Tired of the yellow meringue bridesmaid dress?

Getting an agent is often compared to getting married. Understandably. There’s the whole having to work together, believe in each other, mollycoddle the baby, teach it to walk, send it out into the world and hope it survives… but that’s way out there in the future. That’s for the girl who’s been proposed to, who’s walking up the aisle. The big question is how do you get that ideal guy to look at you across the dance floor, to wonder who you are, to show enough interest to ask you to dinner in the first place?

Well this is my story: It’s October 2010. I have a disastrous ‘Meet & Critique’ with a talented agent and return to my husband licking my wounds. ‘But I thought you said your first chapter was made of awesome!’ he says. (Except in French, with a French accent.) I shrug helplessly. Clearly I was delusional. Clearly I am clueless. He frowns, then runs into his pep talk – minor set back, her loss, a million agents rejected HP (totally not true, but anyway)… I drift away wondering if I really did believe I could make it, or if I was TRYING to believe.

And then a couple of days later something happens. I discover not one, not two, but three of my writing buds have agents/ deals! Yey for them. But now I’m feeling kind of small and lonely. My craft and ability to tell a story are in roughly the same ballpark, so how come I’m standing outside the party in the drizzle? (Admittedly, at this juncture I haven’t actually sent out any queries, which doesn’t help much.)

And while I’m standing there drenched and despondent and considering turning around and going home, I realize something. A thunder bolt moment. Think Kate Hudson outside the church in the rain, realizing her one true love is about to marry another girl, (even though he’s been in love with her like FOREVER, 'cos she’s been too blind to see she’s in love with him too. (Small aside—did you know Kate Hudson is Goldie Hawn’s daughter? Love that.)

Anyway, this is my moment, my realization. And it goes like this: You don’t have to be a genius to get a book published. I had a story that I believed was worth telling and I was going to get it out there NO MATTER WHAT. I’d done my time. I’d worked hard and tirelessly at improving my craft, and if I had to query every agent on the planet, I’d find someone who loved my story the way I loved it. (My first novel I queried about 30 agents. Got close, but ‘the call’ didn’t pan out and I put that manuscript aside.) The difference between me BEFORE and me AFTER life-changing-realization, was I’d decided this time I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I stopped questioning whether I was good enough, stopped repeating what everybody says about how hard it is to get an agent. Call me a New Age junkie if it makes you feel better, but I honestly think this made all the difference in the speed with which things happened from there.

Mid December I attend a small SCBWI conference. After participating in workshop an agent approaches me, says she likes my ideas and asks me to submit a partial of whatever I’ve got. I submit to her, and what the hell, I decide to submit to the other agent at the conference too. Ten days later I receive my first offer (yes, on a partial and on my first query!) I ask for time to finish revisions on my manuscript as I would like to discuss the full before we commit to each other. Said agent very generously agrees to wait. Meanwhile, I receive an enthusiastic request from second agent to send my full. Eeek. Hang on, almost finished! End of January the manuscript is ready to go and I send it out to both agents along with eight more queries. By early February I have a total of three offers and one of them is from an agent that is a perfect fit!

So if you want to get married i.e. agented, (mmm think I just made up a word, but I like it, let’s keep it,), my recommendation is decide NOW it will happen for you. You will do whatever it takes. And every time the doubt lurks, which inevitably it will, don’t feed it, bite it on the bum and slap it away.

Remember when you were fifteen, and there was that bossy girl in your class—chunky, big nose, thought she was IT—she still got plenty of guys, right?

Decide it . Own it. Work it baby. (Course it won’t hurt if you happen to be a literary genius.)

Bestselling Author, Claire Merle

(See what I did there? You’re smiling, right? OK, for those of you who are looking baffled, or—eeek—tutting and shaking your heads, answer the following questions: (The only answer allowed is YES.) Is my story worth telling? Have I studied the craft? Am I always striving to improve my writing? Will I send out queries? Will I nab a fab agent? Will my book be published? ‘Yes is the new No’ folks. Are you with me?)

‘The Glimpse’ can now be added to your goodreads wishlist: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12367267-the-glimpse goodreads ~ facebook ~ twitter

Disclaimer: Deciding you will be a published author does not mean reality will never bash you about again. But it will help you give it a wallop back!

P.S. I am absolutely NOT a Romantic Comedy junkie…Well, maybe just a bit… All right, all right, I admit it—I am a total Romantic Comedy junkie.

