virtualDavis

“Queries received in 2010: around 10,000. New clients taken on from query (no referral): 0.” […] Those 10,000 queries represent approximately 10,000 writers who have dreams of seeing their book in print, who’ve likely spent months on a manuscript, who are desperately seeking a chance at traditional publication… So what does that say about the query system? Does it really work anymore? Is the system slowly dying?

Of course the system isn’t dead yet. From time to time, I still hear reports of writers landing agents through cold-querying. But if the statistics of gaining an agent through querying are slim and growing narrower, what can writers do to increase their chances of getting an agent? (Is the Query System Dying?)

This sobering post from Jody Hedlund (author of The Preacher’s Bride) echoes an increasingly familiar publishing mantra, “Adjust, adjust, adjust. Connect, connect, connect.” It’s yet another reminder that the days of the solitary author penning in a garret are numbered. Correction. They may be numbered if s/he wants to secure a publishing contract, build an audience and possibly become a professional writer.

I’m not horrified to read Hedlund’s post or Rachel Gardner’s post that prompted this reflection on the demise of the conventional query system. As a newbie unaccustomed to the “old way” of querying and well accustomed to merits of the social web, I actually see this transition as a potential improvement. Or at least an improvement for me and writers like me. And I think that Hedlund’s advice makes sense:

• Seek out new agents through reputable literary agencies.
• Realize the query system may not be enough.
• Shift to a new way of relating to agents.

So where does that leave me on the week of my first foray into agent pitching? I’m optimistic. The query system hasn’t failed me, and I’m confident that I’ll find the perfect agent. Perhaps not this week, or even in the next few months, but I’m learning more every day about which agents are embracing the publishing industry transition rather than lamenting the change and clinging to the old. I am learning what sort of agent relationship is best suited to my strengths and ambitions. And I am learning how important the right match will be in the years to come. Tomorrow’s query system sounds just great!

At the end of July Jane Friedman (@janefriedman), posting from the Midwest Writers Workshop said, “Probably the stand-out advice of the morning was from Marcus Sakey, who talked at length on query letters.” Buried in good-if-not-so-memorable advice was a bomb that set the Twittersphere afire: Sakey (@MarcusSakey) “advised that query letters, if any good, would result in a 75% “send me something response.”

Manna from heaven! Just the pearls of wisdom that aspiring authors covet. Except when it contradicts their own experience. In fact, so much hullabuloo emanated from this claim that Friedman asked him to elaborate in a guest pos on her There Are No Rules blog. Sakey was quick to limit his assertion to fiction, “nonfiction is different, and I don’t know beans about it“, but I’m nevertheless drawn to his assertion that a query letter should not try to sell the book.

You are not selling the book… All you’re doing is seducing the agent. You want to get them interested enough that they ask to see your manuscript. That’s it. It’s like online dating. If you can write a charming e-mail, you might get a date; if you get a date, who knows where it could lead. But try to put all your history and baggage in that first message and you won’t get any play. Instead, demonstrate that you’re worth someone’s time. That you are interesting, sincere, and respectful. (How to Ensure 75% of Agents Will Request Your Material)

Makes sense to me! Of course, online dating still requires that you deliver the goods when you meet in person, or else Mr. Lonely will spend the rest of his days practicing his fly tieing and perfecting his hook while the fish get away again and again. Sounds obvious enough, but how do you interest the right agent? How do you demonstrate that you are worth their time?

Well, for one, you’re polished. Your language is compelling… your presentation is perfect… you’re brief. Agents are busy. There are hundreds of other queries to read. Finally, you are a storyteller. You know how to tease, how to intrigue, and you’re not afraid to put those wiles to work. (How to Ensure 75% of Agents Will Request Your Material)

The proof is in the pudding. Show; don’t tell. Am I missing a savory cliche? Perhaps, but the point’s clear and compelling: perfect hook + polished presentation + brevity = perfect pitch. But is it correct?

