Beyond the Elements of Style

Calling Poets and Fiction Writers!

Okay, so it’s been a while since I posted to my blog. Bear with me: my personal life has been in an upheaval (to put it mildly) but it seems that I’m getting it back on track, so I’m back to my blog now as well!

Today I want to point all poets and short fiction writers to a tremendous web resource of which you might not be aware. Duotrope lists an amazing amount of information about an amazing number of publications, both print and online, that are open to submissions. It tells you about reading periods, whether simultaneous submissions or reprints are accepted, the average response time, genres, comments … in short, just about anything you might want to know about the publication.

Duotrope also keeps track of the frequent changes in the literary world: which publications have folded, which aren’t accepting submissions, which new ones have appeared, etc. And you can have all of that information sent to your inbox for free by subscribing to either the poetry or the fiction edition of the digest here.

So check it out! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Simultaneous Submissions

There’s an ongoing and probably never-ending discussion on the Net about simultaneous submissions—sending your work to more than one publisher at a time. Should you wait the painfully long time it often takes to be rejected, or fling your submission out to the four winds and hope that someone, somewhere, will want it? But what if two “someones” should want it at once? Dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas.

When it’s a book, the line is pretty clear: send out multiple query letters, but once someone has asked for the full proposal (um, you do have a full proposal, right?), then give that editor the courtesy of not sending it out all over the place. Tell the publication that it has three months to decide, after which you’ll feel free to submit the proposal elsewhere. That’s pretty simple.

The complications come in when you’re talking about sending out articles, short stories, op-ed pieces, and so on.

Frankly, sending your work to multiple publications is absolutely fair and reasonable. Editors receive an incredible volume of submissions, do what they do more for love than money, and are absolutely unable to respond at the speed of light. That shouldn’t keep you from carrying on with your agenda.

Common courtesy applies. If your work is accepted somewhere, immediately notify the other publications with a simple note saying, “Please withdraw my story entitled ______. I apologize for any inconvenience.”

Do you tell them? That’s another gray area. Personally, I never mention that I’m sending multiple submissions; if something is accepted, I follow the procedure outlined above. Chances are, with the few slots available and the thousands of submissions the journal receives, it’s not as if there were going to be a bidding war on my bit of flash fiction!

The bottom line? Follow the golden rule, in this and all things, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

How Long is a Novel?

Nearly every writing list I’ve been on, every writers’ forum I’ve visited, every writing magazine I’ve seen, and every fiction client I’ve worked with has asked this question. As though there’s some magic number that is the “correct” length. As though reaching (and not exceeding) that magic number will ensure acceptance.

I may well have answered it in the past, but my friend and colleague Richard Bylina has recently done so far more eloquently and clearly than I ever have. Here’s his take on it:

Novel lengths vary greatly, but in general…

…50,000 is considered the threshold for a novel; however, there are many fine examples of novels shorter than that criteria: “The Great Gatsby”, “The Old Man and The Sea”, “A Christmas Carol”. They are very short novels.

Each genre has a tendency to certain lengths, for instance, some romance lines have guidelines to keep the novels at 60,000 words or cozy mysteries between 60,000 – 70,000 words. Science fiction or fantasy has a tendency toward longer lengths.

I’ve not read a lot of Patterson or Koontz, but Koontz appears to be pushing well past 100,000 words most of the time. But it would be unfair use them as a guideline. Since font, formatting, and page size vary, counting the pages of a novel for comparison becomes a fruitless exercise; however, if you want to imitate Koontz, for example, you could type in some typical passages from several books, get an average page, and then multiple by page count for a rough estimate.

For first time novelists, the generally acceptable range to target is 70-90,000 words. Somewhere around 100,000 word crosses a business threshold of initial investment in a book for an author, and first time novelists will get an additional level of scrutiny when crossing that threshold. Remember, it is a business decision for the most part.

A good thing to do is know your genre or sub-genre. What are the typical lengths of those books? Check the publishers who put out the books in your selected genre. What are their requirements?

The best thing to do is write the best book possible without worrying about the guidelines, and write it tight. Have an opening chapter so compelling that the agent WANTS to read the rest of the novel. If your best chapter is chapter 8, well, maybe that’s where the book really starts.

It’s a tough business and agents are going to be no more ruthless than critiquers who salivate over a fresh opening chapter to review. And they do it not to be ruthless, but in anticipation of something that will really grab them and keep them reading for 40-50-200,000 words. If they are disappointed, sometimes you hear about what didn’t work in no uncertain terms, or in the case of an agent – REJECTION. You don’t want to give agents any reason to start reading your novel on the defensive. If you send in a 200,000 bodice-ripping story to Harlequin…expect to be rejected without the first brilliant sentence being read.

KNOW YOUR MARKET. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. WRITE A GREAT BOOK.

