Category Publishing

Dec 19 2013

The Road to Publishing: a Q & A with Andrew Karre of Carolrhoda Books

On Tuesday, Ashley Hope Pérez laid out what it’s like to work with rock star editor Andrew Karre , editorial director of Carolrhoda Books, Carolrhoda Lab & Darby Creek. Today, we have a bonus post, a Q&A between Ashley and Andrew, the last piece in our “Road to Publishing” series. We hope it’s been helpful! All of the posts can now be found if you click on the “The Road to Publishing Series” tab on the menu.

Ashley: What are the rookie mistakes you see first-time authors make during the editorial process?

Andrew: Rushing revisions. There are no points for speed. Although I hope I’ve learned enough to anticipate this and prevent it.

Ashley: What qualities make you look forward to working with an author again on a future project? Any deal-breakers?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Andrew: A spirit of adventure. The authors I most enjoy working with are excited about the process. They like to use me as a sounding board, as a stress-test for their work. They want to hear my questions and suggestions, but they’re quite capable of going an entirely different direction. I’m not interested in authors who unquestioningly adopt my view of YA fiction. I’m interested in authors who will engage with it and articulate their own. In many cases, editing is a bit of a friendly struggle between the author and me wherein my goal is to lose in an interesting way that highlights the author’s strengths.

Ashley: In what way(s) does your approach to the editing process differ from other editors you know or have worked with?

Andrew: It’s hard to say. I only have second-hand information about how others edit. I tend not to write editorial letters. I prefer to write voluminous marginal notes and have lots of phone conversations (or lunches, whenever possible). Maybe that’s unusual? My goal in a markup is to highlight the places where an author is at the height of her powers and then challenge her to meet that standard throughout.

Ashley: Boundary-pushing is arguably your editorial signature. How does that priority influence the guidance you offer authors during the editing process?

Andrew: I don’t really think about that when we’re editing. Editing is about realizing and reconciling a manuscript’s potential and its author’s vision. It’s about pleasing the two of us, first and foremost. Insofar as we worry only about the limitations inherent in the manuscript, I guess the desire to be unbound is present.

Ashley: Beyond writing (and revising) a novel into its best possible form, what should authors be doing from the time they sign their contract to the time of the book’s release?

Social-media-for-public-relations1Andrew: There are a few practicalities every author should take care of–at least by that point if not sooner. Acquire all your digital real- estate. By that I mean, register a useful domain name, grab a good Twitter handle, etc.  Even if you can’t see how you’ll use them, at least you’ll have them. The only one of these that costs anything is the domain, and that’s cheap. Then, read your contemporaries. And if you can, interact with them as a colleague and fellow traveler. Join the conversations online in much the way you’d join a dinner party conversation: wait for your opening, and take it graciously when it comes. Be interesting, first and foremost. It’s not about selling.

Ashley: I distinctly remember a come-to-Jesus talk we had about social media some time between revisions for What Can’t Wait and the book’s launch day. I remember feeling very overwhelmed. Now, four years down the line, I can see lots of benefits from the relationships that I’ve established by existing online and at least intermittently being present in Twitter and other spaces.

At Latin@s in Kid Lit, we’re working to draw more attention to great books for younger kids as well as teens. What are some of your favorite books to read to or with your boys?  Do their preferences ever surprise you?

Andrew: Henry (5) loves nonfiction at the moment. He loves processes and technical details so we read a lot of things in that vein. I really loved Building Our House by Jonathan Bean. In the coverage of the death of Charlotte Zolotow, we discovered her Over and Over, and that’s been fun.  I still enjoy reading Goodnight Moon to Edmund (18 months).

Ashley: What’s one book that you hope to find in your stocking this holiday season?

Andrew: I still haven’t read NW by Zadie Smith and I generally enjoy her work.

Ashley: Any thoughts on the current state of publishing with regard to the percentages of works by/for/about Latin@s?

Andrew: It seems to me that the level of awareness of the need among publishers is high, as is the desire to find and break out new voices. High enough? I don’t know if it’s possible to say. I know I’m encouraged.

