Error in your query? Don't sweat it. Agent and Big Six contract incoming

Recently, Suzie Townsend got very excited over a query sent to her by author Mindee Arnett.  You can read it here.  By very excited, I mean she took time away from a conference and from planning a trip to New Zealand to drop everything for it. That's pretty major, right?  I want you to notice this line in particular from that query:

"Dusty learns that together she and Eli posses the rare ability to predict..."

pos·sessVerb/pəˈzes/

1. Have as belonging to one; own: "I do not possess a television set".

2. Have possession of as distinct from ownership.

And in Suzie's pitch that she sent to editors at the Big Six that she sold in 16-days to Tor Teen, she also had an error.  You can read it here and I point out the error for you below:

"Now the Dusty has to follow the clues..."

Extra "the" there in case you don't see it.

Scratches head in puzzlement.

I'm not trying to throw eggs on Mindee's accomplishment. On the contrary, I congratulate her for being successful. And the same goes for super agent Suzie Townsend...congrats on her being so successful too.

No, what I'm bitching about discussing today is the lack of actual standards for this industry. It's all subjective.  It depends on mood, lighting, whatever a person ate for breakfast, timing, what they had to drink, did they sleep well the night before, etc.

I think that for the unpublished, unknown author, the single greatest factor in publishing success is LUCK.  Maybe as high as 50%.  Think about that...your chance of publishing is at least 50% luck.

This should read "Avoid publishing unlucky authors. Throw half of the slush pile
in the automatic rejection bin without reading them. What's left are the lucky ones.
Thank God for the form rejection. Otherwise you might actually owe
some of those people an actual response."

I just think that the advice given to authors about writing query letters should be more...I dunno... truthful.  For one, spelling errors don't necessarily matter. If your query letter can get the point across and the agent reading it likes what you've written, then you'll be successful.  Anyone that's written a query knows what a pain they are to write.  A ton of work goes into them.  Maybe if agents said, "Hey...you can follow the guidelines but really...to get our attention...you need to be lucky. Sorry...but the truth hurts."

Here's what I would have on my agency website if I were a literary agent.  I'd have the usual stuff, query formats and whatnot withstanding, but right after the part that says, "Send us only your most polished query letter" would be the part that says, "And if you're LUCKY, you'll get my attention, and I'll get back to you."  That would be honesty.

Random but related thought ==> If Suzie did care about spelling...maybe she actually thinks that "possess" is spelled "posses" and never called into question the quality of the book. I mean, I hear all the time from agents that "an error in your query gives us an impression of how your book is. One error there makes me wonder how chock full of them your manuscript may be. It's an instant form rejection!" So just imagine if the person reading your query thinks a word is spelled one way when in fact it is spelled another and they reject it thinking you didn't spell check. Wouldn't THAT be interesting?

And just for the record...I don't see content-wise why this offering from Mindee caught Suzie's eye.  That's why I say she got lucky.  It seems like a cross between Harry Potter with a wizard "school" via Chamber of Secrets (kids being killed) with that of other tropes like Being Human's ghost main character that watched her former boyfriend sleep and Piers Anthony's "Nightmare" (part of the Xanth series). I mean...I've read lots of "these types of queries" on my journeys through the blogosphere from people getting ready to send to agents that want help on their query letters.

I'm not saying it doesn't deserve to get published. It absolutely does. And absolutely deserves representation. But so do a dozen others that I can name off the top of my head that have queries very similar to this only without any errors, and these authors got nothing but rejections.

And you know what advice people out there give to these writers that are getting rejected.  It's this: "Oh, your query must not be working. It must be bad. Revise and resend."  Basically, they are told to go back to the drawing board, to re-edit, and revise, and send to new agents when they are ready.  However, there is no scientific rock-solid proof that this is the case. I'm an atheist...I need proof to believe in things. There is no proof. It's simply conjecture...guessing.  You know what I say?  I say you got rejected because you just WEREN'T LUCKY.  You got that?  You have BAD frickin' luck? How do you like them apples?  I don't suggest you go and buy a lotto ticket anytime soon. You'll probably lose at that too.

With regard to the query example...I don't see what caused the "OMG...I MUST DROP EVERYTHING NOW BECAUSE THIS IS AMAZING" moment. Especially given the spelling error. "Posses" is plural for "posse" which means a group of individuals.  It's all...just...interesting.

That's my two cents for today.  Invest in some four leaf clovers and some giraffe earrings of amazing juju.  They shall serve you better than a spell check.

