"Because I'm the BATMAN!"

I laughed so hard at this that I actually choked myself: Batman sends my colleague Janet Reid an audio query.

Round-up: On agent pay, advances, slush pile madness and learning to face change

Last week I started conversations on Twitter about two different topics related to the publishing industry. The first question I threw out was this: "How would the publishing industry change if agents switched from commission-based payment to billable hours?" I later threw in some alternatives as well: flat-fee payment, project-based payment, retainers, higher commissions or giving the agents a choice of how they wanted to be paid. The second question I threw out there was this: "How would the publishing industry change if ALL publishers went to a no-advance model?" (You can find most of both these chats by search these two hashtags on Twitter: #agentpay and #advchat.)

The idea wasn't to endorse either of these ideas. The idea was to try to get people to actively think outside their own comfort zone, to try to avoid the automatic negative "NIMBY" response ("not in my back yard!") that seems to prevail whenever the idea of change - any change at all! - comes up in the publishing and book industry.

Quite a few of the folks participating in the discussion - which included agents, editors, and writers - were able to rise to the challenge and actually think through what the far-reaching consequences of such a change might be, as well as ways to counteract the negatives. But a large group of those participating fell back on the tired point of view that "everyone in publishing is out to get the writer!" Which isn't actually true, by the way, but there's no teaching some old dogs new tricks.

One thing that did come out of these discussions were some fascinating - and controversial - blog posts. I've tried to find as many of them as I could (and if you wrote one and I missed it, please do email me and let me know so that I can add it to the list below). I encourage you to read through all of these. Do take the time to read the comments as well, and refrain from resorting to inflammatory or inappropriate commenting on their blogs, please!

• Writer's Digest editor Jane Friedman
• Writer Beware editor & genre writer Victoria Strauss
• Writer Stacia Kane
  
• Writer Jodi Meadows
• Agent Robert Brown of Wylie-Merrick (Part One and Part Two)
  
• Agent Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Agency
• Agent Kate Schafer Testerman of KT Literary
• Eric at Pimp My Novel
  
• Writer Morgan Ives
• Writer Nadia Lee
• Writer and bookseller RJ Crowther, Jr.
• Writer KD James
• Writer Christopher Keelty
  

The next mini-meta topic of the week was the not-often-discussed-but-quite-real demoralizing effects of reading slush on the psychological health of agents and editors. It's a real problem. I've experienced it myself. When I read too many manuscripts, I find myself often falling into a kind of "reader's block", and am completely unable to focus or concentrate on the project at hand. My colleague, agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, wrote a great essay on this for me last year.

The two very smart online posts that started this discussion were these:

• Salon.com's Laura Miller: "It seriously messes with your head to read slush. Being bombarded with inept prose, shoddy ideas, incoherent grammar, boring plots and insubstantial characters -- not to mention ton after metric ton of clichés -- for hours on end induces a state of existential despair that's almost impossible to communicate to anyone who hasn't been there themselves: Call it slush fatigue."
• Anonymous Editor Moonrat: "When I read submission after submission after submission--which, let's face it, is everyday--my mind starts to dull. My eyes begin to glaze from all the white on black. My butt begins to hurt from sitting. I'm pretty hungry (because I'm always pretty hungry), and this is making me cranky. As the day wears on, I get irritable. The reading gets faster, and the disappointments stack up more quickly."

I think the upshot of all of this conversation is this: Changes are going to have to come to the way books are published. Already writers and publishers are experimenting with new and creative ways to find and publish content. Self-publishing is one tool. E-books are another tool. Collaborative online community-based projects like Authonomy and KickStarter are also great ideas worth exploring. (And while you're over at KickStarter, check out ReDeus, a very cool transmedia storytelling project that I would love to see happen!) And some publishers are actively embracing the idea of transmedia publishing, and looking at how to take storytelling into all available platforms and mediums.

Nobody is questioning that the system as it stands currently could use a creative overhaul. But simply complaining about it isn't the answer.

The culture of negativity that we've all allowed to pervade the book and publishing industry is our own worst enemy; sooner or later we will all need to learn to embrace change, even if some of those changes make us uncomfortable.

What ideas can you bring to the table to make the industry work better? Let's keep the conversation going! (And I'm not just talking about the whole agents/advances thing. I'm talking about the book industry as a whole.)

(PS: Have taken off comment moderation and have enabled anonymous posting for this particular blog post! Play nice!)