How I Met and Charmed My Agent - Agent Story # 9

When I met my agent, Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, I was drunk on crappy white wine and told her a story in which the use of the “C” word was absolutely essential.

Errrk!

Let me back up.

I met the fabulous and wise JWC at the Santa Barbara Writers conference three years ago. Or has it been four years? I can’t remember. Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’, as the song says. I want to tell you I chose to attend the Santa Barbara Conference because I’d done my research on the agents and editors who would be there, and because that conference has an excellent YA track. But the truth is I went because it was a two-hour drive from L.A., and I wanted to spend a week in Santa Barbara.

At the time, I’d written a practice young adult novel, and was about halfway through writing my “for reals this time” young adult novel. I decided to pitch this uncompleted masterpiece during the conference’s pitchfest, and deal with the consequences if anyone actually asked for the book.

The day before the pitchfest there was an agent meet and greet, one of those wonderful events that are probably an agent’s worst nightmare. It was my worst nightmare, too. I didn’t know ANYONE at the conference. I showed up at the meet and greet and tried to avoid the crazy dude who’d locked on to me the first day. I stood in a corner and sipped my white wine. I don’t normally drink white wine because it makes me silly, but red wine stains my teeth, and on the off chance that I actually spoke to a single person during the conference, I didn’t want to scare him/her away with a purple smile.

Miraculously, a group of wonderful YA writers––who will get a special thank you on the acknowledgments page of my book––invited me to join them. I made friends! I didn’t care about meeting agents at that point, I was just so relieved to have been invited into the fold. I relaxed. I had another glass of white wine. And then another. I was lots of fun at that point. And then . . .

Turns out, the writers who’d adopted poor socially awkward me knew a few of the agents already. Our group merged with an agent group. I wasn’t nervous anymore. I was drinking white wine in the hot sun and I was downright gregarious. The YA writers introduced me to JWC. We talked. Or, I should say, I talked . . . at her . . . a lot.

I had another glass of white wine.

I told the story in which the use of the “C” word was absolutely essential.

I did not feel the least bit embarrassed about this until the next day, when I had to pitch my half-finished novel, STRUCK, to JWC with a white wine hangover hammering at my brain.

But, hey, she asked me to send her the first 50, and after she read that she asked for the rest of the novel. We did some revisions together, yada yada yada. She sent the book out April of 2010. It went to auction between 4 publishing houses a month later, and has gone to auction in Germany, and sold in several other countries.

I love my agent.

I have since told her many, many more scandalous stories . . . some of them fictional.

Agent Story #9

Since I previously blogged rather ecstatically HERE about signing with Mary Kole, I thought I'd focus this Agent Story post on the query letter that set my publication journey in motion. I hadn't looked at my query since late last year when I signed with Mary, and I had no idea re-reading it would fill me with all of the same dread and anxiety it did when I originally sent it! Query Letter Stomachache is apparently not a curable condition.

That said, before you read it, I feel the need to put out a few disclaimers (which may also serve as warnings for those still in the trenches):

1) I sound completely stuffed. I was trying to be business-like and professional, and I think I succeeded, but ZERO personality shines through in this letter. Yes, Mary offered representation anyway, and I realize there's a delicate balance between personality and weirdo, but use your best judgment.

2) THROUGH TO YOU is really not a paranormal novel. At the time I was very much under the impression "science fiction" was still a dirty word in YA. A lot has changed in nine months. If I queried today I might call it "light sci-fi," a term I heard more than once at SCBWI this summer.

3) THROUGH TO YOU is also not magical realism! I realized that after I read IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma. If you want magical realism, read her book! My use of the term is further evidence of me being "sci-fi" phobic.

4) Note the previous rejection and lack of any publication credits (okay, to be fair, I did have an article published in a dog grooming magazine, but that was not relevant). Everyone gets rejected and everyone has to get their first publication somewhere. Mary offered representation because she liked THIS book.

All right, with all of that aside, I feel slightly less embarrassed posting this for the entire internet to see:

Dear Ms. Kole,

I was in touch with you last year about a previous novel, [REDACTED], at which time you encouraged me to submit other work to you in the future. I thought you might be interested in my latest YA paranormal novel, THROUGH TO YOU. It is complete at 59,000 words.

The day eighteen-year-old Camden Pike sees a ghost is the day he assumes he's finally lost it. For the last two months, he's been torturing himself over why he walked away from the car accident that killed his girlfriend, Viv. She was the last good thing in his life: helping him rebuild his identity after an injury ended his football career, and picking up the pieces when his home life shattered. With Viv at his side, his pain was manageable--she was all that mattered. He'd give anything for one glimpse of her again. But now there's a ghost...and it isn't her.

