamily heading out to lunch with editors on a daily basis. We dine and do business over yummy sushi or whatever.

Actually there are two myths involved here.

Myth #1—Daily lunches

Myth #2—Conducting deal business over lunch.

So let’s tackle Myth 1 to start.

If editors and agents actually lunched every day, they would never get enough work done. Lunches take a huge chunk out of the day—on average about 2 hours. We don’t lunch lightly. It has to be worth the time investment considering that both of us will have to stay late in order to finish what didn’t happen while we were out to lunch. We literally haven’t got time for daily lunches.

Since I’m out in Denver (but travel to New York often—as do all other non-NYC based agents), I decided to poll some of my New York-based agent friends to see how often they went to lunch with editors. After all, they are just right there. They should be lunching often. Once a week. Twice a week? What do you think?

Now obviously this will really vary per agent. Some might lunch more than others.

On average, my NYC-based agent friends went to lunch with editors about twice a month. That adds up to about 24 to 30 lunches in a year.

Guess how many lunches with editors I do in a year? You guessed it. About 24-30 lunches.

And here’s another aspect of this (and this is true for NYC-based agents as well as Non-NYC agents). A lot of these lunches are not done in New York City.

Surprise!

These lunches can occur at Book Expo (which is not always held in the Big Apple), at RWA, World Fantasy, World Con, BoucherCon, ThrillerFest, Children’s Book Fair, and gosh yes, even at the popular writers conferences.

Not in NYC.

And here’s another myth buster for you. It can happen but it happens rarely that an actual deal will be negotiated over lunch. That’s not the kind of business we do when eating (Deal making and digestion—two things that shouldn’t go together). So tomorrow, I’ll give you a little peek inside what actually does occur at the editor/agent lunch.

Break the Code!

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Don’t worry. I’ll probably get back to myth busting tomorrow. I was a little more interested in hitting the beach today than blog writing. What can I say? In fun news though, my software guru is creating a new Nelson Agency web database where writers can upload their sample pages to a safe and secure site starting in January 2007. No more snail mailing sample pages for us to review. Serious. We are going fully electronic baby. It’s coming so be on the look out for the blog announcement but our goal is to launch this new submission format starting on Jan. 3, 2007.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? No little iPod.

Okay, for those of you who are huge Ally Carter fans and have been dying for any sneak peek at the next book, here’s your chance.

The title for the sequel I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU BUT THEN I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU has been top secret until now. If you can crack the code, you’ll have the skinny that no one in the world has besides Ally, her publisher, and me—not to mention there are some cool prizes.

So, visit Ally’s blog for contest rules/instructions/prizes and for more details but here’s the code.

Happy breaking all you spies.

From Ally:

CAN YOU CRACK THE CODE?

By far one of the most frequent questions I’ve gotten lately is “what’s the title of the next Gallagher Girls book going to be?”

Well, here it is for the first time anywhere!

What? You can’t read it?

That’s probably because the good folks at the Gallagher Academy have encrypted it.

Yep. It’s a real code!

Actual spies have used this actual technique to convey actual secrets for years.

So if you’ve ever wanted to be a spy, or if you’re just a puzzle junkie… Or maybe if you are simply dying to know the title, here’s your chance to have some fun and challenge yourself and think like a Gallagher Girl (or guy) for a while.

And I’m throwing a contest (with some pretty cool prizes) for those of you who feel up to the challenge.

Myth Buster #1—Walk This Way

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Okay, I have a secret to divulge. I didn’t go to World Fantasy because I opted to be in the Caribbean with my hubby for his business trip. For me, it’s mostly vaca with a light smattering of reading work for current clients. Hence, it will probably be blog light all week.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? No little iPod.

I just had to chuckle at one of the posted comments from Friday’s entry about agents walking the manuscript over to the editor. Because no agent, even if they live in the Big Apple, would ever walk a manuscript over to a publishing house therefore saving the messenger fee.

Why? Well, first, who wants to lug loads of paper around the subway? But here’s the real reason. Agents don’t mail manuscripts these days. I kid you not. We email it. There are some exceptions (and agents know the editors who will insist on a hard copy etc.).

It’s very rare that I’ll actually snail mail a manuscript. For the good majority of my projects, there’s not enough time. I’ll have an offer in within days and if an editor asked for a hard copy, he or she probably hasn’t even received it before the excitement gets going. I end up emailing it anyway.

And I want to be very clear that I’m not poking fun at this comment poster. In fact, I think the he or she is brilliant for bringing it up because this puts me in mind for a whole series of rants I could do this week about publishing misconceptions and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of being based in New Yor (or not) and how we actually work.

The “manuscript mailing costs” just being one of them.

A Non-New York State Of Mind

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Is it really this early on a Friday? I’m going to be on a plane for most of today (and not off to World Fantasy) so I’m getting an early start on my day.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? I’M GOIN’ DOWN by Bruce Springsteen

To be honest, whether an agent is located in New York or not seems to be a big matter of importance only for writers.

For editors, they simply don’t care where an agent is located as long as his or her reputation is solid and the projects they see from those agents are good, good, good.

