Well, it’s the start of a bright and shiny new year. And with a new year, comes the perfect excuse to make some resolutions. While we here at DGLM brace ourselves for the busy month ahead with all its post-holiday urgency, we’ll be making resolutions to read our slush faster, find the next big something or other, and perfect our mind reading techniques so we can pick the best possible editors for our clients’ projects.

It’s not just a good time for our resolutions. What better time for writers to motivate themselves to really get going and take their careers in bigger and better directions?

With that in mind, here are 10 Things Every Aspiring Author Should Try This Year:

1. Write an amazing query letter. Really work hard on getting this new project out the door and putting your best face forward. Miriam’s got some advice on how you can do just that.
2. Read Publisher’s Weekly , industry blogs , and the New York Times Book Review. Pay attention to the best seller lists and the trends. Know what’s out there, and think about how your book fits into the big picture of publishing.
3. Head down to a bookstore or surf over to one online and check out what’s going on in your category. Know your category, know how your book will fit into the marketplace, and figure out why a reader might buy your book instead of the others on the shelf. It can’t just be the words themselves, because something has to get ‘em reading in the first place. If you can’t find a reason why, then you’re going to have a hard time convincing an agent that your book is the one that’s worth his/her efforts.
4. Attend a writers’ conference. Do some research into the many, many conferences that happen every year, and keep looking till you find one that works for you. You might learn more about a side of the publishing business you’d never given any thought to. You might make some new writer friends who can act as your support group and sounding board. You might even meet your future agent and/or editor in a pitch session. If you don’t have the time or means to get to an actual conference, look into writers’ groups in your area.
5. Stop over thinking. This seems like a popular one among my clients. One has decided to stop worrying about writing what he thinks he should write. Another plans to stop going over and over her ideas and just get something on the page. It’s important to really think things through, but don’t let yourself get bogged down in it at the expense of making progress.
6. Write something, anything—daily or weekly or whenever you can fit it in your schedule. Set a word limit or a time limit, but give yourself a goal and stick to it. As one of my clients pointed out, it doesn’t matter if it’s useless—in fact, most of it probably will be. But you never know when idle thoughts on a page will set you off down a path you wouldn’t have expected.
7. Be honest with yourself. If you know in your heart of hearts that your book isn’t working and isn’t going to, don’t be afraid to admit it to yourself. Research the (perhaps a bit demoralizing) statistics on what sort of advances are typically out there, how many books earn out their advance, and how many copies an average book actually sells. If you can face the reality of this business and still want to be a part of it, more power to you! But until you face the realities, you’re going to have a hard time getting anywhere. If you really want to succeed, you have to know the odds are stacked against you and feel compelled to try it anyway.
8. Calm down. A tough one certainly for the naturally high strung among us, but critical to peace of mind in the often difficult world of publishing. Resolve to take things in stride. If your manuscript isn’t working, or you can’t find an agent or publisher, you can and will keep going. Just try not to be disheartened when that time comes—you have to have faith that if this isn’t the one, the next one will be. As one of my clients put it, “I should resolve to stop valuing myself on whether my novel has found a publisher. I’m a decent person whether it does or not and I need to remember that.”
9. Find your place to write. Buy a really comfortable chair. Stake out a favorite corner at the local coffee shop. Buy soft throw pillows to prop up against the wall. Rearrange some space in your home to make an office. Wherever you do it, find a corner of the world that’s all about writing.
10. Read. It sounds so simple, right? Curl up on the couch with some hot cocoa, shove something in your bag for the subway, get in bed just that little bit earlier with the book you bought three months ago but haven’t taken out of the bag, or carve out a couple hours on your weekend to hide yourself away from the world. Just do it. Reading is why we’re all in this business together. It may even help you to check off a few of the resolutions above!
    

What about all of you? Any great resolutions to share from years past that really got things moving for you? What are you planning to tackle this year?

The perfect query letter does not exist. (Well, perhaps it lives in the fantasy realm of unicorns and dragons, but certainly not in our day-to-day publishing world.) And, yet, everyone seems to be chasing the formula for that elusive, perfect query letter (EPQL) and its pursuit is giving a lot of people agita and heartburn. It’s a recurring theme during the Q&A portion of agent presentations at writers conferences. Many internet sites and print publications aimed at writers spend a lot of time on the subject and, in talking with individual authors, it seems that confusion about this subject is universal.

