Comments on: Too much information?

By: Laura A.

Laura A. — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:47:18 +0000

Thanks so much for addressing my question. Your comparison to journalism 101 is especially helpful. Hit the salient points, try to bring in some of the voice, and make it enticing. =) I'm really enjoying this blog.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:01:15 +0000

'Does the writer run the risk of naming a comparable writer the agent might not favor or may be tired of hearing about, the newest sensation or the recent best-seller?'

Yes, is the short answer.

This isn't about tricking an agent that you share their taste or trying to avoid a faux pas because Marisha Pessl is so last year, it's about knowing your market and demonstrating to an agent that you realize this is a book that you want to end up in a shop alongside thousands of other books.

You need to be spending 90% of your effort concentrating on coming up with a fascinating story and telling it brilliantly in your own unique voice. Manage that and the rest is relatively easy.

But if you want to write a novel, you need to be reading novels. If you want to get a novel published, you need to understand what novels are currently being published.

By the time your book is nearly ready to be sent to an agent, you need to be immersed in it - you need to be in the bookstore two or three times a week, you should recognizing new titles from reviews you've read, you should have a sense of who is representing who and publishing what.

You need to understand the market and where you'd fit in it. If you think 'hey, I've just come up with something unique: an urban fantasy where a sassy New York professional woman just fell for a [fill in the name of a supernatural creature]', you need to understand that particular barrel's been scraped so hard they've got down to ...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0373802633/?tag=p--20

"the sexy gargoyle ... whose granite-strong touch still haunts her every fantasy"

And that the book's published by Luna, and represented by Jennifer Jackson at Donald Maass, and someone's doing something right because book four's out next month. This information took me ten seconds to find on Google. None of this is difficult.

If you want to be a professional author, the author part is the difficult bit, and the bit most people can't do well. The professional side, though, is the easy bit that a lot of prospective writers don't even register as relevant.

By: K. M. Smith

K. M. Smith — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:55:17 +0000

Wise advice to include the "Who cares?" and "Why you?" Do agents want you to provide comps, as in "readers who love So-and-so Author, will love this book"? Does the writer run the risk of naming a comparable writer the agent might not favor or may be tired of hearing about, the newest sensation or the recent best-seller?

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:50:09 +0000

Middle grade ninja, as a writer of picture books I am told over and over at SCBWI conferences that it is a no-no for a writer and illustrator to team up on their own, especially if unpublished, however, on the flip side it seems to me that the trend for picture books is going in the direction of writer/illustrator books, which makes me wonder if this no-no is still the rule? what are we to do if we don't do both? It is so frustrating, I have these great picture books, text only, and I know some excellent illustrators????

By: Lynn

Lynn — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:30:32 +0000

Thanks, Jessica, for a terrific post! There's much to be learned here.

By: middle grade ninja

middle grade ninja — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:25:00 +0000

Man, oh man. Woe to the writer who can craft an excellent novel, but can’t master the art of the query. For my WIP, I’m crafting the query and synopsis as I go and I plan to rewrite them with each draft. If nothing else, focusing on a succinct statement of what my novel is about is helping me to keep the rough draft on tract.

Also, just a general question to anyone who comments here and/or is an agent: is it ever appropriate for an unpublished author and an unpublished illustrator who were each born to collaborate with the other to submit a package middle grade novel?

By: Karen Amanda Hooper

Karen Amanda Hooper — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:16:08 +0000

As always, great advice, Jessica. Thanks for breaking it down.