Agents and Editors (Concarolinas 2013 Writing Panel Notes)

Hey everyone! I've been working on a few projects lately, but I am really excited to say that today's post means a lot to me, because that's exactly where my writing goals have been focused at the moment. Ahh, the terrifying thrill of sending out queries! The part I'm looking forward to this time is the lesson I had to learn the hard way: Just because one agent rejects you, doesn't mean you have to give up, go back, and fix everything. Not that I minded terribly, because in the case of the novel I'm querying, I realized that a lot of work *did* need to be done. But seriously, one rejection does not a failed manuscript make. That's a lesson that this time, I'm going to apply.

 

This panel had a slightly different focus from last year's Agents and How to Find One panel. It was also useful to have (mostly) different presenters talking about the same subject, and to get a current refresher on things. 

Agents and Editors
Carrie Ryan, Gray Rineheart, David B. Coe, A.J. Hartley
Moderator: Edmund Schubert

Agents

With the way the landscape has shifted, some are questioning why we still need agents, what’s the future? Why do you feel an agent should still be considered? What should you be looking for in an agent?

DBC: If your goal is to be traditionally published, a publisher won’t look at you as an author unless you’re represented. The fact that you have an agent gives a certain cache to the quality of your work. Also, agents can look at contracts, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, etc. One trend in traditional publishing these days that agents can help with is basket accounting: if you sell a series, the books can be accounted book by book so you see royalties book by book, or not until the entire series has earned out (basket). Separate accounting used to be the norm, but now basket accounting is. Agents are also getting into electronic publishing because they recognize their own obsolescence is looming.

AJ: Simply for management of multiple income streams, especially if you have lots of books from different publishers. Helpful to have all that stuff funneled through an agency. Agents often see themselves as author-career management. Has self-published his backlist through his agency. It helps to keep all the things together.

CR: If you go for traditional publishing, you need an agent. A lot of authors are artists and not business people. We (writers) are not the best business people, so it’s important to hire someone who can be that person. Lots of houses won’t accept unagented submissions. She has lots of author friends who didn’t have agents when they signed, who gave up rights they shouldn’t have, contracts they regret signing. Agents go beyond the power of negotiation. No agent is better than a bad agent, but the negotiating aspects of the contract, the little things they catch that have big impact are huge. Agents know this stuff and go to bat for us so we don’t have to deal with it.

DBC: Most important about an agent: when he (DBC) has a business-based dispute with his editor, his agent handles it. This keeps the author-editor relationship good. Also, it’s an artistic relationship about the content, to make the books the best they can be.


No agent is better than a bad agent: What should you be on the lookout when deciding who to sign with, and what should you be careful about?

CR: Had a friend with a question about a new agent. The new agent has no sales or anything on her site that says how that agent is better than the author. So CR suggested to her friend questions to ask the agent: What are some of your favourite books from the last year? How do you feel about certain rights? If the agent can’t answer those questions, then why are you going to pay them money if they’re in the same boats?

AJ: Some agents are not professional – copyists – not professionally-dependent on selling your stuff. Research and find what they have sold, who they work with, who they represent, which editors they routinely lunch with. A New York agent isn’t necessarily the best or only option these days, but personal communication and connection with editors still matters. It’s where stuff gets done.

DBC: His agent left her agency in New York to go to Atlanta, but that agent is conscious and goes to New York every few months still. Also, authors often switch editors, but you can stay with an agent for your entire career.

CR: It is common to switch agents. What you need at the beginning of your career isn’t necessarily the same as what you need as your career progresses.

DBC: If you switch agents every few years, you might get a reputation.

AJ: You can switch agents if you’re very successful. If you’ve a represent for being difficult to work with, you won’t be re-signed.

CR: Agents who are starting out can be  hungry, looking for submissions – so research, who was their mentor? Where did they learn to be an agent? Check Publisher’s Marketplace – $20/month, provides info agents and their deals. See if the agents are selling, and who are they selling to? Just one publisher or many? Do they represent your genre? YA and MG?

ES: Define boilerplate.

CR: Boilerplate: the starting contract that every pub house starts with that favours the publisher. Agents negotiate it down.

ES: Some represent only some genres, but not all.

AJ: Has one agent for everything, but a separate film agent.

GR: Baen still looks at unagented submissions. Has seen a lot he can compare from authors submitting on their own compared to what’s come from good agents to what comes from not-so-good agents. There is a marked qualitative difference in what comes to them. Not just that he’s met the agent and knows it will be good quality, just that he recognizes the difference. E.g. a bad agency that would send multiple query letters. He has checked Writer Beware against some agents. This is a business, and some agents don’t deserve the title because they’re not representing their clients.

AJ: Any agent who wants money from you is a dead giveaway that they’re not good.

DBC: Same if they refer you to a book doctor.

CR: Money flows to the author. Also, agents often work as editor. They went through several versions and rewrites before sending her manuscript to an editor, and that made a remarkable difference.

ES: A lot of current agents are former editors. They know the industry. (To GR): You have the most current experience for searching for an agent. How should people go about doing that?