So, I will try to elucidate what makes a query effective — not perfect, mind you, just effective — for us here at DGLM:

1. It should be succinct and to the point. The purpose of this missive is to introduce yourself and your project and ascertain if the agent wants to take a look at your proposal/manuscript. It is not the place to go into longwinded detail about the weather, your passion for shell collecting (unless, of course, the book is about shell collecting), or your great-aunt Mary’s faith that you would one day be a published writer. It should, however, be no more than a page long and look and read like a letter not a report.

The first paragraph might mention how you came to query this particular agent and/or agency – perhaps noting that you saw a nice acknowledgement of the agent in a book you admired or you looked on the agency’s web site and identified with the agent’s profile somehow or anything that shows that you did your homework and that this is not just a form letter being sent to 6,000 agents.

The next paragraph should tell the prospective agent what the book is in a couple of sentences. Here is not the place to summarize your entire book. You want to highlight the strongest themes or the elements that make the book distinctive (e.g., “My novel tells the tale of star-crossed teenage lovers separated by their families’ bitter feud.” Not, “Romeo grew up in Verona and was part of the Montague clan. He met and fell in love with Juliet who was a member of the Capulet familiy and who spent an inordinate amount of time on balconies or talking to her nurse….”) Unless you’re very good at writing concise plot summaries, the less said the better. The idea is to get the agent to the actual manuscript.

The final paragraph should tell us anything relevant about you – this is your first novel or you’ve been published in numerous literary journals or John Cheever was your godfather or you’re a neurosurgeon who has an MFA from the Iowa writing program, etc. – and ask if you may send a sample of your project or the complete manuscript.

2. On the technical side of things: Spell check and then carefully proofread the query. We have had instances of great hilarity over a dropped letter in a strategic spot. Someone once queried us for a book about “pubic policy” and, juvenile bunch that we are, we didn’t stop laughing for days. You don’t want the query to go directly to the form rejections pile because of typos, grammatical errors or because you addressed the envelope to one agent and sent it to another.

It’s okay to single space query letters – as you would any other letter – but it’s not okay to make your margins less than one inch wide and your font teeny tiny so that you can fit a three-page description into one page. Ease of reading is half the battle among us bleary-eyed publishing people. (Everything else in your submission package should be double spaced and single sided.)

Finally, unless you’re in prison, type your queries rather than handwriting them. One of my favorite queries of all time was a six-page handwritten saga describing the author’s genealogical connections to everyone from the British royal family to Lassie.

3. Did I mention doing your homework? If the agent you’re querying only represents science fiction and fantasy, don’t send him/her a query for a self-help proposal. That’s a waste of everyone’s time and postage, and there are so many places where you can find information on agents and publishers that it should be relatively easy to identify your target.

4. Use any edge you have. If you met one of us at a conference, lead with that. If your father went to school with one of our spouses, tell us that. Anything that helps us identify yours as something we should pay attention to is fair to include. Ultimately, it’s the actual idea and writing that will determine whether we offer representation, but that won’t happen if your query doesn’t make us request your material.

Caveat: Even if you follow my directions slavishly, there’s no guarantee that your query will be that EPQL we’re all looking for. As with everything else in this quixotic business, you can sometimes do all the wrong things and still end up with an agent and a book contract. And, conversely, you can do all the right things and not get your foot in the door. So, my advice is to better your chances by crafting as good a query letter as you can and then trust that your efforts and the strength of your work will pay off.

It has been carefully documented on this blog and on my own, that publishing houses often neglect to publicize the books that they have agreed to publish. It becomes pretty clear to an author that she is going to have to get out there and hustle if she wants her book to reach readers, reviewers, prize committees, etc. Many articles have been written by editors and publicists urging more authors to get out there and HUSTLE.

I’ve done it. I’ll admit it. Many authors of literary fiction feel demeaned by the dirty-hands work of hawking their book. And, though we seldom admit it, it is also pretty depressing work. Literary fiction does not exactly lend itself to the same techniques that work well for urban lit, romance, and mystery novels. One writer friend of mine told me of her dismay at sitting at a book festival next to a romance author who had brought along a troupe of bare-chested policemen to draw attention to her steamy novel. I, too, have appeared with an author of a salacious tale of “interracial sex, drug money, and senseless violence” while I was trying to get the same audience interested in my book about loss of innocence in Atlanta during its infamous child murders case. It was enough to make me want to go knock on J.D. Salinger’s door and see if he wanted a roommate.