Dec 16 2013

The Road to Publishing: One Take on Working with a (Rock Star) Editor

By Ashley Hope Pérez

In articles and blog posts about breaking into the world of publishing, the lion’s share of attention goes to the writing craft, getting an agent, and securing a book deal. But what happens after those hurdles have been jumped? What can writers expect from their editors once the deal is sealed? And what will editors expect from writers?

The Knife and the ButterflyBecause writer-editor relationships are endlessly varied, I don’t actually have the answers to these questions. In fact, as I started writing this post, I realized that the only thing I am really qualified to talk about are my experiences working with Andrew Karre, my editor at Carolrhoda Lab. Andrew bought my first two novels, What Can’t Wait and The Knife and the Butterfly, in a two-book deal back in 2009, and now I am in the beginning stages of working with Andrew on a third novel. I can’t say what it’s like for other writers, although you can find some descriptions of authors’ experiences with editors, my favorite being the five perspectives offered up here. What Can't Wait

For the editor’s perspective, check out this post from Scholastic imprint editor Cheryl Klein, who also has a book on editing YA. Andrew will stop by the blog on Thursday to toss in his two cents on editorial work; if you want to balance some of my gushing below with more objective reporting, you can read this feature on him in Publisher’s Weekly.

Enough preliminaries. Here’s the scoop I can offer on working with my editor.

What happens after you sign the contract with a publisher? Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I remember expecting to hear from Andrew the day after the contract was signed, but often there’s a considerable lag (months, friends) between sealing the deal and getting the feedback that will guide the revision. Editors are working on dozens of projects—all in different stages—at any given point. The good ones are expert at juggling these demands and giving each project what it needs.

Isn’t it painful to be told how to revise? To start with, I have to say that Andrew is as close to my “ideal reader” as I expect ever to find. With all three novels, he has grasped the essential aspects of the projects as well as (or better than) I did myself. This fact secures my total confidence in his intuition and editorial recommendations; on top of that, I’ve benefitted from his ability to see subterranean connections that invited development as well as other missed opportunities. So even what might have been “pain” in the process invariably felt crucial to the mission of making the book what it was meant to be.

keep-calm-and-revise--718I should also say that the thought of revision is what gets me through the agony of drafting; revision is my happy zone, where things finally come together. I don’t mind cutting scenes or paragraphs or sentences that I love. I don’t mind writing new material. I don’t mind collapsing subplots, ditching characters, or even radically altering the point of view for 100,000 words of prose. I don’t mind because when Andrew tells me to do these things, I instantly see how much sense they make. For me, Andrew’s vision manages to expand the story’s possibilities while also clarifying what needs to be done to achieve those possibilities.

How, specifically, does the editing happen? I’ve often heard writer friends discuss the editorial letter, which I’m told is a fairly formal write-up of all the things that need to be done in revision for a manuscript to be acceptable to the editor. (More discussion of the editorial letter and an example here ) The editorial letter reflects the major first pass of editing and defines the focal areas for the main revision, after which (everyone hopes) it will be mostly scene- and sentence-level rewriting.

Unless I have suffered some serious memory loss—which is possible since I gave birth to my son during the early editorial process with What Can’t Wait—I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a formal editorial letter from Andrew. Instead, we tend to have several hour-longish phone calls where he tells me what his instincts are as far as what could or should change in the manuscript and why. Perhaps what is most important to me about how these things go is that the “why” is always intimately linked to the internal logic of the novel or its essential characteristics (as opposed, for example, to trends in the market or notions of what teens can “handle”). These conversations generally entail multiple epiphanies on my part and copious note-taking. The macro-level feedback from the phone calls comes along with scene-by-scene feedback via comments and edits in Word.

After responding to the major editorial feedback (over 2-5 months), I submit to Andrew my “final” manuscript. Once he reads and accepts it, I get the second half of the advance (the first half comes with signing the contract). There is still some back and forth and perhaps even some more substantive changes, but all the major pieces are in place. There will be at least one more full read-through with comments to address before the book goes to the next stage of copy-editing (line-by-line stuff and the standardization of things like “OK” for “okay” according to the publisher’s house style), which is done by wonderful people who work under Andrew.

