Pub Rants

STATUS: Good. I got a lot of small things accomplished. Little detailed stuff that I had stacked into a pile and was making me feel guilty. It makes me feel like I’m clearing stuff out so I can create something new when I tackle and complete the small things.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? CRAZY by Patsy Cline

This little rant has been niggling at me for a while.

Something that just makes me laugh is when a writer name drops in their query, but they use the name of a person I do not know or have no recollection of.

It usually ends up sounding something like this.

“Joe Smith gave me your name and the contact information of your agency and strongly recommended that I contact you. He thought my novel XXXXXX would be perfect for you.”

That’s it. No explanation. No frame of reference such as Joe Smith knows you through XYZ.

Nothing.

As if Joe Smith were one of my clients—whom I would, of course, know. (And just to make note here, I am always delighted to get a recommendation from one of my current clients.)

But I don’t know who Joe is so the fact that he recommends me carries zero weight. Zilch.

In fact, now I think you, as the query letter writer, are a little suspect.

If you’re going to name drop, make sure I know the reference (and it has been made clear in the letter); otherwise, it’s just silly.

STATUS: It’s Tuesday and really hot here in Denver. It hit 99 degrees. This is silly. I live a mile above sea level. A mile. 5280 to be exact. We have mild summers. Mild do you hear me! I feel slightly better now. Had to work on that contract. I reviewed it this morning to decide what was worth getting grubby and fighting for. And there was a little bit of exciting news too but I can’t reveal it quite yet.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? YOU DON’T MESS AROUND WITH JIM by Jim Croce

I’ve got a great rant today.

I just have to remember that I am a nice agent and I only rant politely. I leave the snarkiness to Miss Snark. Ah, the temptation though.

I sent out a NO response for a poorly done query that I reviewed and sure enough, not five minutes later, I got a reply email. In it, the writer said that although she wasn’t any good at writing query letters, the novel was indeed masterful and I should rethink my NO and ask for sample pages.

Uh… No thank you.

In the beginning of my agency, I didn’t receive as many queries as I do currently and I would often give the query writer the benefit of the doubt. If the concept was interesting, despite the unpromising query letter, I would ask for sample pages. Maybe, just maybe, the novel was masterful where the query letter was not.

In almost five years (and thousands upon thousands of query letters), this has never happened. Basically, the sample pages lived up to the expectation given by the query letter—which basically means it didn’t measure up.

If you are a terrific writer, you’ll master the query letter. You’ll do everything in your power to get the feedback you need to make it the best it can be. Why? Because you take your career seriously, and you know that the query letter may be the best (and sometimes only) way to open the door to an agent or an editor.

Now, just to clarify (because there is always somebody who reads this blog and jumps to conclusions), I’m not suggesting that if I sent you a NO that your query was poorly written. It may be a great query but it just wasn’t right for me. We unfortunately can’t take the time (given the volume of what we receive) to tell folks, “yep, good query but not for us” or “OMG what a terribly written query, definitely not right for us.”

We just have the standard response letter.

So as a writer, how will you know if your query letter is any good?

Did you run the query letter by folks at the critique mill who know what makes a good one? (I hear Evil Editor is doing some query dissing and critiquing over at that site.)

Are you getting any requests for partials? If not, well, your query letter isn’t masterful. Or even if you are just getting a tiny number of requests like let’s say 1 or 2 out of every 50 queries sent. Not masterful enough.

And I have never read a bad query letter only to read the sample pages and get blown away by incredible writing.

Never.

Now I have read great query letters, asked for sample pages, and not have the partial measure up to the terrific query. And that is always heartbreaking.

STATUS: It’s just another manic Monday. I have a house taking just forever to respond to our letter regarding changes we would like in the contract. Finally, the email comes and they just want to say NO to half our requests. Good thing we waited three weeks for that. I know they’re busy and all…

What song is playing on the iPod right now? ROXANNE by The Police

Guess what? I’m all caught up in reading all the partials I had to review (Sara will send out the letters tomorrow and any request for fulls have already gone out). Sara has a whole stack she needs to bring in tomorrow so I’ll look and see what date we are up to but the last dates I looked at were for mid-to late-May. When I look in the partial inbox, those sample pages are dated June 1.

