I’m back!
Hello. Nice to see you.
First up, an update on the Be An Agent for a Day contest. Thank you so much to the hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of you who have volunteered your query. When I started I thought, “I sure hope I can get 50!” That was misguided.
I’m going to finish up automating the 50 lucky queries over the weekend, and I’ll set a “Tips and Reminders” post to go live at 7:45 AM Pacific time Monday morning. The queries will start posting automatically starting at 8:00 AM. I’m definitely excited to see how this will go!
Meanwhile, there was a week in publishing, and I was following it even when I was in Tulsa. Publishing: I’m watching you.
Pretty big news from HarperCollins, who will be publishing two posthumous Michael Crichton novels. The first is about pirates, which sounds like a pretty awesome combo, and then the second is going to be one that’s finished by another author. Hmmm…
In grammar news, John UpChurch wants to make sure you know your en dashes from your hyphens. That sounded dirty.
My esteemed and wonderful colleague Ginger Clark was interviewed by her client Gretchen McNeil about her response to AgentFail, including why it’s not as easy as one might think to set up automated responses to queries. Allow me to add my own four cents: 1) separate e-mail addresses are a pain, 2) you don’t want editors and your clients getting annoying auto-replies when they accidentally trigger the keywords, 3) auto-replies are hardly fool proof, 4) it’s all up to the agent anyway. There. You almost have a nickel.
Agent Rachelle Gardner has been bringing it with the awesome blogs lately, and she has an excellent post this week about what your queries say about you. We agents read a lot between the lines.
I forgot to put this in last week’s TWIP, but on April Fool’s Day Kassia Kroszer linked to some (fake) book smell products and said,”enough with the smell of books, already!” And you just know I’m with her. No one gets into a car and says, “Gee, I sure wish this car smelled like a horse.”
In publishing terminology news, The Book Publicity Blog explains the difference between advertising and publicity. The primer: advertising = bought. Publicity = exchanged.
The French have declared war on piracy. Let’s hope they win this time. UPDATE: They surrendered.
And finally, you know those articles about self-publishing that make it sound like self-publishing is the easiest way to riches since being born an oil heiress? Well, Victoria Strauss has a hilarious breakdown of the way these articles are always written. Take a few success stories, subtract crucial details, and add a dash of “the publishing world will never be the same” and you have yourself an article!
Have a great weekend!
Lisa Schroeder says
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds? Wow. The agents for a day are going to have their hands full, eh? Not to mention he who is coordinating it all! 🙂
Laura Hyatt-Author says
Nice to have you back Nathan! The smell of books is hilarious. How bout adding the smell of feet to freshly cleaned locker rooms?
Hope your agent experiment goes well. I’ll be watching.
The Paperback Diva says
Thanks for the weekly updates. I always get some useful info from them.
JohnO says
Can a guy with an internal capital letter in his name (UpChurch) really be trusted, grammarwise?
Word Verication: “werse.”
QED.
Kristan says
Strauss’s breakdown is great! And of course I had no idea Genova hired a PR firm! There’s the secret.
The only thing I *will* disagree with is that I WOULD love it for less trees to be killed. Or more recycled materials to be used. (Like Cradle to Cradle: https://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm ) Reading doesn’t have to make Mother Nature cry.
A Paperback Writer says
Crichton and pirates?
That sounds like quite a promising summer read.
Word verification: whorte
An impolite term for an underclad girl who jumps out of French pastry at stag parties.
Just_Me says
This is surreal… Nathan, isn’t it Thursday? Or am I missing a day somewhere? Or are you just taking a long weekend? I’m confused!!!
No comment on the French surrender…
Nathan Bransford says
just me-
I’m out tomorrow.
Rachel says
That was a great blog by Rachelle Gardner. Thanks.
Lady Glamis says
Great roundup! Thanks for all the links. I love dashes and hyphens and all that grammar jazz. I did a lovely long post about all the different dashes on my blog here if anybody is interested. I’m nuts about that stuff. 😀
The Mad Dash
Glad you’re back!
allegory19 says
As always, thanks for the weekly publishing roundup. What can I say, I’m lazy and I’d much rather come to your site to get the low down as opposed to spending all day online, oh wait, I spend all day online anyway…
Elaine 'still writing' Smith says
Is it Monday yet?
Would it be impolite if I ask my sister to go back to Australia (and come back at the end of next week) so I can concentrate on ‘being an agent for a day’ that lasts a week?