Query hiatus extended.

I am extending my query hiatus through the end of the summer. Any queries received between June 1st and October 1st will be deleted unread.

How I spent my (five day) summer vacation:

My five days in Washington State involved the following: cats, lumberjacks, cotton candy, snakes, swallows, bald eagles, aggressive ravens, double-buck saws, axes, log rolling, a friendly hog, ice cream, river wading, rock climbing, red wine, apple cider, meatloaf, halibut, wildflowers, strong coffee, giant black slugs, volunteer firemen, free-range mountain hounds, lunch with two writers, one lamentable attempt at using the Seattle public transportation system and - last but not least - one memorable lesson in teaching a 4-year old how to pee in the woods.

How was YOUR weekend?

Closed to queries for the month of June!

Just a heads up that I am closed to queries for the entire month of June. As of midnight this tonight (EST), all queries received will be deleted unread.

Do the Write Thing for Nashville: A Flood Relief Auction

In case you haven't noticed, Nashville (and much of Tennessee) was pretty much decimated by flooding last week. But in truth, you may not have noticed, because the media sure wasn't telling anyone about the disaster taking place down South. It was a good six days before anyone in the national media started really talking about the extent of the damage, and even longer before the news hit the local news here in New York City, local news which was preoccupied by a disaster that actually didn't happen: the non-bomb in Times Square. (Hey, I love my city, but even New Yorkers get tired of the media pretending that the East Coast is the center of the universe.)

Meanwhile, over on the Twitterverse, a lot of writers and book industry folk started talking about the lack of coverage for the floods. It was mind-boggling, really. Nashville is a major cultural center of the United States, the home to country music and the Grand Ole Opry. But did you know that Nashville is also a major hub for publishing in the United States? Nashville is the home to Ingram Books - the largest book distributor in the country, as well as home to the majority of the publishers that serve the CBA marketplace: Thomas Nelson, Center Street Press and dozens of other Christian publishers.

And somewhere in the midst of that hours-long conversation, three smart young Nashville-based writers - Victoria Schwab, Amanda Morgan and Myra McEntire - came up with the idea of a literary auction whose proceeds would go to support the Tennessee flood relief efforts. And Do the Write Thing for Nashville was born!

If you haven't had the chance, head over there now and check out all the amazing things you can bid on for this great cause! My colleague Janet Reid is offering up a 30-minute manuscript evaluation by telephone. (She'll read your whole manuscript, first!) Another FinePrint colleague, Suzie Townsend, is also giving away a 30-minute phone call and manuscript critique! (Bidding on Suzie's package closes today, so hurry!)

More people offering up prizes: Curtis Brown agent Ginger Clark, NYT bestselling author Lisa McMann (who will fly to your city to have lunch with you!), Egmont publisher Elizabeth Law, Greenwillow Books editor Martha Mihalick, among others. (My package doesn't go up until Day 8; I'll tell you more about it then!)

There are dozens of great prizes to bid on, and all the money goes to help the people of Tennessee rebuild their lives and their cities. Please help us spread the word and Do the Write Thing for Nashville!

Query update

Good morning! Okay, just a quick heads up: I've now responded to all e-queries received as of 9:30 AM this morning. If you haven't received a response to your e-query, then I never received it. Feel free to try again. Before you resend, however, make sure you've followed my guidelines. I've been finding a lot of queries stuck in my spam folder and I confess that I don't always look in there before they get deleted. (Because I'm running on the assumption that y'all have already read my submission guidelines!)

If you have submitted a paper query, then it was recycled. I don't accept paper queries and never have. Those that arrive at the agency are recycled by the interns. Sorry! (Thus my emphasis on the whole "reading the submission guidelines" thing.)

Word count still seems to be a problem for some of you. Here's a refresher on word counts for fiction.

And lastly, I still have 27 full manuscripts in my "to-be-read" pile.

On that note, I'm outa here! Have a great weekend!

Guest blogger: Agent Roseanne Wells talks kitchen sink plots, or "Adding a dragon won't help."

My pal Roseanne Wells is a new agent at the Marianne Strong Literary Agency. An avid reader since forever, she discovered her passion for book publishing during her internship at W.W. Norton and hasn't looked back. She is also an arts reviewer for PlayShakespeare.com and loves dance, food, and awesome people. I asked Roseanne to talk a little bit about the dreaded "kitchen sink plot", a device that every new writer uses at one time or another to try to write themselves out of a plot hole or a bad book. Here are her thoughts:

Writing Tip: "This story needs a dragon!"

