Booksignings

I went to a booksigining on Saturday for CAPITAL CRIMES, it’s an anthology published by the Sacramento Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Due to mobility health issues, I haven’t been active recently but I’m a founding member of the group and it makes me especially proud to hold this book in my hands. I feel like a proud mother.

An added benefit to forcing my tired body out on Saturday was running into my friend Elsie Whitlow Feliz and her husband Don. Elsie is a wonderful poet. Her most recent chapbook is TO BERLIN WITH LOVE, co-written with Don. Thanks for my signed copy Elsie, I can’t wait to read it.

Here’s some pictures from Saturday.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

My grandmother wasn't the warm and fuzzy type. The older I get the more I understand her journey. She was an excellent baker and one of her specialities was her applesauce raisin cookies. She's been gone a while now and she stopped baking a few years before her death. The recipe was lost with her. But I still like cookies. I don't eat nearly as much as I would like and yet more than I should. My grandmother's cookies were probably the first I enjoyed--they whetted by taste, but the enjoyment didn't stop with her.

My point?

If you enjoy reading, even if you have a favorite author, you will probably buy many books that aren't written by that author. WE ARE NOT IN COMPETITION WITH EACH OTHER.

More than once I've seen and heard one author begrudge another author's success. It's happened to me. A would-be-bestseller has decided somehow that my published novels are stopping the start of his/her career.

Nothing pleases me more than to learn another AA professional in one of my fields has done well. If an African American agent makes a big sell, it makes my next sell more possible--not less. I became friends with an agent when I wrote her a congratulatroy note about one of her auctions. If every kid in this country had to purchase Evelyn Coleman's (or Christopher Paul Curtis, etc.)latest juvenile novel, the loud cheering you would hear coming from California would be me. If just a tenth of those readers were to become hooked on reading, their next purchase could be one of my novels. It would certainly make an editor more receptive to my next submission. I would imagine that week, years ago, when 3 AA women were on the NYT bestsellers list was a good week for a sistah to be marketing a novel.

I really believe you block your blessings with envy.

Let's support each other

What Went Wrong

My friend, Ethel, has been telling me for years that I should write something about mistakes authors make when querying an agent. She’s one of the most editorially astute women I know who’s not earning her living in publishing, but I’ve been avoiding her suggestion because every time I identify myself as an agent I end up with more of the queries I’m trying to avoid. Now that I’m semi-retired and not taking on any new clients, I figure the timing is right. Instead of writing a list of to-dos, I’ll just tell you about some of the DON’T(S) I’ve received.

One of the strangest was about 700-900 pages. I only tried to read the first 30 or so pages, but that was more than enough! I still can’t tell you what genre it was, but every other page was a graphic rape scene. The author told me the character was going to find redemption eventually. I felt that the author and his character needed to seek and maintain counseling.

The chances of an editor buying a 700-900 page novel from an unknown are slim. Yes, we’ve all heard J.K Rowling’s (Harry Potter) rags-to-riches story, but the reason it’s a story is because it’s unusual. Things are different in European publishing. I’m not convinced that she would have had the same results had she been submitting to American publishers.

Recently I received a novel from a man who has an impressive resume in another field. His submission was single spaced and printed on both sides.

I think I understand why this happens. First of all, the author didn’t do his research. Google manuscript submission, formatting is explained all over the place. But I believe newcomers simply format their manuscripts to look like books. It’s hard to believe that somebody would spend months or years writing a novel and then not take the minutes needed to learn how to submit it, but it happens every day.

I’ve received manuscripts with almost no punctuation short of periods. When questioned about this I’ve been asked, “isn’t it the editor’s job to provide punctuation?”

I once had an editor who was fond of semicolons. She did change some of my commas to semicolons and, since this was happening after the sell of the manuscript, I didn’t care. But NO it is not the editor’s or agent’s job to make your book readable that’s job one for the author.

“This novel is a combination mystery, sci-fi, romance, historical, contemporary time-travel.”

After all this time, I’ve finally learned how to answer authors that don’t have a clear genre. “It sounds wonderful. Now tell me who the mystery, sci-fi, romance, historical, contemporary time-travel editors are and I’ll submit it right away! There can be some overlap and often is, but I can’t sell what I can’t describe. An editor that buys romance is not going to read a novel that isn’t mostly and clearly a romance. I had one tell me one time that she had enough of her own work to read without acquiring for other lists–and I understood wholeheartedly.

Stop everything, I’m the last client you’ll ever need. If you concentrate on just my work I’m going to make both of us very rich!

You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard variations of this and I’m still not even a little rich. In fact, this kind of author has proven time-and-time again to be barely adequate.

I have a friend, who’s a very successful agent, that says the minute she speaks with a potential client who wants to talk about negotiating her percentage, she’s finished with the conversation.

I don’t recall this happening to me but my friend says it’s a sure sign that the author doesn’t respect what the agent does. She said she did represent a few of them in the beginning and they were nothing but trouble.

Speaking of trouble, I’ve developed a 3 rule. If I get 3 calls or 3 emails from a potential client in a very short period of time (like within 2 days) I’m outta there.

It might be a sincere display of enthusiasm but it feels like trouble to me. I don’t have the patience anymore for this kind of time drain.

This is running longer than I expected so I’m stopping part one here. Part two later. Who knows when?

Jackie

The Monkey on my Back!

I’ve been reading a long time. I started when I was four and that’s been
over . . .excuse me, the telephone is ringing.