2-14Book-MakingWhat’s next? Then the book goes into production, and a while later (3-6 months) I get an email with galleys that give an idea of what the manuscript will look like as a “real” book. There will also be drafts of jacket copy, which I’m glad I don’t have to write, and cover designs. With What Can’t Wait, I wasn’t in on anything until after the final cover was chosen; with The Knife and the Butterfly, I saw about a dozen preliminary designs and got to weigh in on their relative merits. From contract to the printing of advance reader copies, the process has taken between a year and two.

Any words of advice for those on the road to publishing? The truth is that—at least for your first book—you will have little say in who your editor is. Your agent will submit the book where she or he thinks it’s a good fit, and if an editor bites and makes a reasonable offer, your agent will advise you to accept. There is no room in this process for mailing editors personality tests to check for compatibility.

What you can do is embrace the editorial process as an opportunity to discover more about your novel and your work as a writer. I find that the writer-editor dynamic—inevitably centered on the book—creates an amazing triangle of insight inside of which all kinds of possibilities for the story come into focus. I hope that’s the case for many other writers, too.

Dec 9 2013

The Road to Publishing: Going on Submission

By Cindy L. Rodriguez

At this point, you have written a novel with the help of critique groups and beta readers and landed your agent of choice thanks to a killer query letter. Now what?

Before I answer that, I want to emphasize that each writer’s road to publication is different. The process so far–write book, write query letter, get an agent–can play out in myriad ways. Some writers craft a book quickly and wait a long time to connect with the right agent. Some complete several manuscripts before moving ahead in the process. Others choose not to have an agent at all. Please remember there is no one way or right way to get your work published. In general, however, if you plan to head down the traditional publishing path, then you will likely follow the basics outlined in our series so far: write book, craft the query letter, land an agent.

Now what? Your agent may ask you to further revise your novel before it’s ready to submit to editors. When the manuscript is ready, your agent will send it to certain editors based on her experience and knowledge of the editors and publishing houses.

And what do you do? You wait and worry and dream and go to your day job and clean the house until it’s sparkling and check your email a thousand times a day at least and then you try to calm down by reminding yourself it’s out of your hands and after a few deep breaths and zen-like moments, you start a new project and whenever you have a moment, you refresh your email again and again.

Or, maybe that was just me. Like I said, everyone is different. In general, though, many writers agree that the process includes angst-filled waiting because your manuscript is now in the hands of editors, the people who may fall in love with your novel, take it to internal meetings, and offer you a contract.

At this point, the process can take weeks, months, or years. Your friend could sell her novel at auction to a major publishing house with a six-figure advance. You may be rejected dozens of times before receiving a contract. You will both end up on bookshelves, no matter how you got there. Don’t compare yourself to other writers. You will, but you shouldn’t.

Back to the process…editors will read your novel and say yes, no, or maybe but we want you to revise and resubmit. If the novel doesn’t sell, you and your agent may discuss the patterns in the rejections. If certain aspects are routinely criticized, then your agent may ask you to revise further before you go out on another round of submissions. This is exactly what happened to me.

I began working with Laura Langlie in August 2010. I revised certain chapters based on her notes, and we went on submission a few months later. Some editors responded within weeks, while others took months. This is normal. After a series of rejections, an editor expressed interest but wanted some changes. I revised and resubmitted the first eight chapters. After a few months of waiting, we learned she had left the business completely. Sigh.

I revised the rest of the novel in the vein of chapters 1-8. Once done, Laura submitted it to another batch of editors. More rejections–some very flattering, some not so much–and more submissions. In June 2012, we received an enthusiastic response from Mary Kate Castellani from Bloomsbury/Walker. She asked me to revise and resubmit the first nine chapters. After reading those, she gave me the thumbs-up to keep going. I completed the revision, and Mary Kate shared the novel with her team. We had an offer in March 2013.

I have since done another major revision and am currently working on what should be the last round of writing before it moves along in the process. Right now, the novel is scheduled to be published in Winter 2015 by Bloomsbury.

This was my first novel ever. I expected to make lots of revisions, but the thing is, I agreed with the suggestions. I didn’t make changes along the way only because I wanted to get published. I revised each time because I knew my agent’s or editor’s suggestions would improve the story. This back-and-forth between the writer, agent, and editor could make or break the submission process. As a writer, I often asked myself:

What is the heart of the story? Can I cut this or add that and maintain the heart of the narrative? The answer was yes.