The Secret is the McDonald's Cheeseburger

DISCLAIMER:  I AM NOT an industry professional. I am not an agent nor a publisher. I'm some dude with a middle-class salary that sits around and throws his opinions out to the world on a blog. Some of them, like this one, will be controversial.  I read A LOT into books, into what people say, and into what people do not say (that I think is the most interesting).  So read my latest interpretation of what I'm saying about the Big Six publishing industry below knowing that I'm just some guy with an opinion and every person has them.  I just happen to write them down.  And thanks for the shoutout at The Quintessential Query Experiment :)

Yesterday I came across a post written by fellow writer and blogger L.G. Smith.  She attended a workshop held by Sara Megibow, an agent for Nelson Literary Agency, and what was talked about just confirmed what I've been saying all along.  Here...I'm going to cut and paste it:

"Not knowing your genre and NOT writing to a formula. Sara (who represents highly commercial fiction) needs to be able to immediately identify within the first thirty pages which genre the submission falls under. Each genre has a formula or certain expectations that must be met. For example, a Young Adult novel can only be told from the perspective of someone between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, must be a coming of age story, and cannot ever show the point-of-view of an adult. Adhering to word count standards is also part of following the formula. Most adult novels should come in around 100K, while Young Adult should be between 65K-85K. Veering from these standards will result in a rejection, because she isn't looking for the exception to the rule."

So there you have it.  Getting published traditionally by the Big Six means you are writing to a formula (not my words but an authentic agent that has the cahones to come out and say it). It's why all the books that are coming out all sound the same. Stop kidding yourself if you have an agent and write YA and think that your work is not formulaic.  For those of you that desire to have the literary agent, fame, fortune, and snobbery rights to look down on those who are not represented, here is your toolbox:

• White-wash your story. Blacks, gays, lesbians, hispanics can only be put into the book if they die or are there to come in second-place to the white people.
• Female point-of-view, first-person, present-tense. Look at the Hunger Games for a really good example of this. 
• Love triangle. You gotta have two hot guys and they gotta really want to bone your protagonist. But the actual boning can never happen.
• Powers: vampires, mermaids, x-men, angels, demons, undead, magic, and if all else fails, go for the autistic savant that melts brains when he counts toothpicks.  People will be like OMG...that's so original!
• There must be tension between the guys to the point that the girl is always throwing up her hands saying, "Enough!"
• A setting.  If you don't want to make one up roll the dice on the following chart (grab a six-sided die):

1. Future apocalyptic. The world has gone to shit for one of the following reasons: a) overpopulation b) natural disaster c) global warming d) nuclear fallout e) a Jerry Springer virus made all the people in the world into white trash and they killed each other over child support.
2. Underwater.  People live underwater because living on land is so 2008.  And being underwater means everyone has a swimmer's body.
3. Sky.  People live in the sky because living on land is so 2007.
4. Underground. People live under the ground because Sn00ki got a disease called tanmonsteritis from UV rays and they turned her into a monster that started eating people by the truckload but she cannot go underground because UV rays now power her life force.
5. Space.  People live in space because the planet is overcrowded and space is where no one can hear you scream (blatantly stolen from Alien--like that matters since ideas from the eighties are getting recycled anyway).
6. Modern high school.  This only works if there are bullies.  Bullying is so 2010. The bully should also be a stupid jock because there are no smart jocks and if they were smart they wouldn't be bullies.

I have to say that knowing this and being validated by hearing it from an agent even though I suspected it to be true...puts a slightly bad taste in my mouth.  This brings up a matter of respect.  As authors, we tend to look up to the writers who are Big Six published.  We put them on a pedestal.  Is this all misplaced when we realize that the reason they got picked up and published in 2011 is because they followed a formula...whether it be accidental or intentional?  Here's an analogy for you.

The McDonald's Cheeseburger is made the same no matter where you go.
It's one of their most successful formulas and is a constant seller. Just like
in writing, you can change it up a bit. Hold the mustard, no pickles, no ketchup.
But all-in-all it remains the same.  It's kinda like Dystopian YA fiction, right?

I don't know about you, but I don't respect the McDonald's cheeseburger. It tastes the same no matter what city I happen to be in.  Even though I occasionally eat them, I'd rather have a bacon, garlic burger covered in sauteed mushrooms and made from prime meat that I can get at a greasy spoon any day.  But no one can dispute the selling power of McDonald's, right?  Do you aspire to be McDonald's or do you aspire to be the chef that makes an individual burger that is unforgettable? And if so, how do you get the world to know about it when McDonald's has a vested interest in keeping your unique creation unknown to protect their business model?

