quote:

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If you are going to get an agent, they need to be based in the NYC area. Again some will disagree, but most major publisher are in new york and a good part of an agents time is spent at functions, lunches, and getting drinks with editors at publishers. thats just how its down. Agents in NYC are able to cultivate very good relationships with publishers to give them an edge over non NYC agents. And trust me, its a big edge.

And speaking of agents, do your homework first. Make sure they actually take the type of work you are offering

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this is all very good news. it matches up with my current situation very nicely. Just have to find the time to get all my re-writes done, which has been very challenging lately.

[This message has been edited by AggieOO (edited 7/12/2012 8:58a).]

a few updates:

Two blogs worth checking out are

First is Nathan Bransford
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/ He is an agent turned author and has a great FAQ section and guides to nearly every step of the process.

The second is Janet Reid
http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/
http://queryshark.blogspot.com/
http://www.jetreidliterary.com/home.html
She answer questions and posts about various topics regarding queries, common mistakes, etc. She also runs the blog Query Shark. You submit your query letter to her and she basically tears it apart on the blog for all to see. It may seem harsh, but the end result is a much stronger query letter for you. On her main website she (like most agents) outlines what she specifically wants when you query her as well as the types of projects shes looking for. Its vital that you pay attention to these things because they will get you tossed pretty quickly

Next there is there is query tracker.
http://querytracker.net/
Its pretty straight forward. It allows you to keep track of who you have queried and their response if any. There are also some pretty active forums that people use to find critique partners or to refine their query letter


Finally, if you are near a Barnes and Noble pick up the latest issue of Poets and Writers Magazine (my wife's agent is on the cover )

There's a great article on an agency and the daily life of an agent. Its amazing how little time an agent will spend on your query (around 45 second at most). The article is a great read and helps explain why things like query letters are so important

yeah, i have to admit that i have gotten really lucky in this process. i knew my friend through the running community in NYC long before i ever found out that she was a book agent. It just happens that part of her specialty is the subject/topic i'm writing on. When i originally asked her for advice, she told me to send over my proposal and sample chapter, but i'm sure she did it just to be nice. From the response I got, it sounded like she was quite surprised that she thought the book might have a chance.

i have no doubt that there's a good chance that if I didn't know her personally and had to submit a query letter, I wouldn't even have made it this far in the process.

I have to assume that once you get something published, its easier the second time around (assuming you have a good product). I have a few ideas in the pipeline, but the others are in early, early stages.

Here's an excerpt from the piece that I'm currently writing. My hopes is to have it finished really soon.

quote:

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I woke up sitting in a cold, metal chair. My head was throbbing and vision was blurred from the nasty lick I took to the back of the head. The faint taste of blood surrounded my taste buds - I must have split my lower lip when I face-planted onto the ground, causing blood to pool in my mouth. My hands were cuffed behind my back and in between the arms of the chair, making it near impossible to get up and make a run for it. Not that I could run - my equilibrium was so screwed up, I would probably trip over myself. What made matters worse was that my clothes were stripped off. I was naked.

There was a GRIPR loose in the cellar and it was hunting me. I couldn’t see anything in the pitch black darkness, but could hear a chain clinking on the floor in front of me, which was slowly getting closer. The noise came to a sudden standstill in front of my chair. I now could feel the sensation of its warm breath on my neck, which sent chills down my spine....

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[This message has been edited by Morpholino (edited 7/12/2012 11:05a).]

quote:

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Alias, are you writing a post-apocalypse story? Looks cool.

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Basically. It's a game where the setting is several hundred years after the planet became a hub of interdimensional activity, which collapsed society and ushered in a Dark Age. The crux of the game is that human civilization is just starting to recover and scientists have reverse-engineered a way to close these breaches in Space-Time, which could eventually mean reclaiming the planet.

Not that it's a far-out concept or anything.

Incidentally, I'm researching printers and it's intimidating as hell. My freaking gotta-have-it-perfect OCD makes publishing PDFs on my own pretty taxing. Prepping a book for printing is going to be hard to let go of.

Just thought of another tip for those going the publisher route.