And what is the goal? The goal is to share this story, to take it from notes on napkins to hardcover.

Do I trust my agent and editor? Are they respectful, professional, and enthusiastic? The answer was always yes.

So I trusted them, revised, and I made it through a long submission process that required a lot of work. In the end, I knew without a doubt that my much-improved novel landed in the right place.

Best of luck to all of you on submission! Please share your experiences with us in the comments.

Dec 5 2013

The Road to Publishing: Juana Martinez-Neal on Landing an Agent

By Lila Q. Weaver

Since Juana Martinez-Neal is an illustrator, writers might be tempted to skip her how-I-landed-an-agent story. Don’t! Anyone seeking professional success will find value here. In the following interview, she shares her journey to the 2012 Showcase Portfolio Grand Prize at the SCBWI Los Angeles conference, a coup that led to agent representation and many great opportunities. No matter your craft, Juana’s approach serves as a model of careful study and preparation, which on top of her brilliant art skills, gave her the winning edge. In today’s competitive world of publishing, that’s a lesson we can all put to good use.

Latin@s in Kid Lit: Were you a published illustrator before winning the portfolio award at the SCBWI conference? If so, how did you get jobs?

Juana: Before the Portfolio Grand Prize, I was published by smaller publishers, the educational market, and advertising companies. My jobs would come from paid, online portfolios, such as childrensillustrators.com. I would also email samples to art directors that accepted email submissions. I never got around to sending postcards to a mailing list. That was a mistake! I would also attend SCBWI regional and national conferences. Whenever these conferences offered portfolio shows, I entered mine and paid for critiques. Critiques are a great way to put your work in front of editors and art directors.

Latin@s in Kid Lit: How did you prepare for the SCBWI portfolio show? The competition must have been fierce!

Juana: Illustration, much like writing and every other profession, requires everyday practice. If you rush to get twelve new pieces ready a month or two before a portfolio show, chances are, your pieces will be decent. But decent doesn’t win a show. You must work everyday, year round.

The selection process is simple and repeats every year that I attend the SCBWI LA Conference. A month-and-a-half beforehand, I select fifteen to eighteen favorite pieces from everything I’ve done within the last twelve months. After printing them at 8.5” x 11”, I meet with my illustrator friends, who help me choose eight to twelve of the strongest ones. On my blog, I have a series of posts about portfolios, including how to put together a children’s illustrator portfolio, a comparison of my 2011 and 2012 portfolios, and a how-to on mounting artwork. 

Image

Most of the time, we recognize outstanding work before we produce outstanding work. Ira Glass said it beautifully here:

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into itbecause we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” –  Ira Glass on Storytelling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY

When we put this into practice, there comes a time when our work starts matching our expectations. Our hand starts painting what our brain has envisioned. At that point, we may be ready. I didn’t know I was ready to win when I did. I knew my portfolio was decent, and I knew that eventually I would win—but not that year. I thought: I will win in 2014. I gave myself two more years.

In 2012, I was pregnant and putting my portfolio out because the following year I would have a baby to take care of and would have to miss the conference. There is an action of letting go that generates energy. That energy makes things happen and surprises us in the most wonderful ways.

Latin@s in Kid Lit: After you won the portfolio award, did agents approach you at the conference or through e-mails and phone calls? Tell us a little bit about that.Image 3

Juana: Agents can approach you all different ways if they are interested. In my case, I met Stefanie Von Borstel, of Full Circle Literary, at the Portfolio Showcase. She had been one of the judges and enjoyed looking at my work. We talked during the conference a few times and stayed in touch. Three months later, we signed a contract.

I think it’s important to meet the agents you are interested in. Listen to yourself during that first call or meeting. You need to feel comfortable and communicate easily with her/him. You will be working with that person for what you hope is the rest of your career. We are all so eager to get representation that sometimes we may let warning signs slide. Please don’t. Listen to them. You don’t want to waste time.

Latin@s in Kid Lit: Your experience shows how helpful conference attendance can be for connecting with agents.