Cam quickly realizes the apparition, Nina, is not a ghost at all. She's a girl from another world--one where Cam was the one who died, and Viv is alive and well. Once he learns this, all he can focus on is getting his girlfriend back, no matter the cost. But the accident isn't the only thing different about this other world--Viv and Cam both made very different choices here that changed things between them. Nina is keeping some dangerous secrets and the window between the worlds is shrinking every day. As Cam comes to terms with who this Viv has become, he's forced to choose--stay with her, or let her go--before the window closes between them once and for all.

THROUGH TO YOU is a book that explores themes of unhealthy relationships and the power of choices within a magical realist atmosphere. Per your submissions guidelines, I have included the first ten pages below. A full manuscript is available upon request. I am currently querying other agents at this time. I appreciate you taking the time to consider my work.

Sincerely,

Emily Hainsworth

Emily Hainsworth is the author of THROUGH TO YOU, (Fall 2012 Balzer+Bray / HarperCollins), a sci-fi novel about a seventeen-year-old boy grieving for his dead girlfriend until he discovers she's still alive in a parallel reality--one where he's the one who died. For more information, visit her website.

Agent Story #8

*Oops! I totally posted this on the wrong blog, but now it's in the right spot.*

My agent story is pretty much like everyone else’s.  The only difference is the story that got me my agent, isn’t the one that’s being published.  But that is a different story.  :D 

Like many other writers when I started querying I had no idea what I was in for.  My experience with getting a publisher came from all the books I’d read growing up, television, and a biography of Nora Roberts.  Needless to say, the whole process of actually getting a book published was a bit…glossed over.

So, I went to the trusted Internet (because you know it’s always right.  :P) and did some research, which basically told me I need something called a query letter and a synopsis.

Following the instructions from said Internet I wrote a (awful) query letter and a (boring) synopsis and sent it off to a group of agents.  Of course, while I technically did everything correct, I didn’t realize not only was I not ready to query, but I didn’t even know what genre my story was!

So I went and found a crit partner, who helped me with a now trunked novel, but when I started my third manuscript, I had her tear it apart as I was writing it.  When it was finished, I had several beta readers, read through it again. 

Finally I felt like I was ready to query and sent it out.  Almost immediately (like 5 hours after the queries went out) I had requests (and this was just after Thanksgiving weekend!).

Because of this, I just knew it was just going to be a matter of time before I found an agent.  This book was going to be the one.

Then, one day, as I was researching my submission list, I happened to hear of a new agent:  

The fabulous Natalie Fischer at Sandra Dijkstra Agency (she has since moved to the Bradford Literary Agency)

Immediately I felt this buzz and I went to check her out. Everything I found out about her told me she was exactly what I was looking for, so after a while I decided to submit to her despite the no response = no policy and the hard copy partial submission.

A few weeks and an offer later, Natalie offered representation.  And I’m so glad she did.  All in all from the time I started querying my very first (very bad) manuscript until the time I signed with Natalie for my third manuscript it was a total of 8 months (exactly—I just checked my log. My very first query was sent out June 16 and Natalie offered February 16^th. O.o)

 J.A. Souders is the author of RENEGADE a YA dystopian that takes place in an underwater utopian society, coming Fall 2012 from Tor Teen.  For more information visit her blog or website.

Agent Story #7

October 2010 --- ALTERED was finished and ready to go. Except I was scared to send it out. I’d been at this thing long enough to know that sending out queries was an exciting, hopeful, stressful, crazy, sad experience and I wasn’t looking forward to going through it again.

BUT…my critique partners/writer friends said they liked it. They urged me to submit. Two of my co-workers read it. Yes! they said. We love it! Send it out!

BUT…as any writer knows, the pope could tell you your book rocked his popely hat off, and you still wouldn’t believe a word of it.

Thing is, you pour your heart and soul into something only to send it out and find out dozens of people don’t like it. Or they liked it, they didn’t love it. Or they loved it, but they already rep a book similar to it. It took a lot of angst and hand wringing to start clicking SEND on that query letter. 

I started subbing on a Monday.  I was prepared for a long wait. Everything takes forever in this business. Despite that, those first 24 hours felt like 524. But by Tuesday I had two full requests and a partial. By Wednesday, that partial turned into a full. By Thursday, four agents had fulls. By Friday I had an offer.