When looking for an agent, follow them on twitter. Under no circumstance should you tweet them about your book or really anything at all, just follow. 9 times out of 10 the agent will tweet about things that will give you clues about they like and dont like in an MS or query letter. They can be very helpful in determining if that agent is right for you.

nai,

Thanks for the twitter recommendations. I'm not currently a twitter member, but will go ahead and sign up now.

Any agents that you recommend off the top of your head?

not really, but only because its very specific to each genre. For example:

Michelle Brown
http://foliolit.com/michelle-brower/#

she has a section at the end of her bio that says what she is looking for, and more importantly what she is not accepting. If your MS is something shes not accepting, dont send it. All it does is piss people off and could hurt you down the road if you want to submit something different to that agent.

your best bet is to google "(your genre) literary agent" most often it will pull up a bunch of agencies.

Also check AgentQuery they have a lot of lists of agents

Thanks!

I do know that theres a pretty big demand for classic sci fi/fantasy right now but dystopian futuristic is a little flat and starting to tail off. With the success of the Hunger Games, the market has been flooded with dystopian both YA and Adult. Contemporary YA is also seeing an uptick while vampire/paranormal YA is on the down swing

Sorry I haven't been able to keep up with this much. Been out of town and hella busy at work.

Thanks for all the great links, nai06. I added them to the OP.

Also big time shoutout to the guys sharing excerpts. Keep 'em coming!

also just a tiny pet peeve of mine that I thought I should share. Dont ever call yourself an aspiring writer. If you are writing anything, you're a writer. Dont sell yourself short. Taking that first step of writing anything down is huge and shouldnt be downplayed. Becoming a published author might be your goal, but you are always a writer.

@nai,

Can you share your wife's book info? I would like to buy (yes buy... I feel like a tool now) it and help support an Ag (Ag wife at least).

well its not available just yet. It should hit shelves within a year but theres still a lot of work to be done. I am working on getting some advanced reader copies to give away on texags if its ok with brandon.

And honestly do take what I said personally. I still think you are a heck of a poster. I was as guilty as anyone when it came to mp3s and illegal downloading. About 6 years ago I just stopped downloading music and started buying it. I think one of the real issues with illegal downloads is the fact that it appears to be a faceless act. I mean no one here would ever download something that was by a person they knew. I got a little out of hand on that thread and honestly just needed to take a step back. As far as my wife and I go, we have our first advance already and will get another one when the book hits shelves. If the book doesnt sell well, we dont have to return any money, but we wont make any more and future deals could in turn be worth less. So, its a touchy subject for me.


The thing I fear the most is what the culture could do to the book industry. A lot of people think that it will fall in line like and reduce prices like MP3s did. I think it could actually go the opposite way. Even now there is a lot of DRM protected ebooks out there as well as the technology to make ebooks expire after a certain time period(currently reserved for library ebooks). Even library ebooks have an expiration on them. After a certain amount of checkouts they expire. And most concerning is what recently happened at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Draftcb (ad agency) won a gold medal for creating a disappearing book. Once opened, the ink begins to fade until after two months all of the pages are blank. Let me make that clear. You can now have DRM type protection on a book. Im afraid that the major publishing companies could push back pretty hard and that would be bad for everyone.


EDIT: and please dont feel like a tool. that wasnt my intention.


[This message has been edited by nai06 (edited 7/19/2012 1:31p).]

So I know I've neglected this thread for a while, but I thought this was something good to bring it back on.

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Yes, it’s true! We are delighted to announce an exciting joint venture that will offer talented aspiring writers the chance to join our global science fiction and fantasy imprint.

The submission portal, www.harpervoyagersubmissions.com, will be open from the 1st to the 14th of October 2012. The manuscripts will then be read and those most suited to the global Harper Voyager list will be selected jointly by editors in the USA, UK and Australia. Accepted submissions will benefit from the full publishing process: accepted manuscripts will be edited; and the finished titles will receive online marketing and sales support in World English markets.