Juana: If there are agents presenting at breakout sessions, go listen to them. You’ll get a great sense of who they are and how they work. You will be able to tell if you could work together. Personality counts. I’ve seen some rather quiet, introverted friends with agents that are their complete opposites. Their relationships work wonderfully. They complement each other.

Latin@s in Kid Lit: What difference has it made to your work to have an agent representing you?

Juana: Having Stefanie as my agent has improved my work. Her comments come from someone who knows this industry so well. She helps me find direction when I’m feeling a bit confused. An agent will help you polish your manuscripts and dummies and get them ready for editors and art directors. I also love the fact that they will take care of the contracts. There is so much I am not aware of when it comes to legal matters.

Latin@s in Kid Lit: What are some other tips for illustrators on getting the attention of art directors and agents?

  • Create work consistently, continuously.
  • Stay busy. If you have no paid projects, give yourself assignments regularly. Set some deadlines for yourself.
  • Keep your portfolio updated. Post new work regularly, but post only your BEST work.
  • Mail postcards consistently, every three to four months. Be critical when selecting names. A mailing list of 80 can be very effective. Send postcards to anyone you would love to work with.
  • Look into agents’ clients and books. Follow them on Twitter. See if your work is a good match. Keep in mind that if they have someone with a style too similar to yours, chances are, you won’t be picked. Why have two artists that do almost the same work?

******

Image 2Juana Martinez-Neal was born in Lima, Peru, to an artistic family. At 16, she was already laying the groundwork for a career in children’s illustration. She now lives in the United States. Her work has been featured in Babybug, Ladybug and Iguana magazines, and recently made the cover of the SCBWI Bulletin. See more of Juana’s glorious gallery at her website, where you can also take advantage of detailed tutorials on portfolio selection and assembly and read fascinating illustrator interviews.

Dec 2 2013

The Road to Publishing: Chantel Acevedo on Landing An Agent

By Chantel Acevedo

Can we all agree that the road to publishing holds its share of intimidating turns? In our last post, Zoraida took on querying, a key lead-in for this week’s revealing and instructive accounts on seeking out and landing agents. We’ll first hear from writer Chantel Acevedo. In Thursday’s follow-up, illustrator Juana Martinez-Neal outlines a different approach. Don’t miss it! 

If you don’t know Chantel, your must-read stack is about to grow by a few inches. You could start with her lyrical debut, Love and Ghost Letters (St. Martin’s Griffin), winner of the 2006 International Latino Book Award, or you could hurry straight to her only novel for young adults, Song of the Red Cloak (CreateSpace Independent Publishing), a dazzling thriller set in the violent world of ancient Sparta. Starring a slave boy and an epic cast of characters, its otherworldly moves will unnerve and thrill you. 

Tamer by comparison, but nonetheless exciting, here is Chantel’s almost-epic quest for an agent.  —Lila & Latin@s in Kid Lit

Song of the Red Cloak   Love and Ghost Letters

Oh, how I love “How I Got My Agent” stories. Some of the most interesting ones read like love stories, replete with missed opportunities, feelings of kismet, and a big, romantic moment in the guise of a contract.

Perhaps I’ve gone too far with that analogy. Even so, finding and landing an agent can feel very much like a courtship, and there can sometimes be lots of angst and anxiety. Even the most successful of agent hunts can feel a little like this. Let me tell you about mine.

I began shopping my novel manuscript in May, just a few weeks before my family and I left for a summer-long trip to the UK. I would be teaching a study-abroad class in London, and thought, for some crazy reason, that my first time in Europe would serve as a distraction and curative for agent-hunting-angst. This strategy totally failed, by the way. Big Ben, trips to Stonehenge, seeing the actual Queen in a parade—none of these things helped me to forget that my manuscript was out there, being judged, just one book in a flood of books, all resting in email inboxes across New York City.

Initially, I’d sent the book out to one agent. It was a recommendation from a very well known author, a mentor and friend I greatly admired. Her agent, a real publishing legend, requested an exclusive read, which I granted. This included signing an exclusive read contract that tied the book down for six weeks. Eight weeks later, after I’d chewed my hands off during the wait, she wrote to say that she wanted revisions before signing me, but would not reveal those revision suggestions unless I also agreed not to send the book out to anyone else. If you think I felt a bit like a hostage at that point, you wouldn’t be far off.