But once I got over myself, I had to face the fact that I was going to have to play a role in the publicity plan for my second novel. The real question was what my role should be. Here are a few guidelines that have worked for me:

If you can afford it, hire an independent publicist. Don’t go into massive debt for it, but you should squirrel away some of your advance for this important project. Although I think of myself as having a lot of good ideas, I also have sense enough to know that I am not an expert in literary publicity. Also, keep in mind that reading series, book reviewers, etc., are often more comfortable dealing with an author’s representative rather than the author herself. (Here are some things to think about when hiring a publicist and here is a Q&A I did with Lauren Cerand, the publicist I ended up choosing.)

Do what you do best, WRITE. When my second novel was published, I wrote a few articles about the experience of writing and publishing, and also pieces connected to the themes of my books. Some were published on line and others in magazines. Many writers are more comfortable lounging at home in their pajamas than standing in front of large crowds, giving readings, etc. If this is you, that’s okay. Let your writing represent you. Everything helps when it comes to getting the word out.

Get good at reading from your work. I know I just said you could help yourself without facing a crowd, but you will have to venture outside from time to time. Bookstore readings are helpful even if you only read to an audience of six people. For one thing, those six folks may tell six other folks, but more importantly, the bookstore staff will hear you and their enthusiasm will linger well after you’ve gone back home to the comfort of your pajamas. My advice is to practice reading until you feel confident. You won’t be so nervous once you know what you’re doing.

Use the internet. Blogging is a terrific way to communicate with your readers without running all over the country. Many writers think they will not have time to blog, but once you get the hang of it, it only takes about three hours a week. Also, get familiar with the major lit-blogs and then decide which ones would be a good fit for your work.

Don’t overdo it. Once you start thinking of ways to publicize your book, you will realize that there is always something else to be done. There are always more postcards to mail, more hands to shake, more festivals to visit. Know when to back off. You don’t want your efforts to get the word out to compromise your ability to have a life. Don’t miss important milestones with your family because you were busy signing stock at a major bookstore. And always remember, you are a writer who is trying to publicize your book. You are not a motivational speaker who writes in between reading and speaking gigs (unless, of course, you are). Don’t ever lose that focus. Nothing will help your career more than finishing the next book.

It’s most authors’ dream, isn’t it, writing for a living? Being able to leave the grueling, monotonous nine-to-five grind for the glamorous world of publishing; sitting at home in a bathrobe, warm cup of coffee in hand, ever expanding manuscript at foot; calls about sequels and movie options; big packets about promotion and publicity arriving daily. It’s a nice dream, even if it doesn’t reflect the reality of most stay-at-home authors, many of whom will tell you that it’s often lonely, nerve-wracking, and just as soul-crushing (if not more so) as a “normal” job. (For a cheerier take on this subject, see Michael Prescott’s blog entry.) But let’s ignore the plight of those who write for a living for a moment, and focus on the other 95% of authors.

Very, very few novelists get to stay home writing all day. The truth is, many people get one book published, and then find that if the first book doesn’t work, the second becomes very difficult to sell. And, with advances for first books seemingly getting smaller every day, one book sale isn’t enough to live off of for a year, much less retire on. I know my view of things is colored by the rather high cost of living in New York, but even authors in the smallest towns can’t survive on $5,000 a year.

So what’s a first-time author to do? My advice is to keep the day job–the benefits are more than financial. Let’s go back to the writer sitting at home. Publishing is not glamorous; it’s hard work. The full-time writers I know work harder and longer than their peers. They spend much more than eight hours a day writing, thinking about their writing, wondering what their agent is thinking, pondering the loss of yet another editor, desperately trying to refrain from e-mailing their publicist again about that review in the Sioux City Herald, talking with other writers (about their agent, editor, and publicist), blogging, and generally praying that they won’t have a coronary before the end of the day. Authors who have day jobs are often able to put things in perspective: there’s more to life than their book(s). They get to leave a large part of the worrying to us agents (it’s part of what we’re paid to do – see Jane’s latest blog here), and that’s as it should be.