And, and this is really icing on the cake, I read three full manuscripts this weekend as well. In a week, I’m not going to know what to do with myself.

And yes, I jest. I have plenty to keep me busy.

But because I’ve been reading samples pages Sara has passed on to me for review, I’ve been noticing some Title trends. Time to share.

I have to say that since my Katie rant, the number of projects with a Katherine derivative for the main heroine’s name has decreased dramatically. Maybe the same will happen with titles. I can always hope.

And the winners are…

1. LITTLE WHITE LIES

Lots of lies running around but the little white ones are the most popular.

2. SECOND CHANCES

This shows up most for women’s fiction or romance titles.

3. BLOOD CURSES (or anything with BLOOD in the title frankly)

Yep, fantasy titles are usually the culprit for this one.

4. THE PHOENIX anything (add your own variation here)

This actually crosses all genres but mostly for SF&F.

STATUS: Closed a deal. Now I want to end every Friday like this!

What song is playing on the iPod right now? I CAN’T GO FOR THAT (NO CAN DO) by Hall & Oats

And I have to confess, I’m not feeling all that inspired to rant today (but very inspired by this recent deal).

It’s my first sale for an author I met (and who pitched me) at a conference—the Pikes Peak conference to be exact.

And speaking of sales, Anna Louise has got her second treatise up on P&Ls and how books make (or don’t) money: part the second: the hardcover to mass market profitable/neutral book.

Now that’s worth some Friday afternoon perusing. I’ll be back in ranting form on Monday.

Out.

STATUS: Having great fun. Started a new deal negotiation this morning. How is that anything but fun?

What song is playing on the iPod right now? STILL CAN’T by The Cranberries

I think I’m in love with Library Diva. She is having an all Ally Carter weekend on her blog. Big smooches LD!

To wrap up yesterday, you folks did a great job analyzing the Cheryl’s covers. No one caught one of the changes but to be honest, I think the cover pictures were too small to see it. In the first cover version of THE WINTER PRINCE, he is holding a cane. In the second, the cane has morphed into a sword.

Yeah, little hard to see.

Today I’m going to rant on behalf of my assistant Sara—and maybe for all assistants at agencies everywhere. I think writers are sometimes dismissive (“oh, it’s just the assistant reading my query” or “oh, it’s just the assistant who screens my sample pages”).

My suggestion? Don’t be. You know why? Because if an assistant is good (and Sara is terrific), you might just be getting read by a future agent.

I figured that maybe, just maybe, writers don’t really know how it works with an assistant, so I’ll share.

First, I hired Sara because I was tired of being way behind. It wasn’t fair to the writers, and I was missing out on good projects because response time was too slow.

Given that, I made a new commitment to respond to queries within one week and respond to sample pages in two weeks (and by the way, we aren’t quite there but really close. I’m actually the wink link in the chain at the moment).

Physically, this would not be possible without help—without training someone to screen incoming queries and sample pages.

It’s that simple.

So, I hired Sara and my first order of business was to teach her to think like me. For her first week, we sat down together, side-by-side and read queries—for two or three hours. Without saying anything, I would let her decide whether she would pop it into the folder for me to review or if she would send our auto NO response.

We did this for two days. On the third morning, I sat with her for maybe 30 minutes but it was obvious to me that she was having zero problems knowing which query I would want to see and which ones could have the NO response.

I mean it folks. Zero mistakes.

Then we tackled the partials inbox. She would take a big stack home to read (20 or 30 partials) and make a comment on whether she would forward it to me to read or whether she felt confident saying NO.

I would then read behind her. If I thought there was a partial I would have liked to have seen but she wouldn’t have forwarded it, we chatted about why etc.

By the fourth big stack of her reading (and my reading behind her), she wasn’t missing.

Zero mistakes.

Because she’s that good.

And wouldn’t you rather have a quick response? Well, without assistants, that simply wouldn’t be possible.

I feel blessed that Sara loves her job. I feel doubly blessed that I don’t have to slog through bad partials or queries. Because of Sara, I get to devote real attention to reading the good stuff.