Under other circumstances, with a different book, I might have agreed to this. But the book, I felt, was really polished. It’s my fourth novel, and I had a sense that the book, if not 100% ready for submission, was very nearly there. Legendary agent told me she suspected we wouldn’t speak again, that other agents would want to sign on to the project. I thought, “From your lips to God’s ear, lady,” I thanked her, held my breath, and submitted the book to seven other agents I had been stalking on Google, AgentQuery.com, and Publishers Weekly.

How did I choose those seven? Two were recommendations from other authors. The rest represented authors I admired, and whose books I felt had some kind of kinship with mine. I looked for agents who represented diverse writers, who dug literary historical fiction, and who represented more than one genre.

One agent wrote back within 24 hours of receiving the query to say she’d like to see the full manuscript. Another, incredibly, wrote back within TWO hours to ask for the full. Another asked for the full about two weeks after receiving the query letter. One other turned me down with a form letter. Of the three who first requested the full, one wrote back within three weeks to say she’d like to chat on the phone. This, of course, is the holy grail of all messages, and when we spoke at last, she was complimentary, enthusiastic, and had a plan in mind.

I told her I had to alert the other five agents still in the running to her offer, and give them a chance to respond. This agent seemed a little put off by that, but I chalked it up to her enthusiasm for the project. To be honest, it’s hard to get past that first agent you speak to. It’s like the dam bursts after all those months of waiting, and you just want to say, yes, yes, YES! But, I held my breath again, asked for a week to make my decision. Then, I emailed all the agents who had the manuscript, and everyone else I had queried and not heard from.

Of the two who had already asked for the manuscript, one bowed out, saying it sounded like I’d found a good match. Another asked for a week to read, and three days later passed. That left the three who had not responded to the query. I was so very surprised and happy when all three asked for the full manuscript and for more time to read.  The next day, I got a message from Stéphanie Abou at Foundry Media, saying that she was loving the book and that we would chat after the weekend.

I spoke with Stéphanie for over an hour that Monday, in a pretty unconventional setting. I was back from my trip abroad, and visiting my family in Miami. I had taken my daughters on a water park playdate. While they splashed, Stéphanie and I talked about the novel, about her approach to submission and the author-agent relationship. We talked about my publication experience, and some thoughts on revision for the current project. And she told me about her daughters, and her fabulous background (she studied at the Sorbonne! In Comparative Literature! Be still my heart!), and her interest in diverse authors. She was funny, a straight-talker, smart, and upbeat. All the while, I was scribbling like mad in my notebook and slapping mosquitoes away from my legs. Oh, and I was dripping wet.

I told Stéphanie I’d think about it a couple of days, and we said goodbye. I talked it over with friends and family. I would tell them about Stéphanie and the other offering agent, and the other two potential agents that I had not heard from. They listened patiently as I prattled on, then, one by one, they all told me, “You’re going with Stéphanie because you look all love-struck when you talk about her.”  Was I that transparent?

So, I emailed the other agents, the ones still reading. They both asked for more time, even though the week was up. I thanked them for their interest, and indicated I was ready to make a decision. Others might have granted the time, but I didn’t want to string them along, either. My gut was telling me I’d made a good match. 

The hard part, of course, was emailing the other offering agent, the first one to step up, and tell her thanks, but no thanks. She never wrote back, and I hope whatever thoughts she had about me weren’t too terrible.

Then, came the fun part. Telling Stéphanie I thought we’d make a good team. There was much celebration on either end of the line. There would be some revisions to come, and then the anxiety of going on submission, of course. But above all of that is the feeling that I made the right choice, and that my book has the best champion it can have in the lovely, talented and supportive, Stéphanie Abou.

Image 4Chantel is an Associate Professor of English at Auburn University, where she founded a writing conference, leads a writing program for teens, edits the Southern Humanities Review and somehow finds time to create new fiction.  Her upcoming novel from Carolina Wren Press, A Falling Star, is already an award winner. Learn more on Chantel’s website.