My take on this aside, I decided that I would speak to somebody who actually did leave work to write rather than just commenting from up here on my perch. Sara Zarr, the author of the forthcoming Story of a Girl, quit her job as an administrative assistant a few months after we sold her book. She had a lot to say. “If you get a book deal and are thinking about quitting your day job, there are a lot of factors to consider. Of course, it depends on what your day job is. If it’s a career job, if you’ve invested years of time and energy into it and it fulfills some part of you that writing can’t, keep it. If it’s a minor job that you don’t care too much about (or you hate), and you’re reasonably hirable in the current job climate, quit and try the full-time writing thing. You can always go back into the job market if you need to or if you find you don’t do well sitting home all day. Quitting does free you up to travel and promote your book if you need to, which is nice, but not mandatory.” Her last piece of advice struck me as particularly important. “It’s not necessarily all or nothing. My employer let me scale back my hours while I was working on revisions. You might be able to arrange something more flexible at your current job or find part time work.”

I know it’s tough to write and work at the same time while also keeping up with family and social commitments. I understand that working full-time as a writer seems glamorous, but writing for a living is something that only a handful of people are able to do, both for financial and psychological reasons.

When that final offer comes in from the publisher of your dreams and your excitement is tempered by the fact that you can’t quit counting beans, don’t panic. Your book is going to be published, and you’ll get to keep your sanity. It’s the best of both worlds.

I really welcome comments from authors about this one.

Thanksgiving is upon us, and those of us who make our career as writers have a lot to be thankful for.

We don’t always remember this, of course. We complain about poor sales, inadequate support from our publishers, fickle buying trends, small paychecks, slow delivery of monies owed. We fret that our books have been stuck spine-out at the back of the store, and that new copies aren’t ordered fast enough (if at all) when the first batch sells out (if it does). We worry about the escalating competition from other leisure-time pursuits that seem so much jazzier than reading – videogames, movie rentals, cable and satellite TV, music downloads, Web surfing, even blogs like this one.

In the face of all this and more, it’s easy to be negative. But for writers fortunate enough to earn a living at their craft, there are compensations.

Some are obvious. We work at home. We aren’t slaves to an alarm clock, a car pool, or a cubicle. We don’t serve a daily prison sentence from nine to five – or more likely, these days, eight to six. If it’s a beautiful day, we can goof off and go for a walk, and no boss from hell will be there to rough up our psyches when we get back. We don’t live in the Dilbert universe. We don’t even get all the Dilbert jokes.

I realize not everybody regards the workaday world with such horror. But writers do. We’re like criminals in this respect; in fact, I think this is one reason why writers often gravitate toward criminal characters. We don’t want to be penned up in a conventional societal role. Or, to opt for a more wholesome comparison, we’re like little kids praying for one more day of summer before we have to return to the monotony of classrooms and schedules and tests. For us, writing for a living is the dream of childhood – endless summer.

Though we may miss out on some of the camaraderie of office life, we have social and professional support systems to keep us sane: caring editors, dedicated agents, loyal readers. Encouragement from other writers. Help from our expert sources. Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary life, unless that’s how we like it.

And we get to be creative. Whether we write fiction or nonfiction, we need to tell a story that will engage and perhaps enlighten our fellow humans. We are required to learn new things. Over the years I’ve learned, at least in theory, how to hot-wire a car, defeat a burglar alarm system, implement electronic surveillance, evade a tail, steal a chemical weapon, investigate a crime scene, and preserve human tissue under plastic (don’t ask).

There’s also a less obvious compensation. Writing books makes us part of a vast ongoing stream of shared imagination and shared knowledge, a kind of collective consciousness that binds past, present, and future, while bridging gulfs between cultures and worlds. I’ve had books published in Eastern Europe, Japan, even (amazingly) Iran. I’ve received emails from a bank clerk in Holland who’s into death metal music, a woman in Pakistan who invited me on a tour of Islamabad (a fun city, she assured me), and a British expatriate living in Spain who appeared on the British equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? He is also a chess grandmaster, and he keeps detailed, daily records of every coincidence in his life.

Our books don’t have to go abroad to put our thoughts in contact with cultures different from our own. I know a reader who raises livestock on a Missouri farm, another who breeds horses in Texas, and another who now lives on a coffee plantation in Hawaii after retiring from the foreign service, where she saw duty in Kabul and Baghdad, rode camels on sightseeing expeditions, and bartered for handmade cloths at street corner bazaars.