My friend Jane* has a tendency to tell really boring stories. She inflicts you-had-to-be-there stories, I-find-this-to-be-funny-but-you-might-not stories, and this-is-interesting-but-not-well-told stories on us all the time.

In college Jane started noticing that when she was telling a story, people started picking their nails, looking past her for the nearest exit, or falling asleep on the spot. Even when she could feel that the story was dying a soporific, painful death, Jane couldn't stop herself -- she felt she had to finish it to the end. She so desperately wanted her stories to work that she grasped for something that could save them, any lifesaver that could bring them home. Jane peaked when she was telling a story and, just as my eyelids began to flutter, she blurted out: "And then there was a dragon!"

Don't do this in your manuscript.

As appealing as this may sound -- and as hilarious it is to picture a dragon in line with your character at the grocery store -- don't do it. Adding a dragon or a long-lost brother or slutty secretary or a conveniently placed key under the doormat to the castle is not the fix for a broken story.

Just like a band aid will not patch a broken arm, a drop-in device can't mend a disjointed plot, polish a character, or create strong conflict. And sometimes, even a tourniquet can't save it: the whole arm has to go.

The key is to see what wasn't working before the dragon was needed. Are there two characters that need to meet, but there's no real bridge between them? Is there a romantic subplot that isn't taking off? Are the stakes not high enough for the reader to care?

The grain of salt? I can't say avoid any or all of these things: the memoir of a dragon whose long-lost brother is engaged to his slutty secretary (and that dragon's luck at finding the key under the doormat to the castle!) could be the best story written this year. But these components can't be a crutch, designed to support waning tension or flagging reader interest. (This also applies to nonfiction, especially memoirs, where the characters, plot, and themes are [supposed to be] sifted from everyday life.)

I find that dragons and the like often appear when writers feel they're out of options, that too many parts that are fixed in stone, and they have to come up with a magic fix-it-all to glue the pieces together.

But nothing is as static as it may seem, even when you feel that your manuscript is ready to give to a peer, agent, or editor. Don't be afraid to change or cut for the benefit of the whole story, even if it's only temporary. (I often remove what may be a dragon in disguise and put it in a separate document; if I do end up needing it later, it's sitting there, ready to come back to work.)

Dragons are awesome, but they can't make Aunt Millie more interesting than you've written her.

*Name changed to protect the boring.

If you're looking to submit to Roseanne, she's looking for strong literary fiction, YA, sci-fi (most subgenres included), fantasy, and mysteries (more Sherlock Holmes than cozy mysteries). Her nonfiction interests include narrative nonfiction, science (popular or trade, not academic), humor, history, true crime, religion, travel, food/cooking, and similar subjects. Query letters can be sent by email (with no attachments!) to queries(at)stronglit(dot)com.

Publishing Triangle Award Winners Announced:

The winners of the 22nd annual Publishing Triangle Awards were announced yesterday:

Winner of the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction:
Rebecca Brown for American Romances (City Lights Books)

Winner of the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction:
James Davidson for The Greeks and Greek Love (Random House)

Winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry:
Stacie Cassarino for Zero at the Bone (New Issues Poetry & Prose)

Winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry:
Ronaldo V. Wilson for Poems of the Black Object (Futurepoem Books)

Winner of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction:
Lori Ostlund for The Bigness of the World (University of Georgia Press)

Winner of The Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction:
Sebastian Stuart for The Hour Between (Alyson Books)
(The Ferro-Grumley Award is presented by the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards, a co-sponsor of the Triangle Awards ceremony.)

Additionally, two other awards were given out:

The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement:
Blanche Wiesen Cook received the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award is named in honor of the legendary editor of the 1970s and 1980s.

Cook, a historian, activist, and scholar, has received near universal acclaim for her multibook biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. Volume 1, 1884-1933, published in 1992, won the Lambda Literary Award and Los Angeles Times Book Award. The second volume, The Defining Years, 1933-1938, appeared in 1999 and the final book is forthcoming. She is Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s Studies at the John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The editor of Crystal Eastman on Women & Revolution, Cook has also edited and contributed to many anthologies and written on LGBT issues throughout her career. For more than twenty years, she produced and hosted her own program for Radio Pacifica, “Women and the World in the 1980s” (originally called “Activists and Agitators”). She was a founder and co-chair of the Freedom of Information and Access Committee of the Organization of American Historians, which was actively committed to maintaining the integrity of the Freedom of Information Act.