Anonymous says
As you rifle through those hundreds and hundreds of queries, are you going to lasso one or two for yourself? Or is it eenie-meenie-minie-mo without a look-see this time around?
Horserider says
No one gets into a car and says, “Gee, I sure wish this car smelled like a horse.”
Um…
Nathan Bransford says
Well… maybe horserider does.
Rick Chesler says
Can’t wait for those Crichton novels. I wonder if it’s modern day pirates or tall ships era pirates (or both?!)
Thanks for the TWIP, nathan.
Heidi the Hick says
“No one gets into a car and says, “Gee, I sure wish this car smelled like a horse.”
Um… me?
Actually I don’t have to wish because my barn clothes are in the back seat, giving my pickup truck a lovely familiar scent. Mmm. Horse sweat.
But hey, I think new books smell nice too, so clearly, I cannot be trusted!
(haha, just found Horserider’s comment!)
Jen C says
I sure hope it’s tall ship era pirates! Those are the best kind. I’ll be on the lookout for that one when it’s released.
Oh, and add me to the “Super Excited About Monday” group! Hopefully I’ll do better at this than I did at the basketball challenge (FAIL).
Kristin Laughtin says
When I first learned the difference between a hyphen and an en-dash, it was a moment of pure enlightenment.
Augh, that self-publishing article! When I first read it on CNN, I wanted to bash my head against something (but was working the reference desk, where such action would be frowned upon) for making it sound like some easy scheme for fame and fortune. They never point out that the success of these self-pubbed books comes when the author is picked up by a major publisher, which is extremely rare. Urgh.
Lady Glamis says
And thank you for pointing out the self-publishing article and response on the Writers Beware Blog (which I’ll be following now). I had several friends forward me that article. They were all excited about it and thought I should self publish. Hah! Anyway, thanks for the info.
Anonymous says
SO IS IT BETTER TO SAVE MONEY ON THE AGENT AND JUST HIRE A PR FIRM?! I MEAN IF YOU CAN SELL BOOKS AND JUST NEED TO PUBLICIZE THEM,…WHY NOT?!! THEN AFTER YOU SELL BUTTASTIC MILLIONS, THE AGENTS COME TO YOU, RIGHTY? HOW CAN THIS GO WRONG? OTHER THAN THE BOOK SUCKS AND NO ONE WANTS IT NO MATTER WHAT.
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
Provided the book is also written in all caps I think it’s guaranteed to be a bestseller.
lotusgirl says
re: you response to ALL CAPS anon–LOL! Thanks for you sense of humor, Nathan! I enjoy it so very much! It appears quite necessary in your line of work.
Thanks for the great links!
Elaine 'still writing' Smith says
I think Nathan is nice – the true way.
It’s why the whole blog works.
M. Dunham says
Still taking care of us, even though you’re in the middle of nowhere. Are you going to have an early weekend, Nathan?
Victoria Strauss says
Nathan, you have a really loyal readership–every time you link to me my traffic goes through the roof. Thanks!
arcady says
Nice to meet you in Tulsa, Nathan. Thanks for the advice and I’ll be following the blog for more.
aside to M. Dunham: Tulsa isn’t the middle of nowhere. That title is reserved for Slapout, Oklahoma.
NickerNotes says
Hmmm…
Just curious: where do you get your Kindle autographed when you go to a book signing?
(BTW – my car often smells like a horse! Usually ’cause I’ve left a dirty saddle pad in the back…)
M. Dunham says
Doh, thanks for correcting me, arcady. *grin* Living in Kansas for as long as I have (just moved to St. Louis), I get lost in the sticks and don't really know where the big cities begin. >.>
christine tripp says
Pretty big news from HarperCollins, who will be publishing two posthumous Michael Crichton novels. The first is about pirates, which sounds like a pretty awesome combo, and then the second is going to be one that’s finished by another author. Hmmm…
That’s amazing news for HC, good news(in that I assume there was a bidding war) for his family but sad, in that the second manuscript will not be his, but his legacy. I’m not saying that who they hire (the person will be exceptional obviously) will not be an excellent author, but if it is a successful novel, the “ghost writer” will not be acknowledged in the way they should, Michael will be remembered in a way he shouldn’t.
Ah, every once in a while I forget this is all just business:)
Furious D says
1. Pirates vs Ninjas on an island of dinosaurs would be beyond cool. Damn, I’m copyrighting that idea!!!
2. Emm Dash and Hi Fenn were two notorious adult film stars in Finland in the 1970s. Their films featured way less dialogue than any others. Though none had titles as naughty sounding as “Upchurch.”