There’s a New Age truism that all minds are ultimately connected and separation is illusory. If there’s any truth in this, then the crosspollination of ideas and experiences through the written word is perhaps our most important way of combating and overcoming the illusion of separateness. All writers should feel privileged to participate in such an undertaking, no matter how modest our individual contribution may be.

Happy Thanksgiving!

“Fiction doesn’t sell.”

“The fiction market is dead.”

“Fiction is dying.”

You know what? I hear it. I hear it all the time. And upon returning from a particularly inspiring writers’ conference in Surrey, British Columbia, I made the decision to actively pursue more fiction.

So…am I a masochist? Is my bank account so overflowing with money that I don’t care if I ever sell another book? Am I really, really stupid? Questions worth asking, one and all.

Frankly, I’m too much of a wuss to be a masochist; I have significantly less in the coffers than Scrooge McDuck; and, well, I really hope I’m not an idiot.

I love good nonfiction. I represent some amazing projects in the category. I have had the chance to work with brilliant people with expert knowledge, great talent, and personality to spare. I will keep doing so, and I am happy about that.

But nothing really gets the heart pumping like a fantastic novel. I have stacks of them at home waiting to make it into my narrow “pleasure reading” window. I could be intimidated by the height of the piles, but I’m more inspired than scared. I deliberately hold off reading certain books because I want to save them for a time when I’m looking to be particularly awe-struck. I’ve put down Middlesex before cracking the cover any number of times because I’m almost too excited to read it. If I get near the end of the line on authors I love, I’ll drop their one remaining title to the bottom of the pile so I will always know there’s more of their work waiting to be new to me. Toni Morrison’s Jazz has been gathering dust for years, and I love knowing that it’s there for me to read…someday.

I read across genres and categories. I grew up devouring books by Jackie Collins and Stephen King. I’d be as happy re-reading Valley of the Dolls as I would The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’ve never much understood book snobbery. I was once told by an aspiring writer, “I could churn out a schlocky mystery if I wanted to, but my aims are higher than that. I don’t do formula.” I responded by beating him senseless (in my head). Because the truth of the matter is, there’s an intangible element to fiction that separates the good from the great as far as I see it. And that is passion, vitality, life, love, or whatever the spark is that shines through a great author’s work no matter what they’re writing. If they don’t love what they’re doing, why should a reader?

And that’s the spark that keeps me going. I signed someone up four years ago and sent their first novel to 41 publishers. Every single one of them turned it down. The compliments came fast and furious, but they all ended up deciding to pass. Fine. We moved on. Two years later, there was a new manuscript that showed the same strength and vivaciousness as the first novel. I fell in love with the author’s work anew. There was editorial back and forth before it finally went out to nine editors. And sold. I knew this author had “it,” whatever “it” was. It drove me forward through the 41 rejections and edits on the next manuscript just like it drove him forward. In the best of situations, an author and an agent share a passion for a work and that becomes the engine that drives their collaboration.

Fiction for me is fundamentally about love and passion. Every once in awhile, I pass on a novel that I think is quite good simply because I can’t really get behind it. I like it, and I respect it, but the love just isn’t there. I always wonder if authors who receive those rejection letters think it’s a cop-out. It isn’t. The fact of the matter is that the market is really competitive. Fiction is one of the toughest things to place. So we roll the dice on what we love. It’s tricky, but when it works, it’s magnificent.

I’ve heard that it’s nearly impossible to sell novels. I’ve placed more than 25 in the past three years. And I don’t say that to brag (okay, fine, I’m bragging a little). I say it because what this job comes down to is commitment. Through the frustrations and the rejections and the authors who just want a deal, any deal, right NOW; it is the love of the written word that keeps me going. Well, that and the conviction that all of my authors are going to turn into major bestsellers.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman came to me for representation. She had been offered a publishing contract by a small academic publisher who had sent her their contract. When the woman saw the contract, she felt many of its terms were unfair and she went to a friend of hers to ask if she should get an agent. The friend advised that “the purpose of an agent is to bring buyers and sellers together. Once a seller has a buyer, then the agent’s job is basically done.”

Frankly I was stunned, to say nothing of very annoyed. We are not in the real estate business – which is what this person, who happened to be a published author – had made it sound like. In fact, we do a great deal for our clients in addition to selling their books, and, as the business has changed over the years, we seem to be taking on more and more of what the publisher used to do.