I couldn’t believe it. After years of submitting, it took only a week to receive an offer. That offer came from the incomparable Joanna Volpe who requested and read ALTERED in two days. She was so quick, so excited, I knew from those first few emails that I’d love to work with her.

The following week, we made it official and I got to shout the news from every available Internet rooftop. Joanna had a lot of good ideas for revisions and we tackled them right away. We went on submission two months later and had our first offer three weeks after that. After years of working toward publication, so much had changed in a matter of a few months.

So my biggest piece of advice whenever asked about writing and submissions is this: DO NOT GIVE UP. Because eventually it’ll happen. 

---

Agent Story #6

Well, there was this guy...

Actually let me backtrack, because this is a pretty unconventional agent story and it requires some backstory.

When I was in high school, I fancied I was writing the Next Great American Novel. It was about three wealthy families with intertwined lives and the careless way they moved through life and left people and things broken behind them. It's was F Scott Fitzgerald inspired (poor guy he probably rolled over in his grave a few times) and it was unfinished at the time I went to a writing conference. Since I knew nothing about the industry, I went to this writing conference and signed up to pitch agents.

It did not go well.

At all.

For a lot of reasons. I was a painfully shy teenager (I swear I made it through sophomore year of high school and uttered under 10 words). I didn't know how to pitch a book. I was overwhelmed and unprepared and overly sensitive.

I'm also relatively sure the agent I sat down with was having a really bad day.

I left the pitch appointment in tears, left the conference without going to anything else, and went home. And in a way, I quit. I decided I would write for me because I loved it, and the publishing industry--and agents--just wasn't for me. (did I already explain I was overly sensitive and more than a little melodramatic?) There were plenty of other things I loved do

Fast forward 10 years and there was this guy...

This guy specifically.

The insanely talented Brooks Sherman is a friend of mine, and he'd just moved from working for a theater company to a literary agency. And (shockingly!) he really seemed to like his agency, enough that he was hoping to somehow weasel his way from intern to assistant there.

He was also part of a writing workshop of six people who got together once every two Thursdays and critiqued each other's work. When we were Christmas shopping last year, he mentioned someone was leaving the workshop and they were looking for another member. Because he knew I dabbled in writing sometimes, he encouraged me to join.

Because I don't easily say NO (it's harder than I think it should be) I said "of course I'll do it" (and then later I tried to think of ways to back out and failed).

At this point I had abandoned my attempts at copying F Scott. I'd written fantasy, paranormal romance, urban fantasy and was currently writing thrillers. But I never let anyone read anything. I saved manuscripts in different folders on my laptop and revised them sometimes when I was inspired or bored. I wrote a lot, but then I did the equivalent of shoving that writing into a drawer and just moving on to something else.

Which meant before the first workshop meeting, I was terrified. I emailed the first twenty pages of my current thriller to the group, felt a little like I might throw up, and then I tried to forget about it.

The first meeting and even subsequent ones were nerve wracking. I hadn't had anyone look at my writing since high school for a reason. Writing is extremely personal, it's something much bigger than just words on a page. I didn't know how to talk about it or how to listen to other people talk about it. But after the first meeting, I was beyond glad that I decided to do it. Writing might be solitary when it comes to first drafts, but it takes a lot of other people to make a manuscript take shape into a book.

Brooks and the people in the workshop were able to give me two huge things I needed. 1. Insight and fresh eyes that could spot plot holes and character flaws and 2. Confidence.

Because after a few workshop sessions, Brooks sang my manuscript's praises and swore it was something he would pick out of the slush pile. I took his edits (which were INVALUABLE) and thought about rethinking my attitude towards my own writing.

But then he talked about the manuscript at FinePrint's office and one of the agents said "tell her I want to see it."

Which is how I found myself emailing Janet Reid.

From there it was a whirlwind. Janet is as amazing, knowledgeable, funny, and as all around spectacular as Brooks said--and as she appears online. (Though I didn't know anything about her online presence before I met her). She reads fast and she talks even faster. She's so charming on the phone she manages to make me feel less awkward.

So far she's made me laugh a lot. And she's only made me cry once and that was later when she told me we had an offer on my book, so good tears.

And Brooks, the guy I owe a big thank you...he is an assistant at FinePrint now, and I think he might be looking for his own projects soon.