GR: Agencies have guidelines just like publishing houses have guidelines. Some want a certain number of chapters or pages, some want an outline, some want a synopsis. READ THE GUIDELINES and conform to the guidelines. Usually an agent will look at a cover letter, synopsis, and a few chapters, and then decide if they want to see more. They’ll ask for an exclusive if they want to see more. Partials can be sent out to multiple, but the moment someone wants to see more, they get an exclusive for as much as a month or three (definitely not more than six), and then you say, “someone else is looking at it” to further requests. BAEN is interested in reducing backlog and reducing slush pile. Hasn’t yet been successful.

CR: Posted on how to research agents at Magical Words.

AJ: Has heard that agents are lazy and will use every available opportunity to reject your manuscript because that makes their life easier. Your job is to make it as hard for them as possible to say no. Even if they say send a query, ALWAYS send a sample. You need to get your work in front of their eyes. If they glance at it, there’s a better chance of them wanting to see more.

GR: They don’t reject if guidelines aren’t followed to the letter. They’re looking for a great story.

AJ: Yes, but agents are looking for any excuse to reject the book.

ES: It’s a factor of volume. After six months of rejection, he realized that agents weren’t rejecting the novel, they were rejecting the query letter. Re-sent queries even to agents he’d subbed to before (assumed they wouldn’t remember him six months or a year later, you can go back), and got a great response rate.


Audience Question: is exclusivity longer than six months a red flag?

CR: Don’t give them exclusivity longer than a month. To spend six months waiting on one agent is a long time in your career.

ES: Check Writer’s Market – no financial info, but will show who represents what. $15/mo.

GR: These are great places to start, but once you have the agent, search their website, that info should be more current than whatever is listed on the directory site.

ES: And if they don’t have a website, that’s a red flag, too.

DBC: Search for agents who represent the same kind of stuff you write. And acknowledgements of books, because authors thank their agents.


Audience Question: Is it helpful when agent hunting, to conveniently have someone else interested in the work?

CR: Can help, but it’s more important about the strength of your work. Be specific.

AJ: And sometimes the agent has difficult selling the work.

CR: And if they have difficulty selling it, they should try to work with you. That’s something to ask – what do they do if that book doesn’t sell? Will they work with next one?


Audience Question: When you supply an outline, how do you know that outline won’t be stolen?

DBC: They’re not. Sorry, nothing is interesting enough for that.

AJ: You can’t copyright an idea.

DBC: And if you give the same idea to five authors, you’ll get five different novels.


Audience Question: Are there any genres you don’t need represent for?

ES: If you’re self-publishing online or only writing short stories. Who are you looking to publish with? How are they selling your work? If an agent thinks they can make money from your work, they’ll sign with you.

CR: Harlequin is an example of a publisher who’ll publish you without agent.

AJ: And you can technically go to an agent after the publisher accepts you.

GR: BUT not all publishers are like that. BAEN will drop you if you go and get an agent. They’re negotiating with whoever initiated the relationship. To do so is taken as a bait-and-switch.

ES: But BAEN is the only pub that seems to do that.

CR: There’s an exception to every rule.


Editors

ES: So, about editors.

AJ: In all his experience, his best experience has been with acquisition/developmental editors. Gets edit memos from them. Editors definitely still edit.

CR: The copy editor goes through and finds tiny errors, keeps details consistent. Grammatical, syntax, inconsistencies, anachronisms, etc.

DBC: His copy editor comes back with copy edits and a style sheet. Terms, names, places, anything unique to book, so that typesetters can make sure that all the words are as they should be. Stylesheets are like a world bible. Invaluable.

ES: “Line editor” and “copy editor” are pretty much interchangeable.

ES: As short fiction editor: works in acquisitions, not much developmental editing, but also does copy editing.

GR: Every house is different with which editors do what and who consults with whom. BAEN books – the editor in chief makes the final decision about acquisition.

The Editor's Work is Never Done (ConCarolinas 2012 Writing Panel Notes)

Fitting for the end of the week, on this drowsy Vancouver Friday afternoon, I've got notes from last year's ConCarolinas writing panel on editors. Here's some great info to consider about the editing side of writing, and what editors are keeping an eye out for when looking at your work.

* * * 

The Editor’s Work is Never Done

Faith Hunter, Edmond Schubert, Edward McKeown, Allen Wold, Mason Lavin

Allen Wold – Writer’s workshops

Mason Lavin – Breathless Press (ebook erotica)

Faith Hunter – Written 20+ books as a writer so far under two names, but for the first time she’s just negotiated with Kalayna Price her first anthology, and they’ll be the editors of an anthology with big names. Is learning to be an editor

Ed Schubert – Edits Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show

There are different kinds of editors:
1.    Developmental – does your story make sense ? Characters? Arc? Language? Char stay true to self? The acceptance is step 1.
2.    Copyediting – do your chars eyes stay the same colour? Same name? Formatting? Spelling? Copyeditors not their job to do developmental.
3.    Line-editing.