First, of course, we help authors develop their idea. In the case of nonfiction, we help them refine their thoughts and produce a book proposal, which we then edit very thoroughly. In the case of fiction, we work with the author to develop and outline and craft a well written, saleable manuscript.

When we have a product that is ready to show, we submit the material to a number of publishers simultaneously and often sell the project in an auction; we negotiate the deal with the publisher and explain everything clearly to the author, advising him or her on what we think s/he should agree to. We collect all monies for the author on signing, on manuscript acceptance and at any other time designated in the contract.

I contact each and every one of my clients currently writing a book at least once a month to make sure everything is going well with their project. Too often, I have found that writers are reluctant to come forward when they are in trouble in one way or another.-Several years ago, for example, I found out that one of our novelists’ mother was dying of ovarian cancer. This was slowing her down, understandably, and I had to inform the publisher. As it turns out, the book was over a year late, but I was able to work the new deadline out with the publisher and the result was a brilliant novel. On another, more recent occasion, my client found out she had breast cancer and was reluctant to tell anyone until I called. Again, the delivery of her manuscript was easily postponed.

Of course, when there is a problem of any kind with the publisher, I am there to intervene and be the buffer between the two so that their working relationship can remain a good one.

Once the manuscript is turned in, I make sure the editing and acceptance moves along. Sometimes, we even get involved in the editing process if we feel the publisher is not doing their job. I find out the publishing schedule for the writer and make sure, when there is a cover and page design, that the client has a “say” in how everything looks.

I get the promotion, publicity and advertising projections from the publisher and discuss them with the author if I don’t think enough is planned (and more often than not these days I find myself trying to help the author supplement inadequate publishing plans for the book). In addition, I sometimes work with the publisher on finding the appropriate month in which to publish, especially when my client and I feel the publisher hasn’t given that a great deal of thought.

I review all royalty statements and query the publisher when I see anything my client or I think is unclear or wrong. (Publishers keeping too much money in reserve for returns is a typical example of something we catch often.)

And there are other miscellaneous “above and beyond” situations that always arise: the time I had to have a member of our staff edit one of out novelists’ novels because the “editor” felt it was “finished” and we knew it wasn’t; the time one of our food clients was nominated for an important award and I had to fly across the country to be there with her to make sure she was okay no matter which way it went; the time another client really needed me at her publishing party in LA and I went and returned home in 24 hours. These were all important things to my clients; as a result, they became a priority of mine as well.

After that first book is successfully published, we go on to work with the author on what kind of strategy to use in submitting his or her next idea.

So, in our case at least, my new client’s friend was wrong. Or maybe she was talking about the real estate business…

Today is the first in a series of guest posts from our clients which we’ll be adding on alternate Thursdays. Starting us off is JA Konrath, author of the Jack Daniels mystery series that includes WHISKEY SOUR, BLOODY MARY, and RUSTY NAIL. He also recently edited the anthology THESE GUNS FOR HIRE.

AGENTS: KNOWING THE GOOD FROM THE BAD
by JA Konrath

If you’re writing poetry, short stories, newspaper articles, or a memoir about the 38 years you spent watching television, you probably don’t need an agent. Pretty much every other writer does. But how can you tell the good agents from the bad ones, and how can you find one that’s right for you?

Dystel & Goderich are my agents, and they are good ones. I chose them over five other agencies who offered me representation. D&G stuck with me through three unsold novels before landing me a big contract. They’re savvy, professional, personable, and connected.

Unfortunately, not all agents are created equal.

There are people on the fringe of the publishing world who call themselves agents, but really aren’t. These folks prey on new writers by asking for money in the form of reading fees, representation fees, critique fees, book-doctoring, promotional fees, or editing services.

NEVER give an agent money. Agents should make their money by selling a client’s work, and that’s all. Standard commission is 15%, which is taken from the checks they mail you. You should never have to mail them a check for anything. D&G ask for copies of my manuscripts to send to publishers, so they don’t even charge Xeroxing fees. This is how good agents do business.

If an agent wants to represent you, and their service requires any kind of up-front fee, walk away. Anyone can claim to be an agent. No license or special training is required. Research the agent before you send to them. Visit Writer Beware (http://www.sfwa.org/beware/agents.html) and Preditors and Editors (http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubagent.htm) for tips and lists of questionable agencies.