Publishing Triangle's Leadership Award:
Veteran book publicist Michele Karlsberg is the winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily writers—editors, agents, librarians, and others.

As a book publicist, Karlsberg, has been an enthusiastic advocate of LGBT literature for two decades. Among the authors she has worked for are Kate Clinton, Bob Morris, Jewelle Gomez, Felice Picano, Ellen Hart, and Shawn Stewart Ruff, as well as the two most recent winners of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, Katherine V. Forrest and Martin Duberman.

As curator of Outspoken, a nationwide gay and lesbian literary series, she helps new and established voices reach a wider audience. Karlsberg also has produced the first Olivia Book Expo on the Holland Americas line, and is the co-editor of the anthologies To Be Continued and To Be Continued Take Two.

For more information about Publishing Triangle, please visit their website.

Please welcome my colleague Marissa Walsh, FinePrint's newest agent!

I'm thrilled to announce that FinePrint has added a new children's book specialist to the team! (Marissa will be looking only for mainstream children's & YA titles, but you should feel free to keep sending your paranormal/weird/dystopian/omg-is-that-a-mermaid stuff to Suzie and me.)

Head over to our agency blog to welcome Marissa and read more about what she's looking for!

Query update

I've responded to all e-queries received as of 5:45 PM EDT today. If you haven't received a response to your e-query, then I never received it. Feel free to try again.

Also, I still have 34 full manuscripts in my to-be-read pile. I'll get to them when I can. I've got client projects that are a priority, so any non-client stuff will have to wait.

Lastly? Stinkyboy and Buddy Cat say hi.

You want to get angry about something that *really* matters?

Then get angry about this:

From the National Center for Lesbian Rights website:

Greene v. County of Sonoma et al.

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.

Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life.

With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O'Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O'Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

It's stories like this one, and the story of Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond's recent abuse at the hands of Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital that make what President Obama signed into law this week so damned important.

Are you as outraged as I am by this story? Then please blog about it, pass it along over Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter and do whatever you can to help raise the visibility of Clay Green's case. And please do send a letter to the local Sonoma County paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat (which is owned by the New York Times) at letters@pressdemocrat.com. Include this link to NCLR's page. And to learn more about NCLR's Elder Law Project, click here.

Via The Bilerico Project and Livejournal's ONTD Political Community.
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EDIT TO ADD: There is now an online petition to have the Santa Rosa Press Democrat run this story. Click here to add your name to the petition.

What NOT to do when you get a rejection: Example #873

I received a query from a gentleman in Canada who compared himself to Alan Hollinghurst and Edmund White (two authors whom I love, incidentally). Unfortunately, the query was vague about anything else to do with the book and did not attach any pages for me to read, so it was clear he hadn't followed submission guidelines. Thus, he received my standard form rejection:

Thank you for your query. I'm afraid that your book isn't right for me at this time and I'm going to pass. Please keep in mind, however, that the publishing business is a subjective one and this is only one agent's opinion. There may very well be another agent out there for whom your work would be a better fit.

Due to the sheer volume of queries I receive on a daily basis, I regret that I am unable to give you a personalized reply or offer any additional feedback on your query.

All the best,

Colleen

In response to my polite form rejection letter - and you have to admit, this is a polite form rejection, right? - I received the following diatribe. I haven't redacted the author's name, because I think that other agents might want to know just what they'd be dealing with if they chose to represent this writer:

Colleen Lindsay:

Thank you for making it clear, through your response to my query, that you are unquipped (sic) to represent fiction writers who are working at the very highest level today.

Best of luck with your list of minor writers, third-rate writers, irrelevant writers, non-writers.

You lose, silly woman.

Patrick Roscoe

No, Mr. Roscoe.

You lose.

You lose because you've proven that you are incapable of behaving as a professional writer. So congratulations, Mr. Roscoe. You just got the fifteen minutes of fame you've been so desperately seeking. I do hope that you're happy with it. I know I am.
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UPDATE! Another note from Mr. Roscoe!

Colleen Lindsay:

Your most recent message to me was deleted without being read.

(Note: I am unclear as to what he is referring, other than possibly the auto-responder he probably got for not following submission guidelines.)

