Tag: agents

End-of-summer update

~ K ~ 4 Comments

It’s nearly the end of summer, and I haven’t blogged at all in the past 3 months.

I suppose the big news is that I am 4 months pregnant with our first child thanks to fertility treatments. (I highly recommend Shady Grove Fertility if you live in the mid-Atlantic states.) The first three months were a bit rough going as I was sick on and off, But I’m feeling much better now that I’m in my second trimester.

I submitted queries to agents for my completed novel, Getting Right with God, and was rejected by all of them. How disappointing. And after sending to an editor and having a few established writers review the opening pages of my work, I realize that I still have more work and more revision to do. I’m afraid that the book itself just isn’t marketable, but I’m not willing to self-publish. What a conundrum.

I am working on a novel idea for NaNoWriMo in which a black teenage girl from New York City relocates to the Philadelphia suburbs and attends a posh, primarily white private school. Conflict ensues!

Other than that, I’ve just been working like crazy at the library as a library assistant. I attended two book club meetings this week, which were actually quite enjoyable. We read Beauty Queens by Libba Bray for one and The Hunger Games trilogy (yes, that’s all three books) for another. On my own, I’m reading several books at once:

Quiet is the most intriguing book of all to me. I’m afraid A History of the World… is going to be rather dry reading.

I wish I had more interesting things to say. There are so many topics going on: President Obama’s second term, Syria, the Affordable Care Act, Egypt, Russia… but alas, I have no brainpower or opinions of my own on any of these things, So enjoy this brief update.

 

Steps Accomplished: Query Letter and Pitch

~ K ~ 1 Comment

If you’ve been following this blog for some time, you might know that I’ve been working on a book that I’m trying to get published. Well, last week I sent out my first query letter to an agent. I probably won’t hear anything back from her considering it was my first query letter, and I have a long way to go toward refining it, but it was a step forward in doing something that I’ve been needing—and afraid to do—for quite some time.

I’ll be going to the Writer’s Digest conference this weekend and live pitching my book to agents. Here’s the pitch that I  plan on giving them (I’m currently working on memorizing it):

Three years after her brother’s tragic death in a car accident, 16-year-old Brooklyn native Marisela feels all alone and wishes she were dead too. She is fresh off her latest suicide attempt when she meets Pastor Edwards, a smooth-talking Baptist preacher, who welcomes the Roman Catholic teen to his church family.

Marisela finally has a renewed purpose for living and begins making friends until the married youth pastor makes a sexual advance on her. When vicious rumors spread around the church about Marisela, she—already prone to low self-esteem—despairs and finds her thoughts slipping back to suicide.

Will Marisela lose the friends, and the life, that she’s worked so hard to gain?

It’s also the pitch that I plan on using in my query letters as I try to obtain an agent.

Basically, the way traditional publishing works is that as an author, I have to obtain an agent before I can try to sell my book to a publisher. (Well, I could try to sell my book to a publisher, but I’d have to get a lawyer well versed in publishing contracts to navigate that murky world for me. Agents do that for a cut of whatever I earn.) The agent then tries to sell the book to a publisher, and once the book is accepted, goes through revisions before getting published. Depending on what a publisher would pay me, agents would get a 15-20 percent cut of whatever I get.

I could self-publish but that’s not the route that I seek as I don’t have a large platform and would have to do the marketing all on my own. Traditional publishers like authors to already have their own platform, but publishers help with the marketing aspect if the author is not already established. It’s a long slog, and a tough one too, but I suppose I’m tougher than I consider myself to be. I can handle this.

If I could have my choice, I’d rather have acceptance rather than rejection from the first agent I’ve queried. But I’d rather get a rejection response than nothing at all.

Every Good Book Needs a Hook

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I’m trying to decide whether I should attend the Writer’s Digest Conference or not. I attended 2 years ago and found the information to be helpful, but I’m afraid that it will be a rehash of what I learned 2 years ago. James Scott Bell is to be the opening keynote speaker, which has me somewhat excited because I attended one of his breakout sessions, and he was a fantastic speaker, full of vivid illustrations and examples. The early bird price (before February 16) is $449 and the regular price is $499. I don’t know if I want to do the pitch slam. I can’t decide whether it’s fear or laziness holding me back. I can’t quite figure out the “hook” of my novel. Every good song needs a hook and so does every good book. I need a hook that will sell an agent on my novel. Two years ago, I tried doing my pitch and I didn’t really get any bites. There wasn’t an agent that was really excited to see a query letter or synopsis of my novel. And I want an agent that thinks, “Yeah, what a neat concept. This could work.” I just need to work on revising my query letter and synopsis. It’s also a matter of finding the time to plop my butt down in a chair and revise.

The Comfort Zone

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I don’t like to travel outside of my comfort zone. But then again, who does? A devotional I read titled Jesus Calling spoke to me on this issue on December 9:

Be willing to go out on a limb with Me. If that is where I am leading you, it is the safest place to be. Your desire to live a risk-free life is a form of unbelief. … In order to follow Me wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your tendency to play it safe.

For me, going out on a limb means pursuing publication of my finished novel. If you don’t know, here’s a basic outline of how traditional publication for novelists works:

  1. Author writes first draft of novel
  2. Author revises novel
  3. Author completes revisions of novel thereby producing a “finished product”
  4. Author queries one agent at a time for representation before a publisher
  5. One agent chooses to represent author based on submitted work
  6. Agent shops novel to different publishers for publication
  7. One publisher selects author’s work for publication
  8. Author’s work may undergo several more revisions
  9. Publisher decides to go ahead with publication
  10. Agent and author both get paid

I know I will be rejected by many agents, and who wants to wade into a sea of rejections? But sending these queries is outside of my comfort zone, a place I am all too happy to reside. I plan on getting an editor to look at manuscript on a developmental level: what works within my novel and what doesn’t in the hopes I can strengthen my novel. As I pursue publication, I’ll keep you up to date on all my rejections, partial rejections (“It’s good, but…), or possible acceptance!