Mood: A little, well, bitchy
Music: Bitch, Meredith Brooks
So this is the post which inspired me to create the new blog, as well as the post I've been avoiding.
I received my first rejection. It was not quite the fun and thrilling experience I anticipated.
I am not so upset that the agent rejected my query letter (very politely; he didn't feel he was the appropriate agent for my work. I smell a form response, but at least it didn't cut too deeply).
What frustrated me were the technical glitches which joined together to present my query sloppily, and therefore, I will forever have a hard time accepting that it was ME, and not my font, which sucked ass (although common sense says it was me).
So what happened?
I'd been nervous about querying agents and it was pissing me off. I wasn't nervous about being rejected, that is par for the course. I was nervous about the act of sending off the letter, which was annoying.
I don't get nervous about job interviews. I don't get nervous about the millions of dollars in revenue I manage every day in my day job. Why, then, should I get nervous about a letter? I know how to craft a letter. This was silly.
So I went on the hunt for an agent who accepted (preferred, actually) email queries. Email, because then I'd have no excuses to not send the query. I didn't need paper, or gas, or patience to stand in line to buy stamps. I just needed the internet and a pair of balls.
Obviously only literally on the former.
In all my agent research, I concluded that one thing they hate more than anything is a poorly formatted query letter. I can relate: I am the boss who has chucked resumes into the trash because they contained too many grammatical errors (not unlike this blog, I am sure, but be assured my resume is always grammatically flawless). I didn't begrudge them the desire to know a writer put effort into crafting a well formed letter.
Which is why I carefully typed my letter into Word first, and then pasted it into the email.
Which screwed up the formatting.
So I deleted the text, and retyped the letter directly into the email. I sent it. I checked the Sent folder; the message left my account looking perfectly formatted.
It arrived in his account looking like shit.
What the agent received looked like a letter typed in five different fonts by three different people, one of whom had a crack habit. I have no idea what caused it. I nearly reached out to my friends to ask if they had any tips for preventing this in the future, but then I just decided that in the future, I will be standing in line to buy stamps, making sure the car has gas, and stocking paper which cost more than the printer I'll use it in. From now on, I'll stick to agents who require/accept paper queries, because I have more control over the end product. I need to know, when I receive those rejections, that I put my best foot forward. That what the agent is not interested in is my story - not that the agent believes I am a careless idiot.
I don't want to be back in tenth grade, pining after the star quarterback, deluded into thinking he's not noticing me because we share no classes (insert the hysterical laughter of his gorgeous girlfriend here).
And that's why I'm feeling bitchy right now.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Lemony Pledge
Mood: Darkening
Music: None
A bit of housekeeping. You may or may not have noticed the music boxes on the right hand side. When I blog (or write, period) I'm usually listening to music. Whatever I'm listening to definitely impacts what I decide to write. Sometimes, I choose the music especially. Most of the time I'm just listening to X and want to say something.
Therefore, if you want to really experience the nonsense, you'll play the appropriate song for the appropriate post. Once I have four songs, I'll start deleting the oldest, so only three will appear at a time.
There. Riveting, I know.
Music: None
A bit of housekeeping. You may or may not have noticed the music boxes on the right hand side. When I blog (or write, period) I'm usually listening to music. Whatever I'm listening to definitely impacts what I decide to write. Sometimes, I choose the music especially. Most of the time I'm just listening to X and want to say something.
Therefore, if you want to really experience the nonsense, you'll play the appropriate song for the appropriate post. Once I have four songs, I'll start deleting the oldest, so only three will appear at a time.
There. Riveting, I know.
Didn't Know Much About Publishing
Mood: Cautiously Optimistic
Music: Wonderful World, Sam Cooke
I want to take a moment to break down the publishing process, so you can understand exactly what I'm up against. Forget about all those Woody Allen movies, with writers living in expensive Manhatten apartments, attending cocktail parties where editors from Random House express delightful interest in their new screenplay or book. That has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
To get published, you first need a completed manuscript (for fiction. Non fiction writers have the burden of producing a flawless proposal and somehow convincing people they can write without showing the actual writing).
Next, you have to find an agent. The idea of sending a book off to a publishing house directly is ill advised. The houses have a word for unsolicited, unagented manuscripts: slush. They hire people to speed read through such slush, which is rejected at a staggering rate. One house estimates it purchases a book from the slush pile about once a year. And then only if the Yankees are winning.