If you do get a legitimate agent interested in your book, be genuine. Be grateful. Be excited. This is awesome. You should be celebrating big-time.

But before you sign with them, think about what questions you want to ask the agent. There is a great list of questions to ask at the Association of Author’s Representatives website at http://www.aar-online.org. Here are a few:

• Who have you sold? Can you put me in touch with some of your authors?
• What do you think needs to be improved in the books? Revised? Tweaked? Edited?
• Do you have editors in mind for these books? What’s your selling plan? Have you sold books similar to these?
• What can I expect, in terms of time frame to sell this?
• Will I get copies of my rejection letters? Will I be kept in the loop–who has the manuscript, when you expect to hear from them, etc?
• What can I do to make your job easier?
• What happens if you can’t sell these books? Would you like to still retain me as a client, and see more work from me?
• Does your agency deal with subsidiary rights? What are they, exactly?
• What is it about my work that you like? That you don’t like?
• Do you have an agency contract?
• Do you give a 1099 tax form at the end of the year?

The AAR also has a free service that lets you look up agents to check if they are an AAR member (the AAR doesn’t allow fee-charging agents in their organization). Keep in mind that the site is rarely updated, so even if an agent isn’t listed on the site as an AAR member, she still might be one. Ask.

The agent should also be able to give you a list recently published titles, happy clients, and be able to put you in touch with authors who can supply a reference.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t bug an agent with these questions until they’ve asked to take on your project. And it’s perfectly acceptable to tell an offering agent, “This is a big decision, I need a few days to think about it.” Which will give you time to check her references, and call other interested agents and let them know you have another offer… that should light a fire under their butts to read you quick.

Beggars can, and should, be choosers. A bad agent is worse than none at all (and I know this for a fact, because I had a bad agent before signing with Dystel & Goderich), so you owe it to yourself to find one you’re compatible with.

In my opinion, here’s the MINIMUM an agent should do:

1. Return your calls and emails within a few days.
2. Let you know which publishers have the manuscript.
3. Give you copies of rejection letters from publishers.
4. Submit manuscripts within a few weeks of accepting them (assuming they’re ready to be submitted).

5. Keep track of who owes you money, and get it to you promptly.

Good agents also:

1. Keep in touch with you on a regular basis.
2. Tell you what they like and don’t like about your writing, and offer suggestions.
3. Have a plan on where to submit the book.
4. Actively take an interest in your career, what you’re currently doing, what you plan on doing next, and offer advice.

5. Keep an ear to the ground and an eye on the market, knowing what publishers are looking for.

6. Have Hollywood contacts.

7. Explain the business to you.

Of course, relationships are a two-way street. Keep in mind that you also have to be a professional, and keep up your end of the deal. Here is a list of things that agents are looking for in their clients:

1. A book they can sell.

2. A writer who is easy to work with.

3. A writer who can accept advice and criticism.

4. A writer who understands the market.

5. A writer who can meet deadlines.

6. A writer who is in it for the long haul.

7. A writer who doesn’t call and pester them constantly.

8. A writer who is grateful.

Like any good marriage, the agent/writer relationship is based on communication, similar values and goals, and the ability to compromise and get along.

And like any good marriage, you can pretty much assume the agent is always right. At least, mine is.

Everyone who enters the wonderful world of publishing soon learns that the journey from idea to book takes an awfully long time. You have to find an agent in the first place (with all the horrifying rejection that entails!), and work with that agent to find your book the right home. A book sold now can be set for publication several years down the line—two deals this agency has made in the last month aren’t set for publication until 2009. That means the book you sent a query letter out for yesterday may well find its way on to a bookshelf in two years, but it’s just as likely you’ll see it there three, four, or five years from now. Sure there are books that come out only weeks after a big story hits the news or a surprise bestseller sparks a new genre, but more often than not they were in the works long before you saw any sign of them on the table at your local bookstore. Either that or the publisher crashed them in order to capitalize on some outside publicity. That’s the exception, though, not the rule. One thing that can be said with certainty about the industry: publishing is slow.