Liz Norris briefly taught high school English and history before trading the San Diego beaches and sunshine for Manhattan's recent snowpocalyptic winter. She harbors dangerous addictions to guacamole, red velvet cupcakes, sushi, and Argo Tea, fortunately not all together. UNRAVELING is her first novel.

Agent Story #5

When I think about the first part of my journey toward publication, I often wonder if I wouldn't have rather shoved bamboo underneath my own fingernails. Because essentially this is what I did, on and off, for seven years.

I had this idealistic and completely oblivious understanding of the publishing industry. Basically, all I knew is you wrote a book, and then some stuff happened, then you got an agent, and then some stuff happened, and presto! Great American Novel! All you needed to do to snag an agent was to write this crazy thing called a query letter. No problem. I threw one together, and sent it off. But just in case things didn't go well, I made a point to tell NO ONE what I was doing.

And so began the torture. I queried a lot, and I got a lot of rejections. I spent a lot of time waiting for the mailman and refreshing my email inbox. And then I spent a lot of time feeling like this would never happen. That I was not a good enough writer. That I wasn't smart enough. That I didn't know the right people. A lot of time swearing off my writing addiction because in the end, it just wasn't worth the high.

Four books and seven years later, I still couldn't quit. The cravings hit again, and I started writing ARTICLE 5. But before I queried I did something I hadn’t done previously. I contacted a local author, who'd been written up in the paper after publishing her debut novel. I was scared to death – she was like, famous. She mentioned a few concepts I’d never heard before: beta readers, and critique partners, and national writing groups. How had I missed all of this? I hadn’t done enough research, that’s how. I’d been too scared to talk to anyone about it, that’s how. I'd been trying my best solo, but was flying blind.

She gave me some invaluable feedback on my query, and after revising I found myself in new territory. Agents were actually requesting to read my work. I'd put myself out there, changed something in my process, and in turn altered the outcome. Shocking, I know.

Here’s a bit of it. I have to say, even with the help, it’s still pretty humiliating. But this is an exercise in humility, right? (Wait…wasn’t that the blog topic? I’m confused…)

Let’s see if we can spot any major red flags.

Dear Ms. MacKenzie,

Running for her life from the Moral Militia was not exactly what Ember Miller envisioned for her senior year in high school. But then again, she also didn't think her boyfriend would send her to the reformatory for a sin-cleansing and arrest her mother. So much for trust.

ARTICLE 5 is a 150,000 word speculative young adult novel. This coming of age story takes place in a parallel time, when the government has produced a moral backlash nearly as terrorizing as the war that preceded it.

Ember is horribly betrayed when Chase Jennings returns home a soldier a year after the draft. The military has changed him; he's only a shell of the boy she once loved. Apathetically, he follows his orders to arrest Ember’s mother on an Article Five violation, and forces Ember into moral rehabilitation. But his cold exterior is just a front. Chase is hiding something that will change everything, and with the Moral Militia hot on their heels, it is only a matter of time until Ember learns the truth.

There are a couple more paragraphs, but you get the point.

150,000 words?! Holy crap! Also, it’s not speculative. I didn’t even really know what that meant at the time, but it sounded good, so hey…

Somehow, even naively broadcasting my 150,000 word count, I met Joanna. I'd never been in a culture of writers, no one besides my husband had read ARTICLE 5 (or anything I'd written), so I had no idea how to talk about my story. Joanna could talk about it. She talked about the characters like they were real people, something I thought only I did (and only in my head). She could see the world they lived in, and the struggles they endured, and the conflicts they might face in the future. And craziest of all, she liked it. Like, liked it. I didn't know what to say. The first time we spoke on the phone I probably giggled inappropriately. I may have screamed at random or even wept uncontrollably. Other parts are just sort of a black hole in my memory… I think it's probably better that way.

Thank everything holy I got a second date.

Joanna is an editing agent, and prior to signing contracts we did a lot of revisions (like the kind where you cut 60,000 words and gain fifteen pounds). It scared me at the time – would she like what I’d done? Would we part ways? When she called and offered representation I may have asked if she was lying. I’m really, really glad she wasn’t.

I will never regret working with her prior to signing with her. I learned more about my writing and myself that way. I learned how we work together. And when the time came for submission there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that she was the best person to represent me.

And for the record, I haven’t picked up a stick of bamboo since we first met.

Agent Story #4

My agent story is pretty typical, I think. I queried a lot. I got rejected a lot. Someone finally said yes.

Last year, I wrote a little about my journey to getting an agent on Apocalypsie Corinne Jackson's blog. That was a hard post to write, and involved more than a few tears, but here's the basic story.