To find an agent, you have to put your book aside, and craft a query letter. This is a letter which is supposed to:
1. Persuade the agent to read past the first sentence;
2. Enthrall them with your plot;
3. Flatter them by mentioning any of the personal tidbits about them you've been able to find via cyber stalking;
4. Impress upon them your ability to write like Hemingway and sell like Rowling without dare saying you can write like Hemingway and sell like Rowling; and
5. Express how humble you are about the fact that you even bothered to waste their time by existing in the first place.
All in less than a page, please.
If you happen to get an agent to get interested in your story via the query letter, then they'll generally request a partial manuscript. This means you slop off to the Office Depot, where you purchase the most expensive paper available, invest in a replacement printer because yours smudges every fourth line, and go home and print the first three chapters of your story. These chapters are usually mailed unbound, and properly formatted.
Did I mention formatting?
Your manuscript needs to have one inch margins all around, and be set, preferably, in Times New Roman or Courier size twelve font. And be double spaced.
Did I mention the expensive paper?
If an agent reads your partial manuscript, on your fancy paper, and thinks you have something worth merit, they'll request a full manuscript. Yes, we are four hundred words into this post and we still haven't gotten to the part where they offer you representation. You could still be rejected at this point.
If the stars align and your full manuscript is well received, then the agent will offer you representation. This means that THEY now get to schlep around to publishing houses with your book, and subject themselves to rejection on your behalf. If agents seem to have just the teensy tiniest bit of a God-complex, I forgive them this fault right here. I understand being picky about which manuscripts you read, when you are the one who will be red faced in a Manhatten sky scraper after Mr. Editor tells you the book you're representing would be better purposed as bird cage liner. At least, as a writer, I get to experience rejection in the privacy of my home, with available chocolate.
There you have it: Publishing For Dummies. Dummies like me, who know this information and still fail to calculate that I likely have better odds purchasing a lottery ticket.
Music: Wonderful World, Sam Cooke
I want to take a moment to break down the publishing process, so you can understand exactly what I'm up against. Forget about all those Woody Allen movies, with writers living in expensive Manhatten apartments, attending cocktail parties where editors from Random House express delightful interest in their new screenplay or book. That has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
To get published, you first need a completed manuscript (for fiction. Non fiction writers have the burden of producing a flawless proposal and somehow convincing people they can write without showing the actual writing).
Next, you have to find an agent. The idea of sending a book off to a publishing house directly is ill advised. The houses have a word for unsolicited, unagented manuscripts: slush. They hire people to speed read through such slush, which is rejected at a staggering rate. One house estimates it purchases a book from the slush pile about once a year. And then only if the Yankees are winning.
To find an agent, you have to put your book aside, and craft a query letter. This is a letter which is supposed to:
1. Persuade the agent to read past the first sentence;
2. Enthrall them with your plot;
3. Flatter them by mentioning any of the personal tidbits about them you've been able to find via cyber stalking;
4. Impress upon them your ability to write like Hemingway and sell like Rowling without dare saying you can write like Hemingway and sell like Rowling; and
5. Express how humble you are about the fact that you even bothered to waste their time by existing in the first place.
All in less than a page, please.
If you happen to get an agent to get interested in your story via the query letter, then they'll generally request a partial manuscript. This means you slop off to the Office Depot, where you purchase the most expensive paper available, invest in a replacement printer because yours smudges every fourth line, and go home and print the first three chapters of your story. These chapters are usually mailed unbound, and properly formatted.
Did I mention formatting?
Your manuscript needs to have one inch margins all around, and be set, preferably, in Times New Roman or Courier size twelve font. And be double spaced.
Did I mention the expensive paper?
If an agent reads your partial manuscript, on your fancy paper, and thinks you have something worth merit, they'll request a full manuscript. Yes, we are four hundred words into this post and we still haven't gotten to the part where they offer you representation. You could still be rejected at this point.
If the stars align and your full manuscript is well received, then the agent will offer you representation. This means that THEY now get to schlep around to publishing houses with your book, and subject themselves to rejection on your behalf. If agents seem to have just the teensy tiniest bit of a God-complex, I forgive them this fault right here. I understand being picky about which manuscripts you read, when you are the one who will be red faced in a Manhatten sky scraper after Mr. Editor tells you the book you're representing would be better purposed as bird cage liner. At least, as a writer, I get to experience rejection in the privacy of my home, with available chocolate.
There you have it: Publishing For Dummies. Dummies like me, who know this information and still fail to calculate that I likely have better odds purchasing a lottery ticket.
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