Your initial absurd email made it clear that you could have nothing intelligent or perceptive to say to me.

You've missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, babe.

Perhaps you should consider a career change: selling used cars might be a more appropriate profession for someone of your lack of acuity.

Patrick Roscoe

Awwwww! He called me babe! *blush*

Taking names and kicking ass in YA book deals this month.

My FinePrint colleague Suzie Townsend and I are celebrating No Whining Week by sharing some good news: We've been very busy during the first half of of April selling a lot of fabulous young adult manuscripts for our most excellent clients. And the important thing to remember about all three of these authors is that this is the FIRST YA novel for all of them. Who says there's no room for debut authors anymore???

Debut author Sarah Wylie’s ALL THESE LIVES, pitched as a literary YA My Sister's Keeper, about a girl who believes she has nine lives and copes with her fraternal twin sister's leukemia by setting out to rid herself of all her extra lives, only to discover that she might have only the one life after all, to Margaret Ferguson at Margaret Ferguson Books (FSG), in a two-book deal, at auction, by Suzie Townsend at FinePrint Literary Management (NA). jacqueline@fineprintlit.com

Conqueror's Shadow author Ari Marmell’s first YA novel, HOUSEHOLD GODS, a Renaissance-style fantasy adventure about a brilliant but reckless teenage thief who happens to have an invisible god living inside her head, to Lou Anders at Pyr Books, by Colleen Lindsay at FinePrint Literary Management. (World English) jacqueline@fineprintlit.com

Irish writer Ruth F. Long’s contemporary YA fantasy MAY QUEEN, a darkly engaging mix of romance, adventure, fairytale, and folklore, about a teenage girl thrust into a faerie world where nothing is what it seems, no one is who they say, trust is a variable commodity, love can be used against her, and where the veil slowly lifts until she finds herself faced with a choice between salvation or sacrifice—and not just her own, to Jessica Garrison at Dial Books for Young Readers, in a preempt, by Colleen Lindsay at FinePrint Literary Management (World). donne.forrest@us.penguingroup.com

And now you're all busy writing down these names so you can pre-order all of these wonderful books, aren't you??? I THOUGHT SO!

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir sings Lux Aurumque

My Friday morning gift to you. Just listen and enjoy. And have a great weekend!

Guest Blogger Ari Marmell on writing media tie-ins

My client Ari Marmell is the author of the recently published fantasy novel The Conqueror's Shadow (Bantam Spectra) and the forthcoming fantasy Goblin Corps (Pyr Books). He's also a veteran media tie-in writer and a writer for RPG player's guides. We recently had an interesting discussion about media tie-ins and the belief that many writers have that tie-ins aren't "real writing". But the truth is, writing media tie-ins may actually be able to help you become a better writer. But I'll let Ari tell you more about that...

The Tie-Ins that Bind
by Ari Marmell

It's a common belief amongst readers--so much so that, at least in my experience, it's pretty much accepted as a given--that authors would rather be writing their own “original” novels than working on tie-in materials. Tie-in fiction, so this belief maintains, is something that we do to pay our dues, or to pay our bills, while we're working toward what we'd rather be doing.

I won't pretend that there isn't some truth to that, for me at least. I've been writing (and trying to publish) my own fiction for over a decade, and the publication of The Conqueror's Shadow is one of the high points of my career, and even my life. If forced to choose one over the other, yes, I would pick original fiction over tie-in.

But only if forced. See, to me, the tie-in fiction I've done wasn't just a stepping stone, it wasn't just something I had to do in order to “make it.” It was something I wanted to do. It's something I still want to do, and I'd love to have tie-in novels intermixed with my original stuff for decades to come. But perhaps more importantly (and what I want to talk about here), doing tie-in fiction has made me a better writer in general, to the point that I would actually recommend that most sci-fi/fantasy writers dip their toes into the waters of tie-in fiction at least a couple of times in the early years of their careers.

Let's leave aside the more subjective benefits, such as being able to play with your favorite characters or settings, and focus on why tie-in writing is good for the career.

1.] Audience
Unless you're dealing with a relatively new property, any tie-in novel already has at least something of a built-in audience. You know there's already a market (even if only a niche market) that's going to look at your book, and--unless it's absolutely awful--probably a set portion of that niche market that's almost guaranteed to buy it. It certainly never hurts to get your name, and your work, in front of people who, if they like you, might just follow your to other properties, including your own.