He’s right, people. Listen carefully. Write what you need to write, but know that there are certain realities in the publishing world that you’ll ignore at your peril. Listen to Rick, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Selling to the New Age Market

Okay, I’m not really as lazy as the last couple of posts may make you think: but it seems that the past week for some reason has been filled with brilliant advice from colleagues that I just have to share. Here I’m quoting a post verbatim from one of my brothers in the National Writers Union (which, bizarrely enough, is also Local 49 of the UAW, but that’s a story for another time). Randy Peyser, who runs Author One Stop, has some advice for anyone out there who thinks she or he has the perfect manuscript on Wicca, astrology, the Tarot, or dowsing:

I run a national publishing consulting firm and shop manuscripts to all of the Mind/Body/Spirit publishers. Here’s what I can tell you about them:

While it is possible to shop directly to a publisher, you MUST have a very strong book proposal to accompany your manuscript — and, like anything, it helps if you have connections to people within that publishing house, especially to the acquisitions editors.

Here is more information you should know:

You must have a unique twist to your subject matter. No publisher is looking for material that has already been covered, and so much of the New Age thought/philosophy/techniques have been covered. That’s why Harper Collins, who used to be a major publisher of New Age books, rarely publishes them anymore. It wasn’t until The Secret that the MBS publishers started to really “rev” up again. Now there are a flood of Law of Attraction knock-offs on the market, but that phase will probably wear thin soon.

You had better have a very strong promotional plan and be out there promoting PRIOR to sending them your manuscript, because publishers are interested in authors who have eyeballs — in other words, those authors who are out in front of audiences where they are being seen continually. Likewise, the competition section of your proposal had better be strong, because otherwise publishers will know you didn’t do your homework.

I know the majority, if not all, of the Mind/Body/Spirit publishers. Never tell a publisher that you know you have a bestseller or that you know Oprah will want to interview you. They will see both of these statements as signs of an amateur.

While you don’t necessarily need an agent to approach many of the MBS publishers, you will want an agent or someone at the NWU to help you with your contract. I used an NWU contract advisor for my first book, which was published by a New Age publisher. That advisor was superb. She gave me eight hours of her time and went through every single detail, telling me what I should fight for and what rights I should not give away. That being said, if I had to do it over again, I would have hired a literary agent to negotiate the contract at an hourly rate, because I didn’t have the clout to get everything I wanted as a first-time author. If I’d had an agent working with me, I could have at least doubled my advance.

So, who are the few agents out there who accept New Age books? Anyone ever hear of Eckhert Tolle? I consistently shop manuscripts to Eckhert Tolle’s agent. So far, this agent has been willing to consider every client I’ve sent to him. My reputation is always on the line when I send something out, so a book has to be polished and a book proposal has to be exemplary before I will ever send it out to someone who can command the kind of advance that Tolle’s agent can command.

Then there’s Sylvia Brown’s agent, but she only takes manuscripts that she believes will get a high six or seven figure advance and you had better have the promotional plan in place to prove it.

There are a few other agents I work with who shop to MBS publishers and there are still other agents I hire to negotiate contracts when I’ve found a publisher for one of my clients. They will negotiate a contract for $50/hour and
have taken about five hours to do contracts for me in the past.

So, there you have it. I hope this letter does not come across as self-serving. It is truly my intention to provide information that helps those who publish in the Mind/Body/Spirit genre to have the success they desire.

Much of this is good advice that transcends genres. As you know, putting together the best possible book proposal and brilliant query letter, having a platform, and having a terrific manuscript are the keys to getting published anywhere, though perhaps particularly so in this niche area. Follow his advice and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Looking for Work? Try Blogs!

Just a quick thought today for those of you who may be looking for work (and if you’re like me, you’re always thinking about the next gig, no matter how terrific the one you’re doing now may be).

Anyway, something you may not have considered is the blogosphere. You probably know blogs for their literary, political, or professional content, but did you know that some blogs post gigs for freelancers? All you need to do is make a list of tags that fit your criteria (for example, depending on your freelance specialization, you might use writer, editor, SEO marketing, publishing, etc.).

Here are a few blog search engines you can try:

• Technorati: http://www.technorati.com/tag
• Google: http://blogsearch.google.com
• Icerocket: http://www.icerocket.com
• Blog Search Engine: http://www.blogsearchengine.com
• Blog Digger: http://blogdigger.com
• Fast Buzz: http://fastbuzz.com

And while you’re at it, make sure that you add your blog to their listings!

Using all the resources available to you is the best way to get work –– and keep getting it. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Query Letters Revisited

I was recently working with a client on a query letter for a novel he’s hoping to place with a literary agent. His first draft was long, elegant, filled with images and … well, the publishing world doesn’t seem to be looking for that anymore, if indeed it ever was.