I bring this up because I hang out at a few online writers chat places (because I love keeping in touch with what writers are thinking and feeling) and almost once a month, this topic rises again and someone always posts that “most of the top agents” are in New York and writers should really have a New York agent.

Of course this bothers me for obvious reasons—being located in Denver and all.

Well, I started to really think about that. I could literally name 30 agents (just off the top of my head) with really stellar client lists that include huge NYT bestsellers who live and operate outside of New York.

Here’s a quick sampling just to get the ole brain cells firing this morning:

Deidre Knight, Knight Agency (Madison, Georgia)
Jeff Kleinman, Folio Literary Management (Washington, D.C.)
Jim Hornfischer, Hornfischer Literary Management (Austin, Texas)
Amy Rennert, The Amy Rennert Literary Agency, (Tiburon, CA.)
Sandy Dijkstra, Dijkstra Literary Agency (CaminoDel Mar, CA)
Robert Shepard, Shepard Literary Agency (Berkeley, CA)

And when you start boiling down the really stellar agents in New York, yes, I can name more than 30—but in reality not too many more (depending on criteria and what one considers “top” etc.)

So since it’s my blog, I’ll rant if I want too! Wink.

Now the problem that gives us non-New Yorkers a tougher road for this myth-busting is the fact that the good majority of scammers operate outside of New York (because it would be too expensive to operate in the Big Apple).

That’s easily fixed. Have Writer Beware and its 20-Worst Agents list on your radar.

And spread the word.

Generic YA First POV

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Today was a non-day for work. My tech person came to boot up the new network so I pretty much had no access to the computer for most of the day. In good news, I did stand in line for an hour to early vote (and good news for the voting part—not the standing in line part). Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? HEY JEALOUSY by Gin Blossoms

I’ve been noticing something in the Teen Chick Lit submissions I’ve been receiving so I’m finally going to talk about it. It’s tough though because taste can be so subjective and what one agent dislikes, another agent loves.

Same with editors for that matter.

But I think there have been enough examples of late to merit a blog entry and this pretty much applies to what I call Teen Chick Lit, which, as many of you know, is mainly done in a young girl’s first person point-of-view.

Now don’t worry. I don’t think there is anything wrong with first pov; I like it just fine. What’s bothering me is what I’m calling a rash of generic first person narratives (despite good hooks or an original story line). The main narrator ends up sounding just like the main narrators of the 30 plus Teen Chick Lits I’ve read in the last 3 months. There’s no differentiating.

Now the tricky part. What’s generic for me? A couple of things.

1. A Valley-girlish type narrative voice

This is for lack of a better description. I don’t mean strict Valley Girl like, oh my gosh, from the 80s. I know YA writers are trying to capture that teen speak, slang, and quick dialogue so true to life. But what I’m seeing is this narrative voice and the absence of crucial things like character development. A narrator’s voice should be instrumental to showing character depth and complexity. Lately, it seems to be missing. Not to mention, not all teens speak that way. Surely we can have some variety. I have two teenage nieces and they don’t talk in this same rhythm that I seem to be seeing over and over in sample pages I’ve been reading.

2. A dialogue-heavy scenes

This in itself is not necessarily bad. Most YA novels tend to be pretty dialogue-oriented. It picks up the pace etc. I have a problem with it when scenes are dialogue-heavy to the exclusion of everything else, like setting the scene. I’m seeing this often.

3. Misconception that a good hook can carry average writing

Yes, a good hook in Teen chick lit goes a long way but I have to say that I’m an even harder judge when reading YA. I really want the writing to be top-notch, literary commercial, can hold up even on an adult level but has the right pace for YA.

It’s one of the reasons why I had not taken on a YA-only writer until just last week. I’m looking for something that can really hold its own in the market. It’s not generic in any way.

Whatever that means, right?

Author Comparison—Don’t Let It Backfire

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’m feeling a little bummed. Everyone I know is going to be at World Fantasy in Austin this weekend and did I decide to go this year? Nope. Sigh. I went last year and loved it but the November timing just didn’t work for me. Next year…

What’s playing on the iPod right now? HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY? by Van Morrison

I have to say that, in general, I really like when writers include in their queries what I call author comparables—which means a listing of a maybe two or three already published authors and their comparable books (as in same type of tone, same genre, same audience etc.)

It let’s me know that the writer has contemplated the market and where his or her book is going to sit on the shelves. Readers of these authors will also like what this new writer has to offer. It can be very savvy. It’s an instant context for the agent and hey, that never hurts.

But recently I got a query letter where the writer compared the work being pitched to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Now it’s fine to say it’s similar in theme or in the same vein but this writer took it a step further wanted to show how the two differ.

Now this in itself isn’t a bad idea but the writer is now moving into risky territory. Why? Because sometimes it’s hard to talk about what is unique about your book without implying that it might be lacking in Neil’s. (And to even imply that your book might be “better” than Neil’s is pretty ballsy.) Not to mention, the agent might be thinking, “Yep, I know how these two will differ in a big way because how many people in the world can write as well as Mr. Gaiman. Don’t even go there.”

It can backfire.

I actually don’t think that was the query writer’s intent so I didn’t “read” it that way but it takes really careful phrasing in the comparison paragraph to not have it come off that way.

Just heads up that if you are using this approach in your query, proceed with a little caution.