Now, I need to clarify that this isn't as big an advantage as you might think. A surprisingly large portion of the tie-in audience doesn't pay much attention to who's writing the next in their favorite line; they're buying for the property, not the author. You have to really grab their attention to make them care enough to follow you outside that property. But it's still an opportunity to hook some of them, and it's more than you'd otherwise have had.

2.] Creative Stretching
The reason writers need to try different things, and that some of us take courses, is to stretch our creative muscles. If you keep doing the same thing over and over, you stagnate. The more you try, the better your writing is going to be--even if you then return to the familiar.

Working on tie-in fiction is a creative endeavor with requirements you won't find in original fiction. It's not just about creating a story, but creating a story that works with these specific characters--or perhaps creating your own characters, but characters that work in this specific setting. You might have to include a plot element or a character mandated from the property owner that you otherwise wouldn't have used, and you've got make that element fit smoothly. It can be limiting, yes, but that's the point. Learning to work within these limitations makes you a better writer even when those guidelines and borders are removed. It makes you a sharper plotter, a more flexible and adaptable writer; you're more able to view plot or character issues from different angles.

3.] Taking Feedback
Learning how to absorb feedback--positive and negative--is a skill that every writer must have, but few of us ever entirely master. (Nobody's skin is tough enough to completely ignore it when someone hates part of our work. Well, maybe Steven King, but he can just write a brand new novel over breakfast the next day. I swear, there's got to be at least three of him…) From editors to online reviewers to the husband or wife, we need to learn to take whatever's meaningful from any given response to our book, and to give it real consideration, even when our first inclination might be to dismiss it. Feedback is the only way we know how to improve.

You know what's a really good way of learning to accept feedback? Being in a position where you have no choice. When you're dealing with tie-in fiction, the property owner is final arbiter. If they come back and tell you “We're not crazy about the talking rabbit in chapters four through seven,” you don't get to ignore them. You might argue your case, explaining how the rabbit is essential to the plot and serves as a metaphor by which the reader understands the soul of the world, but ultimately, if they can't be budged, the rabbit goes. And if that means rewriting the entirety of chapters four through seven, well, guess who's rewriting chapters four through seven? (Hint: Look in the mirror.)

Yeah, it can suck. It can be remarkably unpleasant; I've done mandated rewrites on that level (though not for a talking rabbit), and it's rather like pulling your own wisdom teeth with pliers--rectally. But it's also educational. Because once you've been forced to adapt, and to rewrite around someone else's preferences, then you're in a much better place to do so on your own, to a much lesser extent, when your editor or your beta-readers object to something in your original manuscript. You already know how to do it, after all.

4.] Voice
It's not hard, for most writers, to stay in the voice of their main character throughout a book. It's your creation, and odds are it's got a lot of you in it, so of course the voice remains more or less consistent.

But what about for more than one book? What if you--as I did, with The Conqueror's Shadow and The Warlord's Legacy--come back to a character you created years ago, in order to write a sequel? No matter how easily the voice came to you the first time, it can be something of an effort to pick it back up after so long.

It's easier, though, if you've already spent several books writing voices for characters that you didn't create. Both of my prior tie-in novels, Agents of Artifice and Gehenna: the Final Night, required me to put words in the mouths of characters that had existed before I ever touched the property in question. And both were written for fans who were going to know pretty quick if a voice was wrong, and wouldn't be shy about letting me know. If I hadn't written those books, and learned how to capture a character's voice, then neither The Warlord's Legacy, nor even the rewrites/late additions to The Conqueror's Shadow, would have come out nearly as well as they did.

In fact, I'd posit that even if you're not worried about coming back to a character after some time apart, learning how to write other people's characters will still make your own better, because it makes you more aware of nuances of dialogue and behavior. Since you must study such things for some tie-in characters, you begin to examine them automatically when it comes to your own. And any sense a writer has on how to make Character X distinct from Character Y, any instinct to recognize when Character Z wouldn't say/do that, can only lead to a better book.

The big debate about tie-in, of course, is whether the material is, as many people seem to think, innately inferior to original fiction. Obviously, I think that's absolutely not the case, as I imagine everything I've said so far implies. But even if you think it is, if you're an author--and especially relatively near the start of your career--you could definitely do worse than to give it a shot. Even if you find that it's not your thing, you'll be a better writer for the lessons you take away from it.

#Askagent: The unvarnished truth.