Related:

• Write. Book. Pitch. Agent. Right?
• Individualize Your Query

Panelists at eBook Summit 2010

What does tomorrow’s publishing world look like? MediaBistro’s eBook Summit dove into the “New Era of Publishing” on December 15, 2010 at The New Yorker Hotel to explore “some of the most pressing industry issues” and to assist writers, editors, publishers and agent in navigating “the changing industry ecosystem.”

In January I start pitching Rosslyn Redux (Writer’s Digest Conference 2011) to a publishing industry that is not only new to me but new to itself. I figured this conference would serve as an informative industry barometer for me and an up-close-and-personal glimpse at how traditional publishers and agents are adapting to the Post-Gutenberg Paradigm. The day was an eye opener. I’ve overviewed the highlights here…

More:

• eBook Summit 2010
  
• Buzz: Writer’s Digest Conference 2011
• Writer’s Digest Conference 2011, Part #1
• Writer’s Digest Conference 2011, Part #2
• Writer’s Digest Conference 2011, Part #3
• Writer’s Digest Conference 2011, Part #4

“Working on the query letter” by Doug Sharp, on Flickr

I don’t think a query is a one-size-fits-all device. I don’t think the same query necessarily works for all agents or all authors. That being said, I don’t think it should either.

The most important part of the query is the blurb, the part that tells the agent about your book, the part that grabs her attention and makes her want to read more. Here’s the deal, though: What you should strive for is writing the query that best represents you and your book. It should show the reader a bit of your voice and the blurb shouldn’t necessarily be about hook or characters or plot. It should be that one thing about your book that makes it stand out from all others. (BookEnds)

Literary agent Jessica Faust over at BookEnds dishes up what-should-be-but-isn’t-so-obvious advice for all of query letter scribblers. Sell your book by selling yourself. Give’m a taste of your brilliance, grace, humor, whatever makes you stand out and stand tall. Distill your dazzle and intoxicate the agent/publisher… No pressure!

Related:

• Seduce the Agent
• Write. Book. Pitch. Agent. Right?

“Technology has made virtually anything possible,” says Neill Denny, editor-in-chief of the publishing industry magazine The Bookseller. “If you look at it conceptually – there’s a five-link chain between the person who writes and the person who reads. You’ve got Author-Agent- Publisher-Retailer-Reader. Theoretically, the three middle bits could all now vanish and the author could write online directly to the reader.”

However, he continues, “A more likely possibility is that just one of the three central links will vanish on-line. It could be that Amazon, the retailer, becomes the publisher. Or that the agent becomes the publisher, or the publisher becomes the retailer, and you go to a publisher’s site to buy the book. One of those links will certainly disappear on-line. We just don’t know which.” (The Independent)

John Walsh’s article “E-books: the end of the world as we know it” offers no new insights, but a handy summary. More intriguing though are the comments which are worth a wade through. A few flaring tempers, a few snarky jabs, and plenty of voiced growing pains as we tramp through the clumsy not-altogether-painless publishing revolution.

Related articles

• Demise of Borders highlights vanishing print infrastructure (teleread.com)

Publishing isn’t broken, or so says Jane Smith over at How Publishing Really Works, and here’s why. The very best books from the very best writers get published; books get sold; and writers, agents, editors, publishers, etc. get what they want: money. Phew. Good to have that sorted out so tidily. Unless, of course, it’s not really that tidy…

For decades, the publishing business has worked pretty well. Writers write books; agents sell those books to publishers; publishers make the books available to the market. Money flows through the system from reader to writer via the publisher and agent. Everyone involved makes money, and gets what they want… Be very wary of new models of publishing. The old one works just fine. (A New Model for Publishing?)

Smith suggests that the only breakdown in the publishing world is unskilled writers, agents, etc. Granted, there’s plenty of room to point the finger at unqualified contenders, that’s always fun and easy. But it seems that Smith is overlooking vital current concerns about whether or not the traditional publishing environment is broken, outdated, inefficient, etc. She talks a lot about money in traditional book publishing. This makes sense because the Gutenberg Paradigm is expensive to maintain. Whereas evolutions in technology, book selling, and readers’ habits have enabled modern publishing alternatives that make book publishing less expensive. Much less expensive!