3. Three words: Robot rejection writer. The inventor of that will have the undying love of agents worldwide.
4. I believe my queries have the necessary air of desperation to them.
5. Watch someone will now try to sell the smell.
6. What about publicity brought about by stuff that’s exchanged?
7. Nice to see the French are consistent.
8. Great, I’m going to write a bunch and sell them in order finance my self-publishing venture, and then it’s riches, glorious, glorious riches! And I’ll be parading around with all the other billionaire authors on a sedan chair of gold carried by recently laid off publishing executives. Bwah-hah-hah!!!
Writer from Hell says
Great to have you back – I was missing the daily dose.
I so beg to disagree with what many agents like Ms Gardener have to say. When a new writer says this will be a great book – it means he is just passionate – and did you say he is unrealistic? Sure – the catch phrase is ‘new writer’. Yes if a many times over failed author writes that to you, that is unrealistic expectations.
The agents’ ‘don’t list’ is a bit tiring. Makes a noob feel like you are walking on eggs. I have come across many agents and publishers whose websites are inspiring – a lot of them actually say ‘think big’. They talk about some ideology, one guy has gone to great lengths that he is in business to protect the First ammendment. I respect that. It shows a sense of purpose and when you have that, you have less of an ego too; many agents who complain about not wanting to work with egoistic authors, I’m afraid may themselves have a high degree of egotism (what Peter assumes about Paul is more true of Peter than Paul.. that sort of a thing).
I just worry many agents are over sensitive and wanting to create clones out of writers. Why? Because you can afford to be – simply coz the slush pile is like a haystack and but a needle you are going to pick out of it.
Sorry this is not to get you back in the angry mood again – just a feedback.
PurpleClover says
Thanks again! As usual you are keeping us informed!
I especially liked the hyphen article. I’m an avid hyphenator. So I’ll be looking forward to the updates. Maybe tips on how to work more in. 😉 hehe. (kidding)
Just added Rachelle’s blog to my “Blogs Me Likey” list. 🙂
Nathan Bransford says
writer from hell-
This is also something I’m going to post on more in depth in the coming weeks. I know it seems like agents are just creating rules and hoops out of thin air. But it’s not about that. In this case, it’s just that so very few of the writers who are really good come out and say they’re really good in a query.
So sure — you might find a really talented writer who brags. But for every one good one who brags there are 99 who say the same thing and who aren’t good.
I was talking with one of the agents who went to Tulsa with me, and at this point we both felt like we can better tell whether someone has a manuscript we want to read by how they carry themselves rather than what they’re actually pitching. You can just tell after a while.
So it’s not that we’re creating more rules. It’s just that we see certain qualities time after time among the good writers, and while they don’t apply 100% of the time, we’re just trying to point them out.
Jabez says
As far as auto-responses go, I don’t really care whether agents do them — I don’t even care very strongly about the “no response means no” policy, though I think it would be courteous for such agents to give a rule-of-thumb as to how long it takes them to get out partial requests so the querying writer can have a sense of finality. As far as I’m concerned, anything that agents do to preserve their time and focus on existing clients is fine by me, since I hope to be a client for much longer than I have to be a prospective client.
But, if you are going to send an auto-response, wouldn’t it make sense to have it triggered by some made-up word in the subject line, like say “XXQueryXX”? The agent says if you want an autoresponse, put that in your subject line. That way, no one who isn’t querying will get an autoresponse, anyone who does their research will get rewarded, and as an added bonus, the agent knows just by reading the subject lines of the queries which writers have performed a modicum of research.
Jen C says
Furious D said…
1. Pirates vs Ninjas on an island of dinosaurs would be beyond cool. Damn, I’m copyrighting that idea!!!
HA, you can’t copyright an idea!
*writing “Pirates vs Ninjas vs Velociraptors – This Time, It’s Personal”*
Writer from Hell says
You are right actuallly. Bragging doesn’t sell anywhere, leave alone in this super competitive world of writing… or rather publishing.
But sometimes agents do get carried away (though you are never in this territory) and in making a point sound overjudgmental and a little belittling to the writers. That feels not too good to be a writer.
Though I must admit, this is the only place where agents have spelt it out in absolute black and white what are the specific dos and don’ts and that is a very helpful thing. In most industries, we have to figure out the protocols quite by ourselves.
Elissa M says
My car DOES smell like a horse. It’s a clean horse though…
Joy says
“we can better tell whether someone has a manuscript we want to read by how they carry themselves rather than what they’re actually pitching”
. . .oh, I’d love to read a blog about that!