Here’s what I told him:

“General: Perhaps we should have spoken, first, about the query letter as it is today. This is a lovely and elegant letter and unfortunately will end up consistently in the rubbish; the publishing world, at least in the United States, is not looking for anything lovely and elegant. It has to be to the point, to follow a form that isn’t particularly interesting but gives agents what they need to know.

“There’s no ideal or perfect letter, but successful ones all have some things in common.

“For some examples and discussion of query letters, you may wish to visit these two blogs: Miss Snark, a literary agent, held forth at http://misssnark.blogspot.com, and the Evil Editor continues to do so at http://evileditor.blogspot.com. Miss Snark no longer writes her blog but the archives are available and while she’s never particularly nice, she is usually right, at least in my experience. The Evil Editor also addresses query letters and is also short and often nasty – but very knowledgeable.

“What most people don’t know is that your query letter is really your first marketing piece for your book. You need to try and sell the agent on it, and talk to the agent as though he/she were the reader to whom you’re trying to sell the book. Like it or not, it really is all about sizzle.

Structure: So let’s look at what needs to go into a query letter!

1. You want to start with a “hook,” literally hooking the agent into wanting to read more. An example of an excellent hook I once read is this: “What if you learned that a family member was plotting to kill the president? Would you try to prove the plot, warn the person, call the police? This is the dilemma that Mark Watkins is facing …” Now, granted, a thriller such as that one lends itself well to an exciting hook; but I think that with some thought you could do one for your book, too. Get the agent interested, make him or her want to read the book, and then move on.
2. Follow the hook with what you’re selling: essentially say that you’ll find the answer to the hook in the novel you’ve written. Include the title of the novel, the word count, and if you can possibly fit it into a genre, do so here. People like to be able to put books on shelves, figuratively as well as literally. (To determine the genre, ask yourself where booksellers will place it, what section of the store. That will give you its genre.)
3. Tell about why you’re the best person to tell this story. You did that in your draft to some extent, but make the reader feel that you’re the exact right writer. Weave your extraordinary life experiences in to the telling of the story. SHOW the agent, make him/her excited.
4. Finally, get to the specifics. What you want is to offer to send a full proposal, not the manuscript itself. This also includes a brief summary of your past publications, etc. (The proposal is phenomenally important, so don’t wait to get a request for it to begin working on it!) Agents will know what you’re talking about.

Next Steps: What I’d like you to do is a little homework. Read some of the blogs that I referenced. Read my comments and do an outline of your query letter, then put it aside and think about it some. Then rewrite the letter and send it back to me. Take heart: most effective query letters are revised many, many times!”

All of this got me thinking about the many formulas out there, the options for doing things one way … or another. I’ve seen successful query letters that I would have said never had a chance in the world to succeed, and brilliant ones that still haven’t. The bottom line is, of course, that getting published depends on so many factors that it is in many ways a crap shoot.

The answer? Do the best you can; don’t give up; don’t take it personally; hone your craft.

And maybe buy a good-luck charm, too! Then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

To Be Edited … or Not To Be Edited?

Okay, so here’s the thing. No one likes being edited. Any author, any writer who tells you that he or she enjoys the process, is lying. That’s all that there is to it.

Second truth: everyone needs to be edited. Everyone. Every writer has idiosyncracies at best and errors at worst, and there is no way that the writer can be aware of them all. The fact is that one editor probably won’t be aware of them all, either, but he or she has a lot better chance of it than does the writer.

So where does that leave you?

You’ve written your book. You’re about to embark on a search for an agent or publisher. You decide that the first thing to do is to get it — your masterpiece, that is — professionally edited. Right?

Wrong.

I’m not saying that your book doesn’t need editing; au contraire, I’m quite willing to bet that it needs a lot of editing. But that same amount of editing is also going to be very expensive, and it may not be the best use of your funds at this time.

Instead, consider this: what you really want to do is capture the attention and interest of a literary agent or of a publisher. That’s your real goal here, not having a picture-perfect manuscript.

What will you be sending out in your quest for arousing that interest? Certainly not the entire manuscript! Instead, you’ll be sending out a proposal, which will include — at most — three chapters of the manuscript. It will also include other essentials, such as a synopsis, an analysis of competing books already in the marketplace, a statement of your platform, an outline, and other components.

You’re starting to get the idea: I can tell. Your first order of business is to make this proposal the best proposal it can possibly be. So by all means have it edited — and have those first three chapters edited, also — and hold off on the whole manuscript until someone has asked you to send it to them.

You can have someone write the proposal — it’s one of the things that I do for clients — but that’s relatively expensive. Consider writing your own and then sending it to a top-notch editor. You’ll pay up to a couple thousand dollars, but you won’t be in for too much; and if no one asks for it (perish the thought!), you’ll still be able to pay next month’s rent!