Out of touch with reality

One of the blogs that I read is written by Anne R. Allen. It's a big blog, and she has this lady named Ruth Harris who comes from an editing position with one of the Big Six Publishers.  Anyway, it like a hundred thousand other blogs out there--it seeks to pass on writing advice. In other words, they tell you how to write so that you can get agented and published with the Big Six.  I assume that, in a perfect world, if you supposedly followed exactly what was said verbatim, you would find yourself with a product that would get 1) agent and 2) book deal and 3) some sales before your career was over.

Why do I say #3 with snark?

The specific piece that Ms. Harris talked about was the things that you shouldn't do to introduce your protagonist to the world.  Another of these was to excise the prologue.  Now, I agree...in many cases, a prologue is unnecessary.  I agonized over mine and decided to get rid of it in the end.  It is now a short story that may help me market my book in a year.  But I made this decision on my own, and not because I took "professional" advice.

I have some strong opinions about the industry professionals snobs (those that pull-down more than $250,000 a year and have education equivalent to that provided by Ivy League schools--Stanford and Berkely and U.C. Irvine are examples of "Ivy League" equivalents).  But more importantly...those that are snobs because of their attitude.  And yes...I'm using the word SNOB.  You may know some in your life.

I think industry professional snobs are out of touch with dung--with crap.  I define "crap" as being anything that isn't a Pulitzer prize winning/ Nebula award winning/ Hugo garnering (you get the picture) piece of written fiction.  I (for example) write crap.  So does Stephanie Meyer and so, for that matter, does George R.R. Martin who by my definition, lost his Hugo to J.K. Rowling (who obviously doesn't write crap because she won an award). 

Okay... so industry professional snobs are out of touch with crap.  Maybe that's because it smells bad and they want to represent future Nobel Prize winners.  They also want these award-winning novelists to make them a lot of money.  But you very rarely get both.

CRAP SELLS. PERIOD.

CRAP, quite frankly, sells rather well.

And I think that industry professionals are ashamed that crap sells well.  I think that it makes them mad.  And they want people to stop writing crap so that they don't have to represent it and that maybe...just maybe...someday better books will be published and the crap will all be cleaned up and flushed away.

But this won't happen.  And, they shouldn't be providing advice on how to win a pulitzer with your prose anyway.  Why try for an "A" when stuff that gets a "C" gets published and makes more money?  They shouldn't be providing advice on how to be the next J.M. Coetzee.  Industry snobs sound a lot like college professors (and I know some) who sit back and speak of things that they think is true...but the high school dropout that has three kids at Wal-Mart who buys romance novels knows nothing about.  And I'm talking LEGIONS OF THESE PEOPLE who smoke pot and have sex for a six-pack of Keystone and draw down welfare like it's nobody's business.  These people BUY books.

In the blog post I linked above, an industry professional has "testimonies" from other industry professionals pointing out how a prologue is bad.  Maybe it is.  But here's something that I find VERY interesting...it was only this year that even Nathan Bransford decided to read the Harry Potter books. Don't believe me? Go check out his blog. And he's a middle-grade writer.  How could you not read the work of the best-selling writer in your genre until after you started to work on your second book?

My point is that the industry professionals are late in the game when it comes to buying books...yet they have all of this advice on how to write one for the masses so that it will sell?  J.K. Rowling's career by the time Nathan Bransford even bothered to look at it was bigger than Jupiter.  In other words...he only read it because EVERYONE ELSE in the world had read the books.  How come no one ever has testimonies from Joe Martin...the bum on the street corner that has a copy of James Patterson's latest published 'fiction-factory' CRAP?  Ask him..."Hey...do you read prologues?"

I could ask my friend Melissa...she has a high school education and works in a call center and reads vampire books.  She reads everything in the book...EVERYTHING.  That means she reads the prologue, the epilogue and the author's notes in the back.  I do too.  I read all fifty pages of Neil Gaiman's epilogue and I read every single one of George R.R. Martin's prologues.

Was I asked if I read a prologue? Nope.  But if I had been asked I'd say "Yes I do!"  But they like to quote things like, "No one reads a prologue." Hmmm...I must be a no one then.