It’s an important thing to consider as you think about what you’re writing and how to position your project to find an agent and editor. Is your hook based on a trend that will likely be obsolete (like poor chick lit, may she rest in peace) before your book can get in the hands of a reader? Are you aiming for a promotional opportunity, like an election cycle or marketing prospect, that’s simply not feasible given the timeline? In the days leading up to Y2K, I’m told that the agency was swamped with queries about the end of times and the destruction that was going to be wrought that coming New Year’s. Conveniently, that didn’t happen. But even if it did, there’s no way we were going to be able to help get the word out in two weeks.

We all rely to some degree or another on trend spotting and conventional wisdom, but ultimately we’re trying to predict an unpredictable future. We’re not looking for a book just like what’s on the bestseller lists right now; we’re looking for the book that’s going to be on the bestseller lists two or three years from now. We want the next big thing, not the last big thing. So unless you have a time machine, you’re going to be doing some guessing as to whether or not what you’re writing fits the bill. On the plus side, that gives you all the more incentive to write what you’re best suited to write. You can try rewriting The DaVinci Code as many times as you want, but that ship has sailed. If your book happens to be similar in some ways to a bestseller, it probably won’t hurt too much. But try not to pawn off your seven book series about a British boy in wizard school.

For writers and authors, though, switching on and off between working hard and waiting on others is a way of life. We don’t envy you—there’s more waiting on your end, since we come into the process part way through. And we certainly don’t enjoy the amount of waiting that even we have to do. Agents have their fingers crossed when they send out submissions just like authors do. All we want is a six figure offer the day after we send something out. Is that so much to ask? Well…yes, it is. So we get a little better at the waiting and try to talk authors through the neuroses-inducing time.

And this is yet another in a long list of reasons that we have a tremendous amount of respect for the work that you writers and authors do, and the craft and art to which you’re devoting your time. We all know that writing a book takes a monumental level of patience and dedication—it’s not just the writing but also the journey from the written work to the published book that’s a truly remarkable feat.

It’s a tricky thing, this book business. The idea that books and business could even be combined struck me as paradoxical when I first began as an intern here over a year ago. Now, as the newest full-time member of Dystel and Goderich, I find that most people are as confused as I once was whenever I try to explain to them exactly what it is that we do. Those who are not writers and are unfamiliar with the publishing industry are often unaware that literary agents even exist, and don’t quite understand our role in the industry. I am often asked such well-meaning questions as, “So, you guys, like, publish stuff, right?” or “What books have you published?” The way I try to explain it is that we’re sort of like Hollywood agents – except that we represent writers and book projects. “Ohhh,” they respond, as that wave of confusion passes them by. “So,” they continue, “umm, how do you choose who to represent?” Excellent question.

I found myself asking that same question as those first queries started flowing in, and it is still something I think about all the time. How, in this fickle and often highly subjective business, do we decide what is deserving of our time and efforts? Do we simply hold fast to our own personal taste, even if that taste can be fairly limited? I, for instance, enjoy quirky literary fiction/narrative nonfiction (a` la Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss, and David Sedaris) but to look for only those types of projects seems incredibly restrictive, and besides, there are plenty of amazing books just waiting to be discovered in other genres. It is unfair to brush these categories aside entirely, just because I didn’t read them in the past.

I quickly learned that reading for work and reading for pleasure are two different things. In a field where creativity and craftsmanship are paramount it’s important to keep an open mind – so I was going to do just that. And so, armed with this new perspective, I set out to search my query letters for projects that were fun, or engaging, or smart (or preferably all three!) and, of course, well-written; queries that had that je ne sais quoi, regardless of what genre they fell into. What I found was that it is just as exciting to spot something that you think sounds fantastic, in an area outside your expertise. A couple of months ago, when a paranormal romance query came my way, I thought the idea sounded great – something that one of our agents, Jim McCarthy, might really love. I passed it on to him, and lo and behold, he was really excited about it, and contacted the author. It felt like I had won some strange sort of lottery.

I’ll be honest, it can be hard to really get excited about something you just have no passion for, and I can’t say that I still don’t gravitate toward quirky literary fiction. But in poring over query letters in so many different genres, I am learning to recognize what may appeal to other people, and trying to develop the all important “eye” for good work in many areas of commercial fiction. And, if I really think a project sounds wonderful, but not really my thing, I do what I did with the paranormal romance query — something that we all do around here — and pass it along to another agent who truly does enjoy works in that genre. Because, let’s face it, at the end of the day you are going to want an agent who is as passionate about your work as you are.