After much trial and tribulation, I got an agent. And then we broke up. I thought it would be easy to find another agent since I'd already had one. I was wrong.

I got to know Lauren MacLeod via Twitter while I was working for another agent, and eventually did send her a query. She requested! And then rejected. Later, I sent her another query. She requested! And then rejected.

But we were still friendly on Twitter and I knew she liked my writing and ideas. I knew she was waiting for me to give her not only something she loved, but something she could sell. There's no point in taking something on unless you're confident it will sell -- I understood that.

During the time she was rejecting me, I was working on another story, then called ERIN INCARNATE, and I was hopeful it had everything she wanted from me, and more. But not exactly confident since she'd already rejected me twice. *g*

A few weeks later, Lauren -- who knew that I had an unusual sleeping schedule due to my husband's job -- was stalking my Twitter feed waiting for me to say something. She wanted to know I was awake . . . and when I posted, she immediately called me. I hadn't even had coffee yet, and she called to offer representation. I was stunned, overjoyed, and highly suspicious of this being a prank. But it wasn't!

Third time really was a charm. (Either that, or she realized I was serious about sending her books until she said yes. Regardless, it worked out.)

--

Dear Lauren,

I am seeking representation for my young adult science-fantasy, ERIN INCARNATE, complete at 80,000 words. Why no, I'm not giving up until you say yes. Because you're awesome.

When Erin was born, someone who should have been reborn was not.

For five thousand years, a million souls have been reincarnated into new bodies, retaining their minds and memories of past lifetimes. Erin is the newsoul -- nosoul, they call her -- raised in isolation. On her eighteenth birthday, she leaves her negligent mother and sets out to discover her origins, and whether she'll be reborn like everyone else.

A mysterious man named Sam offers aid. She wants to trust him, but he hides his motivations and theories about her existence.

Surrounded by people who see her as an ugly omen for the future -- what if more nosouls replace people? -- she must untangle Sam's half-truths and ward off her mother's newfound interest. The ruling Council forbade anyone to harm Erin, but someone is trying to kill her, or use her, and the only way to save herself is to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else's life.

ERIN INCARNATE is the first in a planned trilogy. ERIN ASUNDER and ERIN ETERNAL are plotted and ready to be written. In the end, Erin must decide what is more important: billions of people who never lived, or her eternal life with the man she loves.

To further my experience in the publishing industry, I read slush for the now-closed Rappaport Agency [www.rappaportagency.com]. Before that, Jenny Rappaport was briefly my agent. We parted ways on good terms.

Best wishes,

Jodi Meadows

Agent Story #3

When aspiring writers ask me how I got my agent, I know they are hoping that I'll reveal a tried and true set of rules that is going to work for them too.  But if there's anything I learned from my mini-obsession with reading agent stories, it's that the only "rule" that counts is writing an amazing, marketable book (or in my case, part of one).  That said, I can also give a piece of advice that worked for me:

“Take advantage of the networking opportunities at writing conferences.”

I met my agent, Stephen Barbara, at the SCBWI Bologna conference in March 2008, but he didn’t become my agent until nearly three years later.

Back in 2008, my husband (illustrator Daniel Jennewein) and I went to the conference because we had created a picture book together and realized we needed to learn more about the industry.  We knew we were not ready to query or pitch agents, so when I met Stephen, I stuck to asking him about his list and talking book recommendations.  It turned out we have very similar taste – high concept literary works.

Bologna 2008 lit a fire under me and I began blogging about books, mainly the YA titles I had begun to devour.  I sent off an e-mail to Stephen offering to read and review some of his clients’ books and he put me in contact with a couple of them, including Lauren Oliver, who would go on to be a big early supporter of my writing. I met Stephen a few times after that and our contact was always friendly – and never included any pitching on my part. 

Fast forward to SCBWI New York 2011.  I signed up for the Writer’s Intensive - which gave me the chance to pitch the latest Daniel/Lenore picture book to an editor and an agent.  The agent ended up loving our picture book enough to offer us representation on a project-by-project basis, but before we could think about accepting, we wanted to give Stephen a chance to look at our work.  My query* was not a query in the traditional sense – simply an explanation of the situation.

Stephen responded that he would like to throw his hat into the ring and ended up being ready to discuss an offer to rep us based on our picture books alone.  However, he had also heard that I was working on a YA novel and because he is a "whole career" agent, he wanted to see that too.