And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Tolkien, Editors, and the Faerie People

All right, it’s not going to sound like this article has very much to do with language, but bear with me. I’ll try to twist it aound there before I’m finished. Maybe.

The truth is, my mind is filled with swirling colors and haunting music. I’m in Philadelphia this weekend at FaerieCon, a gathering for all things and beings magical, mystical, and downright strange. There are Good Fairies and Bad Fairies (you can probably guess which I find more interesting), Green Men and satyrs, even a dragon or two … and it’s all fabulous good fun.

Saturday morning I sat and listened to a lecture by Tolkien illustrator Ted Nasmith, and afterward my stepdaughter Anastasia brought up what she calls Tolkien’s ability to multitask, writing and lecturing and, in the midst of it all, managing to create several complete languages.

And they are extraordinary. A list barely scratches the surface of the riches and complexeties of languages invented for a race that exists only in one’s mind, yet whose history, sociology, and psychology are so clearly understood and articulated that, to many and for all these years after his death, they seem real. It’s not just a gift, though I’ll never argue that Tolkien wasn’t gifted; it’s also an enormous undertaking that could only be done from some sort of passion in the soul.

And for those of you who look to this column for practical advice, I had a nice long talk with Kerry Estevez, the editor over at Medallion Press, who noted that many, many more books would be accepted if writers (and, for that matter, literary agents) would just read the submission guidelines and follow them. Doesn’t sound that difficult, folks. She’s currently looking for historical fiction/fantasy, and if there’s some romance woven in, so much the better!

So pay attention to guidelines for the good of your publications list, and pay attention to the fairies for the good of your heart. And you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Deadlines and Other Strange Creatures

Well, we’ll make it short and to the point his week, as I am wrestling with every writer’s best friend and deadliest enemy –– deadline time. I’m co-authoring a chapter in the upcoming second edition of Wiley Publishing’s Official Guide to Second Life, and this is Crunch Week. So I’m feeling neither erudite nor clever… just a little over-caffeinated!

But it’s a good subject for writers of all sorts to think about, as deadlines are as inevitable as the proverbial death and taxes. Amd when we sign the contract or make the agreement, the deadline is so blessedly out of sight in the future that it seems like a Small Thing.

Believe me, it very quickly morphs into a Very Big Thing indeed!

How do you deal with deadlines? While I could go off into the predictable every-writer-is-different spiel, there are some concrete bits of advice that will apply to all. To wit:

1. Write something on that first day when you’ve signed or sent off the contract. Even if you don’t eventually use what you write, write something having to do with the project anyway. That keeps you grounded in it, makes it real.

2. Plan the project. This is the next day, after you’ve had the champagne and the excitement has fizzled a little along with it. Use project management software if it’s complex, plain pen and paper if it isn’t. In one column, note the parts that you can do off the top of your head, no problem. In another column, note long-term pieces (if you need to get permissions, for example, or quotes: the sooner you’re on to that sort of thing, the better off you are). A third column will have to do with items, actions, etc. that have to be done in order for the first column to be completed (looking up references, speaking with someone, etc.).

3. Now take the information from #2 and look at your deadline date. It’s calendar time: look at how long you have to complete the project, and plug dates into the pieces of the project you;ve separated out in #2.

4. Start the long-term part right away. Seriously: right away. Don’t wait for the Muse: she’s notorious for disappearing once you’re on deadline.

If you plan everything out well in advance and follow that plan, you have a much better chance of not losing sleep — or sanity! –the last week or two of your project.

Speaking of which, I’d better get back to mine! Need to stay beyond the elements of style ….

Back to publishing …

Okay, you’ve all been kind as I’ve wandered off a bt in the past few weeks, so I thought I’d offer something useful this week by way of expiation. So I thought I’d give you a quick cheat-sheet on what editors are looking for these days in manuscripts. This information is distilled from talking with a number of agents and acquisitions editors over the past year, so hopefully it’s both relevant and recent.

So what do they want?

First off is, alas, nothing to do with the work itself; it’s audience demand. Is there an audience demand for this book? If not, it’s over before it’s even begun.

Second is still not about the book itself, it’s author platform and marketing. Will you be able — and willing — to promote this book? How? Do you have a specific plan? What is it?

Third is — finally — about the book itself. How does it differ from other, possibly similar, works? Can it stand apart … and stand alone?

Fourth is cost. Publishers are far more willing to take a risk on a book that costs less to produce. What this generally translates into is word count: long books had better be extraordinary and a sure thing.

Fifth: timing. This can move up to number one if the issue the book deals with is in the news and likely to stay there for the time it will take to bring the book to market.

Sixth and final is whether or not the manuscript will fit this particular publisher’s list. “Sorry, it doesn’t meet our current needs” can, unfortunately, mean just that.

So there you go. Bear these points in mind as you prepare your next book proposal and you’ll be beyond the elements of style!