But industry professionals were asked, and their opinions solicited.  My question is why?  THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MASSES.  The only star on their resume is that they are in control.  But being in control does not make you a sample of the general population.  President Barack Obama is in control of the United States.  But is his lifestyle the same as yours? As mine?  I'm thinking he probably lives a lot better, has better healthcare, has some...I dunno...RESOURCES and probably doesn't have to worry about trying to afford medicated shampoo for dermatitis.  It's like having a black person on trial and then selecting a jury of all white people and saying "THESE ARE YOUR PEERS" to the black person.  Like WTF?! Really?!

Listen here, Vick!  We dogs are your peers. We know WHAT
IS BEST FOR YOU AND WHAT YOU LIKE TO READ!
WE ARE THE PROFESSIONALS and make a living doing
this so you'd better darn listen to us or you'll be sorry.

So yeah...publishing is a catch-22.  Crap sells.  But if you write crap that people like...it won't make it past the gatekeeper who is ashamed of your BAG OF DUNG.  So, somehow in all of the stuff that you've got to keep straight...you need to slip past the gatekeeper with your crap by making it good enough for the snobs, yet have it still be appealing enough to those that buy the crap enmasse.  I wonder how many vampire manuscripts are being turned down simply because the agent "Is tired of seeing vampire stories" when in fact, my girl Melissa wants more and more and there are tons of girls just like her out there wanting more.  They want hot, sexy vampires with perfect bodies willing to sink their teeth into them.  But yeah...there are some "industry professionals" that are turning this down because supposedly "the trend is over".  WHATEVER.  They just want it to be over and are hoping that because they are in control, that they can influence mass opinion and prove themselves right.

Interesting AND a headache.  I have just five words for all of that advice:

OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY.

Worshipping The Literary Agent

Russell Galen of the Literary Agency Scovil * Galen * Gosh is the only literary agent that I ever sent a query to that had this on his bio:

I’m the only agent I know of, and maybe the only one in the history of the world, who actually grew up wanting to be a literary agent... I loved writing but was not myself a writer: I was like the clumsy kid who loves the Yankees and wants to be a coach since he can never play center field. So even as early as the age of 14 I figured out that if you wanted to help writers live the good life, rather than write yourself, you could best do that as a literary agent.

You know what?  I think this (for the most part) is true.  And I've sent a lot of queries into agents and yes...I read EVERY word on their website before I put in a query.  From 95% of them, I got the impression that they could give two shits about actually wanting to be a literary agent.  They work there because they need a source of income and it's a stepping stone to their own writing careers.  Why?  Because platform comes easy for them as all they have to do is spout, "I'm an agent" and every writer out there goes and follows them so that before long, they have a thousand followers on their blog. Somewhere in there...they let you know what you would need to do to get representation from them.  Are they doing you a favor? To answer this question, let's take a look at who they are.  When I look, I see a regular old person just like me and you.  They are not entitled to better medicine than me, better food than me, better air than me, better water, or really anything.  All men are created equal, right?

Agents have two arms, two legs, a head, a brain, and an opinion that could be colored by race, creed, sex, education, sexual orientation, and religion.  They could have been raised as spoiled brats in an entitled household where everyone got an Ivy League education and where they speak amongst their friends in whispers at all the "brown" people who are now shopping at their favorite supermarket and cringe at manual labor, instead dreaming of biscotti cookies, live jazz music, and $6.00 cappucinos made at the local bistro. Or, just as likely, they could come from very humble backgrounds.  So what happens then, when you DON'T realize this, and take their word, their advice about writing, and swallow it as if it were the word of GOD.

I would hope that you would ask yourself a few questions about the advice you read.  For one, hmmm...exactly where is this wisdom coming from? Oh...well let's take a look at their bookshelf...I see something in common here as we thumb through all the titles they bought before landing a job.  The AHA moment!  Just to be clear...I define this as them telling you to write what "they" want to read.  There's a ton of baggage that comes with that ball and chain.  If I told you what I wanted to read you would never write in first person again--EVER.  I would send out rejection letters that say, "this doesn't have the 'voice' I'm looking for and wish you luck on your hunt for an agent."

What I want to address in this blog post to my writer friends is this phenomenon of "worship" that I see going on out there.  Don't deny that you follow some agent blogs so closely that if they said, "Yellow today is now blue" you would respond in a comment, "Oh thank you so much for pointing that out.  I never noticed before how yellow really is like blue."  Because some of you would do exactly this.