Mainstream publishing isn’t broken: it has its flaws, certainly, but it still works. It still publishes books which show clear commercial potential; works to make those books as good as they can possibly be; and then gets those books into as many sales points as it possibly can. Just because it does that by only publishing the very best books from the very best writers, and consequently rejecting the majority, doesn’t mean that it’s broken: just that far too many writers are not yet good enough at their craft for publishers to risk investing their money in them.(Publishing Isn’t Broken)

Publishing cannot focus solely on bringing works of staggering genius to the attention of a grateful reading public, or on nurturing and supporting novice writers as they learn their craft and experiment with exciting risky new projects: while that would be nice for those novice writers it wouldn’t be nearly so nice for the publishers’ shareholders who would have to provide funds to publish the many turkeys such an approach would undoubtedly hatch, nor would readers appreciate being provided with all the unreadable tripe which might well result… [So] publishing books which will sell well has to be the publishing business’s main focus. (Publishing: Broken Or Not?)

Related articles

• Gutenberg, Meet Amazon (virtualdavis.com)
• Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published (janefriedman.com)
• For the First Time In History, Print Is Optional. Now What? (ereads.com)
• Traditional vs self-publishing: Neither is the perfect solution (radar.oreilly.com)

I enjoyed Eric’s lighthanded but thoughtful reflection on the merits of working with a literary agent in the digital age.

The times, they are a-changin’, mes auteurs. The digital age means more books are available in more ways than ever before, which in turn means two things: first, you have that much more competition for eyeballs, and second, you need some way to differentiate yourself from the crowd such that all those eyeballs are reading your book.

 

In short: regardless of whether [or not] you’re going (exclusively) digital, you want an agent… an agent’s multiple talents, myriad connections, and considerable experience will all be great assets to you in your quest for publication. This is true for more than a few reasons…

• If you’re dealing with an editor, an agent is worth his or her weight in gold in terms of contract negotiation (not to mention that going with an agent in the first place generally makes it much easier to get an editor’s attention). This is doubly true as the details of e-rights are being hammered out.
• An agent will secure you a publishing house by way of said editor, meaning he or she is basically getting you editorial input, a marketing team, a publicist, a sales team, and an art department capable of making you a Truly Fancy Cover. Unless you’re the aforementioned Jack/Jane of all trades, this is a huge bonus for you. (You also won’t have to worry about getting your e-book fed out to Amazon, Apple, and the like.)
• You’ve got a buffer between you and your editor/publisher. This means that you can spend your valuable time writing while your agent spends his or her time talking to the editor/publisher (pitching your next project, hounding them for royalty statements, finding out why the awesome cover they helped you negotiate isn’t showing up on Barnes & Noble’s website, &c).
• You have a Fancy Website with lots of loyal visitors. Your agent has a Fancy Website with lots of loyal visitors. If you both add links to your book to your websites/blogs, you get that many more eyeballs reading about (and hopefully soon reading) your book. Agents go to bat for their clients in more ways than one.
• Finally, you get a measure of that e’er elusive brand recognition that separates your book from Joe “DIY” Lunchbucket. If you self-publish on-line, the only one vouching for your work is you. If you have an agent and an editor, you’ve got at least two organizations behind you vouching for your talent and credibility as a writer. (Pimp my Novel)

Agent Andrew Wylie is threatening to bypass publishers and license his authors’ e-book rights directly to Google, Amazon or Apple because he is unhappy with publishers terms. In an interview with Harvard Magazine, Wylie said the agency’s negotiations with publishers on e-books were currently on hold across the board.

“We will take our 700 clients, see what rights are not allocated to publishers, and establish a company on their behalf to license those e-book rights directly to someone like Google, Amazon.com or Apple. It would be another business, set up on parallel tracks to the frontlist book business,” Wylie said.

Such a “heretical strategy” would likely meet with stiff resistance from publishing houses, the piece notes in response. The Wylie Agency’s stellar list includes authors Martin Amis, Philip Roth and Salman Rushdie, as well as the estates of giants including Italo Calvino, Arthur Miller, Vladimir Nabokov and John Updike.