As some of you who follow my Twitter feed know, I host a very impromptu, sort-of-monthly, sort-of-regular and always-unscheduled Twitter chat called #Askagent.

What is #Askagent? #Askagent is agent/editor/writer free-for-all, where a group of agents, editors and other book industry pros open themselves up to questions from writers for a couple of hours or until they drop from sheer exhaustion. It's a lot of fun, and always draws hundreds - sometimes thousands - of participants. And we can have as many as twenty agents and editors answering questions all at one time. Some of the regulars who join me in co-hosting #Askagent are agents Jennifer Laughran from the Andrea Brown Agency, Elana Roth from the Caren Johnson Agency, Jason Ashlock from Moveable Type and former Bantam editor Juliet Ulman. It's a great group!

When is #Askagent and why isn't it scheduled? Quite honestly, it isn't scheduled because those of us who co-host it never know when we are going to have a big enough chunk of uninterrupted free time every month. Also? The spontaneity of #Askagent is one of the things that makes it so much fun. When I have the time, I'll shoot an email off to my group of regulars (the agents, editors and other book industry pros who may be available to answer questions) and let them know when it will start (usually after 10:00 PM EST) and ask them to let me know if they be able to join us. And then I'll start throwing some tweets out into the wild to let the rest of the Twitter-verse know. I can always count on a handful of folks who read my Twitter feed to pass the message along at the speed of light, because most writers who have participated in #Askagent want to come back for more!

#Askagent moves fast, and sometimes questions need repeating because they move through the Twitter feed so quickly that we miss them, but we try to get to everyone as best we can. And not all of us have the same answers; one of the great things about #Askagent is that you get the feedback from more than one agent at a time, so that you can really start to understand just how subjective a business this is, and just how differently we operate. (By the way, we recommend using Tweetchat to follow #Askagent; much easier!)

There's only one rule at #Askagent: NO QUESTIONS ABOUT QUERY LETTERS!

Because, let's face it: one can only be asked "How can I write a better query letter?" so many times before one's head explodes in a Scanners-like organic veil of blood, brains and gore.

I admire agents who can repeatedly answer this question with grace and good humor. I, however, am not that agent.

There.

I said it.

I don't want to talk about your query letters. I don't want to hear you to talk about your query letters. I don't care if anyone ever talks about query letters ever again in my lifetime. THAT'S how sick of the subject of query letters I am. My chat, my rules!

So... if you're going to join us in an #Askagent session - and I encourage you to do so! - please use that time to ask more productive questions of the book industry pros who are offering up their time for free. Ask about how coop works. Ask about marketing and publicity. Ask about non-fiction book proposals. Ask about platform building. Ask about how to build a relationship with your editor. Ask about the language in your contracts. Ask about anything other than query letters.

Because there's more to your writing career than your query letter.

Dogs dressed like Lady Gaga. Yes, really.

This may be the greatest use of Teh Intarwebs ever: Photographer Jesse Freidin's Doggie Gaga Project. Just go click the damned thing, will ya?

Winners of the 2010 Backspace Scholarship Contest!

And the four winners of the 2010 Backspace Scholarship Contest are:

Michelle Hodkin
Charleston, SC
YA Paranormal | 85k words | Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

John Ochwat
Beaverton, OR
Fiction/Humor | 92k words | Title: The Knock-Offs

Marc Graham
Castle Rock, CO
Historical Fantasy | No word count given | Title: Prince of the West

Pamela D. Toler
Chicago, IL
Women's Fiction | 84k words | Title: Winning the War at Home

Congratulations, everyone!

The four of you will be receiving scholarships to attend the 2010 Backspace Agent-Author Seminar and Writers Conference, taking place this coming May 27th-29th at the Radisson-Martinique Hotel in New York City.**

We look forward to meeting all of you in person in May!

**The scholarship does not cover transportation cost to NYC or hotel stay. If you are unable to use your scholarship, please let me know as soon as possible.

Guest Blogger Alan DeNiro hits the road for a good cause: Mercy Corps!

My client Alan DeNiro is hitting the road down South for his book Total Oblivion, More or Less. He'll be appearing at the prestigious Virginia Festival of the Book through March 21st, and then moving on to Richmond, Chapel Hill, Charlotte and Asheville. (Check out the full list of appearances here.) Alan asked me if he could talk to Swivet readers a little bit about how his tour ties into fundraising for a cause that he is extremely passionate about, the amazing organization Mercy Corps. But I'll let Alan tell you all about it...