Do I think that literary agents have a place?  Yes, I do.  They should be selling books, they should let writers know how to write a successful query letter, what ingredients are needed in a synopsis, and what their submission guidelines are.  And...they should be OBJECTIVE--knowledgeable enough with what is being bought that they can recognize if something is MARKETABLE.  What should they blog about?  They should blog about agenting, representation, the business,...PERIOD.  If they don't have something to say about agenting, then they have no business saying it in their blog.  Do they do this? A lot of them do not.  And I'm going to say that the reason is because they are building a platform for some other purpose.

Agents who give writing advice on how to structure your novel no longer have objectivity.

I disagree with all of this "writer" advice that they have when they are in fact "salesmen".  You do know what a salesman looks like, right?  Walk into SEARS.  Walk into BEST BUY...you will see salesmen working there.  They are there to help you make an INFORMED decision.  But never do they sit down and tell you HOW TO BUILD A COMPUTER or HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION FROM SCRAP PARTS.  Yet, all you writers out there following their blogs are doing exactly this.  And 90% of those agents out there don't want to be agents.  They want to be rich.  They want to be the one in the limelight.  Oh let's look at a few agents that turned writers shall we?  Nathan Bransford and the Rejectionist are two that I can name.  And Nathan's blog stopped being useful about a year ago because he has no ability to help you because he's an author now.  You may want to read that again--he can't help you.  He needs to focus on his own career now.  He just needs to sell books so that he can quit his day job.  Do I fault him for this? Not one bit, but it's the way the world works.  The only benefit I can even see in following him now is 1) You want to buy his book and 2) You want others that are brain-slaved to reading his blog every day to see you hob-knobbing as if you are some big wheel and pick-up followers that way for your own platform.

Agent blogs aren't that helpful (but they sure do a helluva job as a smoke screen because on the surface, they look like pure gold).  However, as soon as they digress from the business of publishing, they have strayed into a territory I like to call crap.  They are full of conflicting advice.  Why do I use the word conflicting? Because GUESS WHAT...writing is subjective and what's good for Suzie Townsend is not going to work for Robert Gotlieb.  It just isn't.  You may defend by saying, "I build a rapport with an agent and she'll represent me."  I answer..."Okay...but that has nothing to do with writing and that's what you signed-on for right?  You became an author for a reason...to write...not to rub noses with the publishing elite so that they'll publish your grocery list."  Because that's what happens when you have friends in high places like that.  Yes, friends could publish your grocery list.  Will it be a bestseller? Only if your friend is Oprah.  So again, my point is, stop worshiping their writer advice.  Either that, or decide you're a socialite and that social networking is your thing.  Suck up, get your nose in there, and things will happen simply because you kiss the right rear end enough. It's not what you know...it's who you know.  that saying has been around for a long time.

I think that the truth is that anyone can get published.  If Stephanie Meyer can get away with a sentence like:

"The green leaves in the trees blew in the wind, greenly."

Then you too can get published.  You just need to find the right person with whom your work resonates.

So who can help you fulfill your dreams?  Who is Mike toting that you would be better off following and creating a relationship with if it isn't the likes of Rachael Gardner, Nathan Bransford, and others with followings of several thousand people?  ANSWER:  US.  YOUR FELLOW WRITERS.  People like Rogue Mutt, Steph Schmidt, Mooderino, CherylAnne Ham, Cindy Borgne, Danette and on and on and on.  Why?  Because we are EMOTIONALLY AVAILABLE.  If you ask, "hey, I'm having trouble with something, can you take a look at it?" We would probably say, "sure".  If your book comes out and you'd like help marketing it, I bet there are a ton of us (having gotten to know you) that would help you market your book.  Reviews on Goodreads, on Amazon, helping with blog tours, and sharing information with you on what is SELLING BOOKS--what is working from personal experience.

If you asked Nathan Bransford to put a widget for your book on his blog, you'd get a big fat NO unless you're someone that hangs out with him in pictures in San Francisco and has his phone number on speed dial.

But really, I think that worshiping every word that the agents drop from their pen is ridiculous.  Personal rejections are also ridiculous because in that, they are just going to tell you what didn't work for them, why they are saying no, and that they won't consider it anyway if you revise it.  So if you aren't going to consider the work anyway...why the hell even tell someone what they could fix?

It makes no logical sense, yet I see writers out there who have become my friends who get these kinds of personal rejections and they are left wondering what they could do to fix in order to be successful.  Let me put this into perspective...this would be like me telling you what you needed to fix in order to appeal to Barack Obama.  I don't even know anything about Barack Obama...yet because I have some title, you are ready to spend months rewriting your manuscript.

STOP IT.  Please. 

/end rant