Wylie also takes issue with the deals publishers are making with Apple, which he says are similar to those entered into by music publishers. “The music industry did itself in by taking its profitability and allocating it to device holders. Manufacturing and distribution accounted for roughly 30 percent of the music industry’s profit. These were conveyed to Apple in the deal for iTunes. But why should someone who makes a machine—the iPod, which is the contemporary equivalent of a jukebox—take all the profit?” (The Bookseller.com)

Related articles

• Andrew Wylie, Literary Agent, Plans E-Books (nytimes.com)

Nathan Bransford’s June 10 HuffPo post, “The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence (And Why This is a Good Thing)” expresses the optimism that I share about the democratization of the publishing industry. His Neil Postman-esque reflection doesn’t flinch from the downside of the Post-Gutenberg Paradigm, but the tenor is undeniably positive: “the very nature of commercial viability in the publishing world is changing quickly with the transition to e-books, and I think it’s ultimately a change for the better.” The agents and publishers who recognize that this publishing funnel inversion will thrive, profit and help redefine the future. Those who hesitate, resist or cling to the Gutenberg Paradigm will struggle to survive.

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, notes that we’re moving from an era where we filtered and then published to one where we’ll publish and then filter. And no one would be happier than me to hand the filtering reins over to the reading public, who will surely be better at judging which books should rise to the top than the best guesses of a handful of publishing professionals.

I don’t see this transition as the demise of traditional publishing or agenting. Roles will change, but there are still some fundamental elements that will remain. There’s more that goes into a book than just writing it, and publishers will be the best-equipped to maintain the editorial quality, production value, and marketing heft that will still be necessary for the biggest books. Authors will still need experienced advocates to navigate this landscape, place subsidiary rights (i.e. translation, film, audio, etc.), and negotiate on their behalf.

What’s changing is that the funnel is in the process of inverting – from a top down publishing process to one that’s bottom up.

Yes, many (if not most) of the books that will see publication in the new era will only be read by a handful of people. Rather than a rejection letter from an agent, authors will be met with the silence of a trickle of sales. And that’s okay!! Even if a book is only purchased by a few friends and family members — what’s the harm?

Meanwhile, the public will have the ultimate, unlimited ability to find the books they want to read, will be unconstrained by the tastes of the publishing industry and past standards of commercial viability, and whether you want to read experimental literary fiction or a potboiler mystery: you’ll be able to find it. Out of the vastness of books published the best books will emerge, driven to popularity by passionate readers. (Bransford, Nathan.”The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence(And Why This is a Good Thing).” The Huffington Post. 6/10/2010)

Update: Several colleagues and friends get their feathers ruffled each time I pronounce this vision, and I expect this post will be no exception. But it’s worth noting that I do believe books have a long and exciting future. They are valuable, enjoyable and luxurious. They will continue to be. Perhaps moreso as the publishing world evolves in and increasingly digital, decreasingly paper-based direction. Specialty book publishing is likely to endure for these reasons, and because certain content lends itself to print far better than digital formats. But, bibliophile leanings notwithstanding, I’m quite comfortable with the transition from print to digital for most content distribution including fiction, non-fiction, literature, education, etc. In fact, the transition excites me enormously. I believe that digital storytelling will reignite innovation among writers, artists, designers and publishers. New genres will emerge as a result, and debates will rage over what is/isn’t literature. It will be exciting! And there will be less silo-ing, less manipulation of markets and information, less “clubbiness” in the publishing world. This may not last forever, but even for a while these will be positive changes.

Read Nathan Bransford’s full post at The Huffington Post.

Related:

• Self-publish with Borders and Barnes & Noble
• Ryu Murakami Bypasses Publishers, Opts for iPad
• Self-publish with Apple’s iBookstore
• Publish and Distribute with CreateSpace
• Economics of Self-Publishing
• Save Yourself, Save The Industry
• Gutenberg, Meet Amazon (virtualdavis.wordpress.com)