Thanks, first of all, to my super-agent for allowing me to post here for a little bit. I'm really excited to be hitting the road for an extended period of time in Virginia and North Carolina. So if you are in Charlottesville, Richmond, Chapel Hill, Charlotte or Asheville (or thereabouts), check out my appearances page for dates and drop by my reading!

One of the great things about giving readings, among many, is meeting people where they live, in their communities. I know personally that I can lodge myself in front of a computer for ungodly amounts of time--both in my day job and my "nights and weekend job" (i.e., writing). But to get out there in the literal and figurative sunshine can be huge recharge and recentering experience. It sounds pretty basic but can have huge dividends for one of the key benefits of writing and publishing: making connections between different human beings.

One other thing that I wanted to do is a real-life extension of what I've been doing online and that is fundraising for Mercy Corps. This blog post talks a little bit about the online efforts, but essentially: Mercy Corps is a fantastic organization that works all around the world to better the lives of ordinary people. (In particular, you can read about what Mercy Corps is doing in Haiti.)

And since Total Oblivion (albeit in a fabulist manner) has a great deal to do with displaced people and refugees in crisis, I wanted to use the tiny platform of the book to perhaps make a real-life impact.

So anyone that happens to come by one of my readings and makes a donation of at least $5 will receive an impromptu micro-story written for them--then and there!--set in the world of Total Oblivion, More or Less.

I'll also take requests--if you want a few sentences about your uncle, your dog, whatever... I can do that. And you don't even need to buy a copy of the book (although if you DO, I'd be more than happy to inscribe it in the pages therein).

Of course I'm still fundraising online as well, so if you can't make it you can still participate and I will send you a little story either by email or postcard!



Thanks all and have a wonderful spring!

-- Alan DeNiro

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer. With Endless Cliches!

The best movie trailer of all time for a movie that doesn't exist! Seriously, if this doesn't make you laugh, you have NO SENSE OF HUMOR! Either that, or you have never watched an American movie trailer...enjoy!

Two more Backspace scholarships added!

Due to the crazy high number of responses to the recent Backspace Scholarship Contest, the good people at Backspace have offered up an additional two scholarships to use as prizes, which means we'll be awarding FOUR scholarships to the Backspace Writers Conference.

(I just made a whole lot of you crazy, didn't I?)

Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners on March 19th!

Backspace Contest update!

Just a quick update:

Thank you to everyone who participated this year! We have had a RECORD BREAKING number of submissions, and they're still coming in. (In New York City, the mail takes forever to arrive so we'll be getting things postmarked before March 1st for at least another week.) Because of the record number of entries, it's going to take us longer to go through them. But I've enlisted HELP! Suzie Townsend and I will now be joined by agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe and agent Diana Fox in sorting through and reading your queries and pages. (There may be cupcakes and caffeine involved during the process.)

In any case, we will now be announcing the winners on Friday, March 19th. Stay tuned!

Random House forms new IP Creation and Development Group with Keith Clayton to head.

Don't know how we missed this news yesterday but...

Random House - which has always been smart and forward-thinking in the way they handle licensed media - has formed a brand-new transmedia intellectual property group. Transmedia is a catch-all term for story content that can be accessed through multiple media sources including video games, social networks on the web, mobile platforms, in print and on film, etc.

The new IP Creation and Development Group will be headed up by my good friend Keith Clayton, currently Random House's Director of Creative Development.

From the press release:

The group will also offer editorial services to media companies that will enhance the world-building and storylines of their already existing IP.

Utilizing its vast experience in bestselling storytelling and, in particular, the Del Rey imprint's extensive expertise in game-related genres such as science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and horror, the new Random House IP group is in a unique position to create complex storylines set in original worlds with fully imagined characters, world histories and geographies.

I'm thrilled for Keith and excited to see how this new way of looking at content will open up unexplored frontiers in storytelling.

Alan DeNiro and Paul Jessup hijinks at Erie Bookstore!

Rumor has it that two of my juvenile delinquent clients, Alan DeNiro and Paul Jessup, will be doing a reading and signing together tomorrow at Erie Bookstore from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. You can grab a copy of Alan's critically-acclaimed new novel Total Oblivion, More or Less AND a copy of Paul's limited-release novel Open Your Eyes AT THE VERY SAME TIME!