Great meeting you in Tulsa. I’ll be sending in my query for the contest today 🙂
Tracey S. Rosenberg says
WRT the auto-responding issue – one possible solution is to set up an entirely separate account (say, querymefirst@gmail.com) and keep all the queries there. With an auto-response.
Of course, some people wouldn’t pay attention (Colleen Lindsay had 400+ queries in the past three weeks *in spite of being on query holiday* – I can’t imagine how many she receives when she isn’t!) and others would be reading outdated information and send to the main address anyway. But it would avoid some of the main problems you point out.
As for stupid articles about self-publishing – I’ll file those along with a) stories about the growing number of internet sources, all of which involve ‘researching from home while wearing pajamas’ and b) stories about knitting groups, all of which involve ‘knitting’s not just for grandmothers anymore!’
Anonymous says
I just can’t understand why an agent would spend any time or brain cells on the self-publishing industry if it’s so sub-standard and stupid. Seems to me if self-published novels were so lousy, people in regular publication wouldn’t care less.
Self-published novels would be overflowing garbage cans on the other side of the street hardly worthy of notice.
Margaret Yang says
Thank you for the link to Victoria Strauss’ blog. Genius article of the day.
Carrie says
I'm going to give a shout-out to the self-publishing companies for one reason that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet: you can get a draft of your book printed for CHEAP. As in, cheaper than Staples & Kinko's.
I've submitted my novel to my chosen group of trustworthy first readers for comments, and as I was looking at ways to save money on printing costs, I realized that — even with shipping! — it is noticeably less expensive to get the bound copies. A friend is trying to establish if there's a youth market for her book, and thanks to these companies she can give "real books" to kids for feedback, which is certainly going to be more successful than if she'd tried to get children to read a traditionally-formatted manuscript.
Obviously my friend and I are planning to submit properly-formatted unbound pages to agents/others in the industry when the time comes, but it's nice to know that my mom can get a "real book" copy of my draft in the meantime, for about 1/2 the cost.
Yoda says
…hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of you who have volunteered your query…
Mmmm-hmm! Seen the Dark Side of the Internet, Nathan has.
Many lurking are. Always prepared a Jedi should be!
Anonymous says
I was going to protest about the horse smell, but I see several people beat me to it. It the horse pee smell I hate.
Glad your back, Nathan.
Writing Mom says
In Rachelle Gardner’s post, she mentions that some authors might be upset with on receiving “a nice little 25k advance with a medium sized publisher… “
Oh my GOD!!! I am seriously having palpitations right now.
I had no idea you could get as much as $25K for a book, even with a huge publisher. I had heard somewhere that the average income for writers was $3K per year. So I never even dreamed that someone could get that much just for an advance, unless they were well-established.
I think I’m going to faint. I’m not kidding. I… I… I…. aye yi yi!
Writer from Hell says
Writing mom.. I had exactly the same thoughts.
Infact I thought I might get $1000 as advance and they may ask for it back when the book is published..
Writing Mom says
Carrie, thanks so much for your comment. I had no idea self-pub was that inexpensive. What you are talking about is exactly my problem – nobody I know has time to sit with the computer for hours on end to read my manuscript, but if they had a book they could hold and carry around with them, it would be so much easier.
I had thought of trying to do a few copies at Staples, but then the mailing costs for out-of-state friends would also be an issue. I was trying to think of ways to reduce the bulk, like using a two-sided, single spaced format.
But now there is another option I will seriously look into.
Writer from Hell says
Joy 2:32 am – good point
I do carry myself rather well actually. I didn’t know agents were looking for that..
How to let the agents know about that? hmm… Any ideas?
phew.. all the world is a jumble.
Mira says
Hi Nathan,
Good to have you back, even if for a day. Missed the stimulating discussions this week.
In terms of the self-publishing article, it didn’t really address the most important aspect of self-publishing – e-books. I don’t think self-publishing hard paper copies is the future of publishing, but with e-books, the whole system will change. That’s what I think anyway.
In other articles here, this is what I saw in terms of backlash from agentfail: The start of a subtle message that writers who are too outspoken, confident and not ‘modest’ enough won’t be represented.
Isn’t that the old: Don’t say what you really think or you’ll be blacklisted?
I would also really appreciate an article from an agent that didn’t just reiterate their side of things, but actually addressed the legitimate concerns that were raised in agentfail. The closest one that I’ve seen is Janet Reid’s, and I commend her for it.