Anyway, as I was saying, books have been important a very long time.
One of the selling points in marrying my husband was that I thought he
was a reader and I pictured us reading our respective books in bed, either
before or after–not an issue. It turns out that his carrying a novel, and
periodically stealing a few moments to read during one of our initial
road trips, was a fluke. He was and is a daily newspaper reader, occasional
magazine reader and anything required for work reluctant reader.

Except in the past four years, he’s been more up-to-date in reading
the bestsellers than me.

We joined audible.com and, since I’m the more computer savvy, I’ve been downloading novels for his commute. I tend to choose titles I’d want to read if time permitted. In fact, for the first year or so, I downloaded titles I’d read or planned to read so we could discuss them later. After twenty eight years a couple tends to run out of stuff to discuss, if they’ve got great kids like ours. I’m not bragging, I’m thanking God–I know it was a crap shoot! Lately I’ve been downloading titles that I’ve heard a lot about and titles by African American writers because I want audible.com to buy more AA titles. It’s my way of giving our buck another turn in the black community, especially now that our favorite AA bookstore has closed.

I’m starting to get a little jealous. He’s having way too much fun. Last month while perusing the titles, I ran across Dark Dreams an anthology edited by Brandon Massey. Since I’m a fan of Brandon’s and I have friends featured in his anthology, I have a signed copy of the physical book, but I paid to download it too.

The second book I choose was A Meeting In The Ladies Room by Anita Diggs. I’ve submitted manuscripts to her as an editor, but I didn’t know she wrote novels too. I knew her novel would have to be good, who would know the subject matter better? Plus, I figured it would give him some insight into my world as an agent. It’s not the first time I’ve chosen something for him because I wanted him to think about the topic. (An aside–the person that controls your literature has a lot of power over your thoughts. There was a real reason why slaves weren’t permitted to read.)

The last two nights in a row, he’s been telling me about this murder mystery with his usual enthusiasm for fun reads. Now I have to order the book so I can find out for myself. Also, I can never stop there, I’ll have to buy her other novels too. And I’m such a greedy person, I went online and found out she has a blog–now I have to read the back issues of it too.

So many words, so little time. Excuse the rambling–just one of those days

Jackie

Okay I Give

I've put it off for years, but I must now say UNCLE. Here it is, my writing blog. Okay not just writing but writing, reading, and agenting blog. It's time to put in cyberspace everything I know about this business and this passion. I have a blog, for the frequent burs that end up on my butt, but this one is just for stuff relating to the business and burs planted by this business.

Why now?

This morning I got an email from a friend and client, Patricia Canterbury. It was forwarded from another writer we know who had copied and commented on an article in June's 2007 Writers Digest, Postscript: Finding My Way By Laura Preble. It was about her so-called Lucky break in publishing her first novel and getting her first contract. I won't copy it here because I don't have permission. I believe I can quote under fair use and I will as follows:

"I'd attended enough workshops and read enough books to know that: (1) You never get a book deal without an agent, (2) You never get a book deal unless you've finished the book, and (3) You never get a book deal unless you already had a book deal (see numbers 1 and 2). It was a never-ending Escher-esque labyrinth of torture."

Then she goes on to disapprove all of this good advice but not before saying, "I don't usually like chick lit." Please keep this statement in mind as you read.

After meeting an editor from Penguin at a writers conference who read a novel she had written she was told call me if you ever write a romance novel. As an agent I know there some weight in that invitation. Editors might say it more at conferences than they care to, but they don't say it half-heartedly. Clearly Ms. Preble's manuscript showed some worthy skills. The editor that issued the invitation edited--wait for it---yes--chick lit!

Lo and behold, Ms. Preble said, "I awoke at 3 a.m. with an idea: chick lit for geek girls like me! I got up, went to my laptop, banged out the first scene and submitted 20 pages."

Based on those 20 pages, she was offered a two book contract. I haven't read her work and I don't doubt they were wonderful. Then she said, "Eventually, I got my proof of the book and then pushed to meet my publicist at Penguin." Later the publicist came through too, "she arranged for my book to be part of two major magazine promotions."

"Then came the editing, revising and cover approval." Yes, she had cover approval!

Okay, where do I begin? I have no idea as to what was the point of this tale. The only thing I can come up with is

Na-na-nanana.

Then I thought about it. There's something wrong here.
Here's what I wrote back to Pat:

I'd bet $20 that there is still something that's she's not telling us. Something
very important (although she might not consider it so). Like she had some nonfiction credits or her husband is a well known editor. Even if you factor in the white girl edge something doesn't fit--like a magazine campaign for an unknown!! It doesn't happen. She met her publicist?? How did she get a contract with 20 pages with no previous expereince--not buying it. And 2 books? puh-leaze!! Cover approval and she didn't even have an agent!!

A note about the white girl edge statement. I live in and love the USA, but I'm not naive enough to think my mail would look exactly the same if I was white and my writers were white. Like most African American college educated women I know, probably have more books in my house than many community libraries. And like that same group,an estimated 95% of them are by and about white Americans. We have been supporting an industry for years that is just beginning to realize we exist.

I don't have a favorite genre. I buy everything I can afford by AA authors even if I don't plan to read them--I give them as gifts. I think we all should, until AA writers can make a decent living without taking outside jobs.

And I buy what I like regardless of race. I'm reading two dark fantasies right now, but Marian Keyes and Jennifer Coburn can't write them fast enought for me (chick lit).

With mystery author,Terris McMahan Grimes, I cofounded
the Sacramento Chapter of Sisters In Crime. And I'm the author of a
series of juvenile novels. In other words, I'm all over the place. I got
my first subscription to Writers Digest when I was in elementary school.
I've been studying this industry for a very long time.

Trust me, this woman's story is not your typical tale. Come on Ms. Preble,
tell us the rest of the story.