And more of it!

STATUS: Three issues resolved–finally! This makes it a great day.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA by Indigo Girls

This is actually a fun rant today because this cover issue was literally happening this week as I was writing these past three blog entries.

It doesn’t get any more immediate then that. Not to mention, you get a sneak peek at a gorgeous, gorgeous cover and I’m in the mood to share it.

As most of you may know (or you might not), cover design happens way in advance of when a book will be published. Mainly because the cover image and back cover copy need to make it into the sales catalog so the sales team can share with booksellers so orders can be placed, etc.

So this work, THE WINTER PRINCE, won’t actually be pubbed until spring of 2007 and yet, this week, we were dealing with the cover.

First, I must share all of Cheryl’s covers because huge kudos to New American Library. I have been blown away by every cover they have done for her. Seriously. I don’t think they can get any more gorgeous and then voila, THE WINTER PRINCE cover hits my inbox.

Now, I’m sharing all of Cheryl’s prior covers because I want you to pick up on something that should be quite clear. There is a certain look NAL is striving for in terms of branding Cheryl.

Her first two books were mass market originals and then with THE CODE OF LOVE, Cheryl made the leap to original trade paperback.

Here are the covers. What kind of adjectives leap to mind when looking at them? What do you see in common in terms of a look or feel? Share with me.

Now, here’s a first peek at the cover for her next novel.

Gorgeous. Without a doubt. So what’s up? Why were we having an issue this week with the cover? Well, there was one main reason. Cheryl writes epic historical fiction with a meaty romance embedded in the story.

Given the amount of time spent on research and the attention to historical detail in her stories, it’s important for the work to be pictorially accurate. This image struck us as regency in feel.

THE WINTER PRINCE is set in 1642-1644, right as the civil war is beginning in England (pitting parliament against the crown) and King Charles I will be beheaded to make room for the non-royal usurper Oliver Cromwell.

A regency look is pretty misleading and since we are talking serious epic historical here, we really needed the cover image to match the time period. Luckily, her publisher agreed. Even though the image is taken from a painting, it was adjusted to fit the needed time period (oh the amazing possibilities of digital editing).

Here’s the final cover.

Also, there’s another change in the cover. Did you catch it?

STATUS: Feeling giddy! I’m just realizing that my assistant Sara is so efficient, I’m having trouble keeping up with her! But, because of her wonderfulness, I’m almost caught up. I have some queries to review from last week, a small stack of screened partials that are unfortunately from late April or early May (sorry!) and of course, three or four full manuscripts that I’ve been woefully behind on reading. For those of you waiting, I apologize. A response is just around the corner.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? US AND THEM by Pink Floyd

Let me repeat for good measure that the good majority of authors only have cover consultation and not cover approval. So what’s an author to do?

Well, I push them to be pro-active about the cover in a meaningful way—as soon as right after the sale. If they have ideas, let’s list them. Let’s highlight scenes that might make a good cover image. I even tell my authors to make a visual chart (with jpgs included) of covers they love and list the reasons why. (This works better if you choose covers the publisher has actually published recently.)

For SF & Fantasy, a lot of writers know the artists and their work (Linnea LOVES Dave Seeley’s stuff and was over the moon when she found out he was going to be her cover artist.) If an artist might be a good fit, why not mention it and send the editor the weblink to the artist’s website.

My historical author sent a whole gallery of pictures from the era of her story. The photo album included pictures of all the principal characters in the story, tidbits on what living person today descended from these historical figures, pictures of the main settings etc. All rich detail to inspire the cover artist to really imagine a romantic image of the time. We’ve gotten some gorgeous covers.

And I’ve never had editors say NO to this kind of input. (Remember, they want their authors to be happy with the cover.)

Will it ensure a good cover? No. The publisher can disregard all input.

However, it allows the author to participate in the discussion.

And Publishers do listen. Just this week, an author and I asked for some cover tweaks and the publisher obliged.

