Pub Rants

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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!

Pub Horror Stories—Just In Time For Halloween

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I was a submission demon today. Two projects went out to many an excited editor. And I’ll know tomorrow whether I’ll be setting up an auction for a project already out and about.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? MOONLIGHT LADY by Julio Iglesias (man, that is one sexy voice)

I have to send you over to Rachel’s blog today. She literally summed up my last couple of weeks on the job (except she doesn’t have the fabulous Sara to help her but sounds like she could use a Sara-clone.) Are we living parallel lives?

And you know what’s even stranger? I, too, wear a size 6 ½ in footwear so we can literally walk in each other’s shoes.

Watch your closet Rachel! The Midnight Shoe Snatcher might be on the loose.

And the savvy Bella Stander is blogging about publicity horror stories on her blog—just in time for Halloween.

How perfect is that?

I wish I had a horror story of my own to share but besides the person calling and leaving a query pitch on the voicemail today (despite the fact the recording clearly says no phone queries), there’s nothing very horrific going on. I have no horror clients. I’m not even sure I have an editor horror story to share.

Wait I have one.

I once had to hang up on an editor because she was screaming so loud during a phone negotiation that I had to hold the phone a foot away from my ear. I interrupted and asked her to call back when she felt more able to discuss the terms and I hung up.

Hasn’t ever happened since because now I won’t submit to her. Problem solved!

And check the blog early tomorrow. You are in a for a super Halloween treat.

Boo!

Although Your Work Sounds Intriguing…

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: This Monday was crazy but productive. We had to play catch up from the power outage on Friday. I did call and offer representation to an author for her really awesome YA project. She has a couple of other agent’s interested so now I have to wait and see if she chooses me. Choose me!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? BAD, BAD LEROY BROWN by Jim Croce

For those of you who love agent blogs, I’ve stumbled on a couple of more that might be worth a read.

The Rejecter is an anonymous blog from an assistant at an agency. Definitely somebody with a perspective from the query trenches.

The other is from, in their own words, “the opinionated folks” at the Dystel & Goderich Agency.

Might be worth checking out.

Now on to my rant. Agents take a lot of drubbing for their standard query rejection letters. We have to say something and as y’all know, I prefer to be polite.

So what does it mean when I say, in my form query rejection letter, “although your work sounds intriguing…”

In means exactly that. It very well might be intriguing but it’s not right for me. Queries fall into five basic categories:

1. The obvious NOs because the query is for genres we don’t represent or something similar.
2. The other obvious NOs for well-done queries for projects we don’t represent.
3. The NOs for queries for projects we do represent but the query itself is poorly written
4. the NOs for well-done queries for projects that could fit for my agency, are intriguing, but I would never pick up that book in a bookstore so it’s not right for me. I can totally see another agent digging it.

For the most part, it’s for the Queries of number 4 that we include the standard phrase of “although your work sounds intriguing…” because this biz is so subjective. It really might sound intriguing for another agent who will then ask for sample pages, maybe a full, and then go on to rep this writer. Commenters on this blog alone have mentioned being rejected by me in the query phase but have then landed representation elsewhere.

It means their work was intriguing—but just not to me.

5. Well-done queries that knock our socks off so we ask for sample pages. These folks get the “request for pages” email letter.
To sum up? One agent’s “so intriguing I must see sample pages” is another agent’s “ho-hum and not right for me.”

So don’t get in a stew about the wording. It’s a NO. Tweak if you need to (especially if all your responses are NOs—that could signal the query letter/pitch hook being at fault) and then move on. Your agent might be around the next email query corner.

Young Turks

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: I’m super excited about a new submission that’s going out this week.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? DECEMBER 1963 (OH WHAT A NIGHT) by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons

I wanted to do a shout-out to a new, non-anonymous blogger in the agenting world. I probably should amend that. She’s probably not new but I’ve newly discovered her and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The new blog is Lit Soup by Jenny Rappaport at the L. Perkins agency.

And from what I can tell, she’s taking a lot of drubbing for being honest on her blog. I can see the lure of being anonymous…

One of her comments struck me though. I haven’t read the whole string of commentary (simply out of time today) but she does take a moment to highlight that being young in this industry is not necessarily a liability.

Ah, the age factor must have come up and that made me want to share a little fact with my blog readers. I’m not sure if writers realize just how young the workers in this industry are. I certainly don’t have hard statistics at my fingertips (so take this with some grains of salt) but I wouldn’t be amiss by suggesting that over 60% of the editors who work in publishing (and are actively acquiring and buying books) are under the age of 35.

It’s an industry of young’uns. Brash, intelligent, and savvy Young Turks.

In fact, Jason Kaufman, the editor of that little known book called THE DA VINCI CODE, wasn’t even 30 when he acquired that novel.

And this isn’t unusual.

And as much as it pains me to not be included in those young ranks (ahem, cough, sigh), it did make me want to bring up that fact. There’s a saying that with age comes wisdom. True. Sometimes. But there are lots of folks who have age but somehow missed out on that second part.

So, in the world of publishing, it’s better to not practice ageism.

(I know; I’ll get a whole slew of comments on maturity vs. age etc. Big smile here.)