What an editor does:

EM: Helps the writer tell the story in their voice their way. But keeps continuity, char, story. Are characters acting like real p eople, in terior logic?
AW: line editing in writer’s workshops. First draft as raw as it can be (and all first drafts are crap)  let’s people know if what they’re working on is worth working onl Litle tiny details necessary for a beginning writer to learn. Then encourages ppl to submit. Looks at finished stories, too. Will shed blood if asked.

Sometimes there are authors so big that their editing turns to crap.

The truth is, everybody needs to be edited. We all need to be edited.

You could hire a developmental editor if you want to, but the acquisitions editor might ask you to change everything again.

Order of Events:
1.    Have a polished novel.
2.    Submit to agents (conferences, slush, etc)
3.    Acceeptance by agnent
4.    Edit letter from agent (preferable)
5.    Agent submits to editors of choice (auction sometimes, but not common)
6.    Acquisitions developmental editor at pub house looks at it. Keeps track of publishing schedule.
7.    Rewrite for developmental editor.
8.    Second developmental/line editing letter. Sometimes a third happens. (Sommetimes you have to fix one problem before you can go onto the next).
9.    Line edits
10.    Copy edits

When ES buys short stories:
-    Ideally it's gone through a lot more beta readers, conferences, conventions first
-    He's looking for something close to done as possible
-    He does as much developmental and line editing as he can, simultaneously
-    Most important, he keeps in mind that the story is *the writer's* story. He’s simply in the polishing business.

AW: The best editors don’t need a lot of words to  he good editors can pinpoint in just a few words exactly what’s wrong.

ES: No one can edit themselves.

ML: Sometimes you have to work with them a lot before the story's good to go.

ES: If the problem is convoluted, there's lots more work involved, so he's more likely to reject the story.

FH: What do you have to say about editing?

EM: All of it’s solicited. Language of displomacy (tis isn’t working). Does more hand-holding. Doesn’t matter if he likes the story, looking for whether the story is well-done and valid to his anthologies.

AW: Editors should be diplomatic. Has had firsthand experience at an editor being undiplomatic.

ES: Editing is a very subjective process. Unless you get multiple editors or agents telking you you hae the same problem, take things under consideration but don’t live or die by it. A form rejection just means it’s not right for that editor on that day. Feedback is rare. 10% if that. Perosnalized rejections are awesome.

EM: Like a party – if one person says you’re drunk, slow down a bit, if two, slow a little more, if three, take the lampshade off your head and stop

ML: Encouraged to give personalized rejections. Have learned the hard way whyh editors don’t respond. It’s not a conversation. Follow guideliens.

Make sure you pay attention to submission guidelines! Follow them! Do it anyway. Whatever their reasons may be. If you give them an excuse to dump your story bc they didn’t follow the guideliens, that’s an excuse to dump them. Guidelines exist for a reason, whether you agee with them or not.

ML: Erotica has content guidelines. Pay attention to content guidelines.

ML: IF you write YA, don’t submit to adult call. If you write audlt,, don’t submit it to a YA pub.

FH: If you do something aggregious to a publisher, they’ll meet at cons. Same thing with stalkers. Editors and authors communicate. Don’t bug them if they’re chatting alone with each other. If  you’re asked for an exclusive, tell them you’ve sent 3 chapters to X, and give the name. And say, :”I’ve sent x quewries out bout I won’t send more”. If someone else wans it, say “Y has it, but I will if I hear back”.

The number of people who give you free editing is dropping. So very rare.

Are agents doing editorial work now?

FH: Dif agents do make suggestions, esp. after submitting after face to face at a con. Agents appraocehd that way often explain why the story it is less sellable. Lucienne does a lot of that.

ES: Lots of editors leaving pub houses bc of cuts. Agents with an editing background. Ackin to dev editing. Still looking for the stuff that’s close to being ready. Lots of ex-eds being agents and using their ed background to help their new work.

AW: Will throw out stuff if the first page or first lines are bad.

EM: Editors are not gods, maybe not good writers, but they’re good *readers*.


What is your process?

EM – looks for someone that is solid, has social skills, willing to be worked with – if it can’t get through your writing group, you shouldn’t be sending it out. Duty of writer is to listen to the critiques. No arguing with critiquers. Also, um, no arguing with editors. Unless you plan to be in the living room of everyone who reads to explain yourself, it needs to be fixed.

ML: Don’t argue with editors. But it can lead to discussion of “But I want to keep thjis” “Then you need to fix this or that” and better edits have come out of it.

ES: (In addition to above) Thinks: Is it good? Are they good to work with?

NG: The qualities: Good, fast, friendly – you can get away with two of them, but don’t be a pain in the ass.

ML: Don’t panic and tell them two days before the deadline that you can't make the deadline.

AW: You can ask for an extension but don’t turn it in late.

Do you have any final words?

EM: “Blessed are the flexible, for they should not be bent out of shape.”

AW: When you get an edit, you can do one of three things – do what the ask for, disregard, or find another way.

ML: Don’t take it personally. And don’t quit just because you were told no.

FH: It's a numbers game. Get the right product to the right person at the right time. Work on another piece, and if it doesn't work, try it again somewhere else

ES: Thank you.