What to do? I only had 5 chapters of the YA done and no one had read them other than my critique partner.  I was incredibly nervous, but decided to send him the chapters.  A few hours later, I received a reply from Stephen. The subject line was “Holy Sh*t!” and the content of the e-mail seemed too good to be true.  Not only would be love to represent me, he needed to represent me.  I walked around in a daze until THE CALL where Stephen officially made an offer of representation.  

Stephen had me write four more chapters in the next month with a plan to submit to publishers on a partial at the end of March.  But that is another story for another day ...

*And yes, this means I got lucky and got to bypass the dreaded query letter.  So I don’t have one to share.

Agent Story #2

I’m going to nerd right the frack out here and open with an analogy about Schroedinger’s Cat. I realize how tragic this is. Were it a sport, I could nerd for my country. And I would melt face. But given the original draft of my “How I got my agent” post started with a joke about Royhypnol, I think nerdiness is the safer path to walk down.

“No response doesn’t mean no.”

See, some literary agents have established a policy by which “no reply” to your query means “no thanks, not interested”. You send off your query, wait X weeks, and if you’ve heard nothing, it’s a pass. Like it or don’t (the policy is as awesome as a straight shot to the baby-maker, imho), it’s a reality of the process. But, it gives rise to a problem, kinda like the Schroedinger’s Cat of literary circles. In a nutshell:

If you send in a query to a “No Response Means No” agent, and get no response, two possibilities exist simultaneously in space/time:

1) The agent read your query and gouged their own eyes out with a pencil declined to offer representation

2) The agent didn’t read your query at all

Shit happens on the interwebs. Firewalls, filters, wormholes that suck unwary emails to their dooms. Agents spill coffee on their hard drives, or hurl them out unsuspecting plate-glass windows after receiving queries in which the word “query” is misspelled. Point is, there’s maaaaaany ways your query might not ever arrive.

My agent was one of my “dream picks”. He was one of the first agents I queried, and I received no response. Right there, I could have written it off as a rejection, even though the Bialertron 9000 wasn’t specific about being a “NRMN” agent. But, being the stubborn, egotistical bastard that I am (“He can’t have rejected me, my book has chainsaw katanas in it ffs…”) I decided to give it one more shot. Two months after the initial query, I sent him another query via snailmail.

Two weeks later I received a full request from Matt’s 100% awesome assistant. Five days after that, I had an offer of representation. So here be the lesson, and if you learn nothing else from my spittle-soaked rantings (aside from how not to conduct yourself on the internet), please learn this:

“No response doesn’t always mean no.”

Now, to the letter itself. Writing this thing was one of the most gut-wrenching parts of the whole Agent process. It pales beside the agony of waiting to hear back on fulls, but on the Awful Spectrum I’d still place writing it somewhere between enduring Vogon poetry and a back to back screening of every Michael Bay film ever made. It is a thing crafted of tears and hatred and hour upon profanity-filled hour. But hey, it got the job done.

Without further foreplay, here it is:

Dear Mr Bialer,

Griffins were supposed to be extinct. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t let one die.

Yukiko’s hunt for a legendary beast has gone horribly wrong and now she’s stranded; a sixteen year old girl in the country’s last wilderness, with only a furious griffin with broken wings for company. Even though she can hear his thoughts, even though she saved his life, all she knows for certain is that he’d rather see her dead than help her. But trapped together in the wilderness, Yukiko and the griffin find a friendship that neither expected.

Her homeland, Shima, is on the brink of environmental collapse, flora and fauna decimated by mechanization and the toxic, Guild-controlled fuel called chi. Upon her return to civilization, Yukiko’s father is imprisoned by the Shōgun. She becomes entangled in deadly court intrigue and a blossoming romance with a young samurai. Enlisting the aid of a rebellious guildsman and an anarchist cabal, she pits herself against the authorities, facing jealousy, betrayal and murder in the hope of seeing her father freed, her homeland saved and the griffin fly again.

STORMDANCER is an 80,000 word steampunk fantasy novel. It’s ‘Free Willy’ meets ‘How to train your dragon’ in dystopian feudal Japan with a Rage Against the Machine soundtrack.

My first 50 pages are enclosed. Unfortunately I was unable to include a SASE – I live in Australia and our postal system is run by muppets. I apologize for the inconvenience this will surely cause. Hopefully one day my great sun burnt country will enjoy a postal system not reliant on horse and carriage or koala bears. I hear rumor that we’re getting running water installed next year, which I’m quite looking forward to.