STATUS: Today was a day for resolving those outstanding issues of Friday. The FedEx that was supposed to be delivered to me overnight has disappeared into the ether of lost packages. No worries. I hopped on the phone and devised a new solution with the sender. Fingers crossed that this issue will be resolved by Friday.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? GREASED LIGHTNING by John Travolta

To continue what we started last week…

As agents, we might fight for a cover change on behalf of the author and not win. It happens. And, sometimes the publisher is right.

Since Linnea brought it up, I’m going to talk about AN ACCIDENTAL GODDESS.

Here’s the cover and back cover copy.

Author Linnea Sinclair returns with another sexy, out-of-this-world adventure, in which the forces of attraction collide—and combust…

Raheiran Special Forces Captain Gillaine Davré has just woken up in some unknown space way station, wondering where the last three hundred years have gone. The last thing she remembers is her ship being attacked. Now it seems that while she was time-traveling, she was ordained a Goddess…

Gillaine’s only hope of survival rests with dangerously seductive Admiral “Mack” Makarian, who suspects her of being a smuggler—or worse. But he can’t begin to imagine the full extent of it. For Gillaine is now Lady Kiasidira, holy icon to countless believers, including Mack—a man who inspires feelings in her that are far from saintly…feelings she knows are mutual. But when their flirtation is interrupted by a treacherous enemy from the past, Gillaine’s secret—and secret desires—could destroy them both….

I have to say that both of us were a little flummoxed by the ABBA Dancing Queen on the cover. The main heroine from the novel, Gilly, never wears red spandex in the story (in fact, it’s an outfit better suited for a mini-villain in the story).

But remember my rant of last week. Cover image does not necessarily accurately reflect an actual scene from the book. Not a valid argument (despite how real it feels for the author).

Bantam, Linnea’s publisher, had decided they wanted to reach out more toward the paranormal/futuristic romance market and go sexier with the cover. Linnea’s first two covers for FINDERS KEEPERS and GABRIAL’S GHOST were decidedly science fiction. Not unsexy just not sexy either. And certainly not remotely geared to romance readers—who we know make up a good portion of her fan base.

We expressed our concerns and to give Bantam their due, they did work with us on Gilly’s outfut but the change ended up being worse than the original so we scrapped it and let the cover go as is (since Bantam was adamant that the sexy outfit had to stay).

And here’s what you need to remember, I might hum ABBA every time I see the cover but Bantam was right. AN ACCIDENTAL GODDESS has outsold Linnea’s two previous books.

Something to be said about sexy red spandex.

STATUS: It’s Friday! I’m not sure why I’m excited about this when I plan to catch up on all my reading this weekend so work, work, work for me. It would also be a better Friday if the overnighted FedEx would actually arrive. Label was done on Tuesday (May 30th). Package still missing.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? WHEN YOU’RE FALLING by Afro Celts (Sara is getting in the game; it’s her iPod in the stereo.)

Before I jump in and talk about this cover, there are a few other things that you should know.

1. Changing a cover is expensive. The designer/artist is paid for all the time invested—not just for the final cover design. It’s one reason why the publisher can be reluctant. Books have certain budgets. Redesign is a budget curveball.

2. If the B&N buyer loves the cover, nothing in the world will change the Publisher’s mind about changing it.

I’m actually being a little facetious on that last point but there is some truth in it (and covers change suddenly when B&N dislikes it and plans to reduce copy orders).

But back to DRESS REHEARSAL. Neither Jennifer or I liked the cover (and most of you latched on to the reasons why).

1. The man was at the center, which didn’t make sense.
2. Cover implies three women vying for a man
3. Tag line suggested a different type of story
4. The novel isn’t actually about a wedding

Hence, we didn’t like it. So what? Publisher is not going to foot the bill for a redesign based on the four reasons above. They aren’t valid arguments. (Quit shaking your head if you’re thinking that the four reasons above would merit a cover change. They don’t, and I’m being honest here. They really don’t.)

So what does?

Basically, we won the Publisher over based on the concept of branding and how we were positioning Jennifer in the chick lit market. With BACHELORETTE #1, Jennifer established herself as a contemporary writer who deftly handles pertinent issues facing modern women (such as losing one’s identity in marriage and especially after having a kid). Not sure if we want to call that feminism—too many definitions and associations circling around that term–but Jennifer’s books definitely encapsulate the theme of women discovering themselves and being empowered.