Nov 25 2013

The Road to Publishing: The Big Q–How to Write a Query Letter

For this series of posts, we are writing about the road to publishing. You should start with our overview and then read this post about working with beta readers and critique groups. Today, Zoraida tackles the query letter.

By Zoraida Córdova

So you wrote a book.

First of all, congratulations. Writing a book, whether it’s fiction or non fiction, 1k words or 100k, it is no easy feat. Once you’ve revised and gone through the critique process, you’re ready to put yourself out there.

What do I need?

I’m glad you asked. First, you need a query letter. I know, you’ve already written all the words, now you’ve got to write a couple more!

Where do I start?

Round up the agents that you want to work with. Always make sure that they represent the kind of book you are shopping. If an agent says they only rep Adult Romance and Women’s Fiction, then you probably shouldn’t send them your Middle Grade Action Adventure told from the POV of a young boy.

Some good places to start are:

Agent Query

Writers Beware (I’ve been reading this site since high school and learned a lot)

Publisher’s Marketplace (Warning: keep to the agents. Don’t get discouraged if you see deals that are similar to your work.)

Writer’s Digest

Basically, do your research.

Great, so let’s write the letter.

The Vicious Deep (The Vicious Deep #1)Keep it simple, professional, but still be yourself. Let’s work with my novel, The Vicious Deep.

I’ve seen query letters start one of two ways: with something flattering about why you are querying the agent and your MS title or with your novel hook.

I like to start with the novel hook because if you’re querying the agent, then it’s a given that you a) like them b) like the work they represent c) did your research.

Dear Ms. Rosado, (From my agent, Adrienne Rosado, herself: “I’ve had authors congratulate me on placing a title for an author I don’t represent and who have started their letters to me with ‘Dear Mr. Rosado.’ A little research goes a long way.”)

Tristan Hart is a playboy, a lifeguard, and after a freak storm on his home shore of Coney Island, a merman. (A hook. No pun intended)

He discovers that his grandfather, the sea king, is getting on in years and has set up a championship for the throne. Along with four eligible mermen, Tristan must piece together the three parts of the trident and return to court in a fortnight. The trident pieces could be anywhere in the world, and armed with his good looks and a family dagger, Tristan doesn’t know where to start. With the help of two court guards, Brooklyn’s supernatural alliance, and his reluctant girlfriend, Layla, Tristan is on his way to retrieving the first piece of the trident. But the champions aren’t the only ones fighting for the throne. The Silver Mermaid, ancient and powerful, has broken from her prison. She’s got an army of vicious merrows at her disposal, and she’s got her sights on Tristan Hart. (Summaries are the hardest because how do you whittle your 100k words into a tiny paragraph? Start with your Character, Challenge, Goal, Obstacle. I know there are plenty of subplots in your novel, but try to stick to the major one for now.)

THE VICIOUS DEEP, a YA urban fantasy complete at 100k words, is the first in a trilogy. It will appeal to fans of Charles De Lint, Holly Black, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I believe my work would be a good fit for you because of your interest in fresh YA fantasy. (Make sure your manuscript is complete. Don’t lie about this. I know you want to get your book into agents’ hands, like, yesterday. But you’d do your work a disservice if an agent asks for the full manuscript and you only have half of it.  Also, include something personal about the agent you are querying. You might have heard them speak at a conference. You read their bio on the agency website, etc.)

I studied English Literature and Latino Studies at Hunter College. In 2004 and 2005, I attended the National Book Foundation Writing Camp. My short work has been published in the anthology GROWING UP GIRL. (Credentials, if any. You don’t have to have an MFA in Children’s Literature to write a novel. It’s great if you do, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t. I certainly don’t, and I still managed to get my books published.)

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Zoraida Cordova

What now?

After you’ve spell checked and read your query over, it’s time to send it out. Always double check the submission guidelines. All agencies will have this page. This is an example from my agency.

Former agent Nathan Bransford says that you should always include a five page sample of your work.

I believe this is will also save time in the back and forth process with the agent. Now that they have a tiny sample of your work, they can know if they want to see more.

For further questions, comment here, email us at latinosinkidlit@gmail.com, or message us on Facebook or Twitter. Don’t be shy!

Good luck!