If you could respond to me by email, I’d be very grateful. Thanks for your time.

Sincerely

Jay Kristoff
blah blah

Agent Story #1

Welcome to our regular Monday Feature of Agent Stories! When I was querying I always loved reading stories about how published authors got their agent, and better yet, reading actual query letters that snagged agents! There’s so much (sometimes conflicting) advice about how to get a good agent, I always appreciated just seeing query letters that had actually hit pay dirt. So for our regular Monday Agent Stories feature, our fabulous 2012 debutees will share some about their path, and occasionally, the actual magic letter itself ;) 

I started writing seriously when my son was an infant, about six years ago (eep, has it really been that long???). I hadn’t really written anything fiction since a few dabblings when I was a kid, like Jr. High. So I had a long way to go, from figuring out dialogue, to how to write a scene, to how to plot a novel. And I tended to do things the hard way, just jumping in pants first instead of doing responsible things like reading books about it or seeking advice. And some of that’s just necessary. Natalie Goldberg, my regular muse, suggests that beginning writers should spend two solid years doing ONLY writing practice—she says the only way to learn how to write… is to write. A lot. Hundreds, thousands of pages that will never see the published light of day but are necessary to learning how to write.

Ugh, isn’t that just horrible?! And what’s worse is she’s right! But it’s probably better I didn’t know in the beginning that it would take me years to produce a marketable book! I always say being a writer is an equal parts mixture of ego and crippling self-doubt. We all deep down have to believe that we are super special and we can be the one to Make It and Get A Book Deal!

But each rejection, how it burns. It either makes you 1) quit, or 2) dig your heels in and say “I’ll show you next time with my next book!” Which is what I did, again and again and again! I got so many rejections it would blow your mind. I wrote short stories and got rejected from literary magazines. I wrote novels and got rejections numbering literally in the hundreds between the three novels. I applied to MFA programs and got rejected from all of those!!! Oh rejection, it stings.

But then, sometimes if you dig in, learn as much as you can as you go, and be open to critique, the magic can happen. Glitch is the third book I’ve written all the way through and queried, and each manuscript along the way was a necessary (if grueling) step on the path to becoming a better writer.

Here’s my query letter, I went through a ton of drafts, it was constantly changing, but it got me a lot of immediate attention and requests for fulls and partials. And eventually, Charlie Olsen wrote saying he wanted to talk to me on the phone. The call! The magical sparkly unicorn sprinkles CALL that I’d read about forever. I still remember exactly where I was sitting in the coffee shop when I got that email. So then we talked on the phone, he had me do several rounds of revision, and a couple months later, offered representation.

Dear Mr. Olsen,

I read an ARC of Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade and saw on her website that you represent her. I think you might like The Beautiful Anomaly [the name changed later to Glitch], my 78,000-word romantic dystopia targeted to the young adult market. This novel imagines a future in which world peace is finally achieved, but at a terrible price—by enslaving most of the global population through emotion-deadening bionic hardware.

               

All Community subjects in Underground Sector 6, including seventeen-year-old Zoe Gray, believe what the archive texts say about their world—that two centuries ago, mankind paid for its sinful appetites when the fire of a thousand nuclear weapons destroyed the surface of the earth. It’s only when Zoe’s internal hardware glitches, freeing her from the mind-control of the Link for brief periods of time, that she realizes everything she believes might be a lie. At first Zoe thinks the glitching is related to the other anomalous thing she can do—her telekinesis—but she soon finds others at the Academy who also have extraordinary powers. Max has just begun glitching too. He can shape-shift to look like anyone he wants, and he’s overwhelmed with the discovery of pleasure and power. Adrian, on the other hand, has lived life on the outside. He’s come to the Academy to recruit Zoe because he’s had visions of her as the future leader of the Resistance. The dynamics of her relationships with each of the boys push Zoe to discover who she is apart from Link-control and who she wants to be. When all three are captured, it is up to Zoe to untangle the web of lies, embrace her destiny as a leader, and use her ever-growing powers to save the ones she has just learned how to love.

I’m a member of SCBWI, and my writing has been published and/or is forthcoming in Gargoyle, Blue Earth Review and Permafrost Journal. I am specializing in Children’s Literature for my Master’s in Literature at Texas State University. A chapter discussing Twilight has also been accepted into a forthcoming critical anthology. I look forward to discussing The Beautiful Anomaly with you in more depth. The first ten pages are included in the text below.

Sincerely,

Heather Anastasiu