The original cover for DRESS REHEARSAL didn’t convey that—especially not at a glance.

Simple. It doesn’t fit with how we plan to position Jennifer in the market for the long term. The publisher agreed and changed the cover.

Now we can get into a debate about whether the final cover embodies the theme of woman empowerment but I’m not interested in doing that. You have to remember that the book is in the chick lit genre and when it was released, the light, campy cartoon-style covers were the “in” thing.

STATUS: Doing okay. Didn’t quite accomplish as much as I had hoped. I had gotten a royalty statement today that didn’t make sense. I spent the whole afternoon cross-checking it and then calling the publishing house to see if we couldn’t straighten out what seems to be the error.

What song is playing on the iPod right now? YOU’RE THE ONLY WOMAN by David Pack

Covers are tricky. What will work? What will grab the eye in 2 seconds? What makes a cover look BIG so that the cover itself will scream BIG BOOK.

What happens when the author doesn’t like the cover?

Before I discuss this, you, as the reader, need to know and understand a few things.

1. Publishing houses know what they are doing—and yes, you can look at Longmire does Romance Covers and potentially want to dispute that fact because goodness, how do bad covers get made–but the truth is that cover design isn’t in a vacuum. The houses have tested what has worked and what hasn’t.

2. Editors want their authors to LOVE their covers. They really do. It’s your baby and they want you to be thrilled that it’s out there in the world.

3. Authors, for the most part, aren’t the best judge of covers for what will work or won’t work (seen the covers of any self-published books recently—and not to bash those folks–okay, will maybe just a little, sorry!–but cover art design is a talent and not everyone has it.

4. Covers are not meant to accurately represent events in the book. Their purpose is to grab the browser’s eye. Period. Creative license will be taken.

Got that in mind? Okay, but sometimes a cover just misses (despite good intentions and a real understanding of the market from the publishing house). When that is the case, and as an agent, I really strongly believe that is the case, then it’s time to “fight” (translation: exert gentle, reasonable pressure) for a cover change.

Here’s a couple of other things you need to know.

1. Most authors (unless you are Nora Roberts) only have cover consultation and not cover approval. You get a say but not the ultimate say. Publisher has that right so it’s really important that if you argue for a cover change, it’s in terms that make sense to the Publisher—and that the reason for the change is not because the author just didn’t like it. That argument won’t wash (see above reason number 3—most authors are truly clueless on what would work).

2. Pub Houses want the book to succeed and a cover that will allow it to do so.

And that’s how an argument is couched.

Time for an example. Here is the original cover for Jennifer O’Connell’s DRESS REHEARSAL and then the final cover that is on bookshelves today.

I’ll even include the back cover blurb so you can have it.

With the irrepressible, hilarious voice that makes her readers stand up and cheer, Jennifer O’Connell presents a delicious novel about a wedding cake boutique owner who’s about to learn that in love and life, there’s no such thing as a dress rehearsal…

No one knows wedding cakes better than the owner of Lauren’s Luscious Licks, Boston’s hottest cake boutique. Lauren Gallagher is a pro when it comes to helping brides and grooms pick out the perfect Big Day dessert. But what her clients don’t know is that her talent doesn’t end there. Because while the happy couple is choosing between buttercream and royal icing, Lauren is predicting which relationships will last, and which marriages will crumble, simply by watching them pick a cake. Her latest prediction, however, is anything but sweet. Unless her marital Magic Eight Ball is off, one of her best friends is about to tie the knot with Mr. Absolutely All Wrong.

Lauren’s got to save her friend, and prove her cake theory is true, even if it means taking her predictive powers public. But while she’s trying to prevent a potential mismatch, she’s got her own problems—involving an ex-boyfriend, his new fiancée, and the cake of Lauren’s dreams…

Original Cover

Final Cover

I’d be interested in hearing your initial thoughts about the covers. Tomorrow I’ll talk about why we asked for a cover change etc.