Voyager will be seeking an array of adult and young adult speculative fiction for digital publication, but particularly novels written in the epic fantasy, science fiction, urban fantasy, horror, dystopia and supernatural genres. Submission guidelines and key information can be found at harpervoyagersubmissions.

The submissions and digital publications are a joint, global effort by Harper Voyager, spearheaded by Deputy Publishing Director Emma Coode in the United Kingdom, Associate Publisher Deonie Fiford in Australia, and Executive Editor Diana Gill in the United States. The three editors note that: “No other publishing company has done a coordinated submission period for unagented authors across three continents, and all of us at Harper Voyager and at HarperCollins Publishers are absolutely thrilled to be launching this huge opportunity. We look forward to discovering and digitally publishing many new exciting voices globally at Harper Voyager.”

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[This message has been edited by bluefire579 (edited 9/13/2012 1:16p).]

Thanks, bluefire!

That gives me motivation to finish up my book and try to submit it to the link you provided.

interesting. So it looks like this will be digital only with no print.

sidenote: the Texas Book Festival is coming in october. There will be a lot of authors and events going on.

http://www.texasbookfestival.org/index.php

thought some of you might be interested. An agent was recently attacked after she rejected someones manuscript

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-literary-agent-assault-twitter-20120914,0,7168502.story

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Draftcb (ad agency) won a gold medal for creating a disappearing book. Once opened, the ink begins to fade until after two months all of the pages are blank.

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That is insane.

more publishing news. Penguin is suing a number of authors for past advances on books they failed to deliver.


www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/penguin-group/book-publisher-sues-over-advances-657390?fb_comment_id=fbc_445902715453232_4916007_445921428784694#f38d32ebf35394c

This post has been inactive for a while, but I figure I will try to bring it back.

I just finished a 93,000 word novel and I am at the agent stage. I have been reaching out to my colleagues, but it turns out my circle of contacts do not know any agents, much less New York agents.

I have searched to see if there are any Aggie agents but the only one I found was class of ’54 and is now retired.

Here is a link to a sample chapter from my YA Epic Fantasy:
http://www.mcnobles.com/Sample_Chapter_Archangel_Origins.pdf

In this chapter, there is a battle sequence and one of the most intense scenes in the book. If you like what you read and you think you can get me pointed to an honest agent, I would appreciate it.

Where are you located? I have always assumed that for my first book that I shop to publishers, I would strive to find a local agent. I know there are a number in Dallas. It's not NY, but having someone more available might be more helpful, or at least such has been my assumption.

I'm in Houston and there is one listed agent, but they have not had any sales to even mid sized publishers.

There are one or two in Austin, but they handle nonfiction. I have not checked into Dallas.

I agree with the other poster that the most successful agents are New Yorkers, they have a competitive advantage due to location.

I might suggest against a local agent. There really isnt anything that an out of town agent cant do that a local can. What a local agent cannot do is meet face to face with editors of a publisher. On top of that most of the texas based agencies are strictly religious based work.

And unless you are already a famous or a household name, publishers dont accept unrepresented/unsolicited work.

Its ok if you dont know any NYC agents, most people dont. What you need to work on is your query letter. Thats what you will send to an agent to get them to represent you. I posted a few links earlier that I suggest checking out. The query letter is really important because its your pitch and your only real shot at impressing an agent. Agents arent going to read a chapter or 50 pages from your book. They will read your query letter. On average, an agent will spend 45 seconds to 1 minute reading your query and decide whether or not they want to read more. Your query letter is that important.


So right now a query letter is your next step

Thread noted.

I'm trying the link one more time.


http://www.mcnobles.com/Sample_Chapter_Archangel_Origins.pdf

If you read it please post what you thought about it.

[This message has been edited by Nobleone (edited 2/26/2013 10:37a).]

Alright, shameless self-promotion time. I had a novel I completed a couple of years ago for NaNoWriMo and I've been tweaking it ever since. I didn't find it original or current enough (the zombie entertainment market is so oversaturated) to try to get it sold, so I went ahead and threw it up on Amazon myself along with my other stories.

You can find The Plague in my catalog, where I also made all my previous works free for the next couple of days. So, even if you do not wish to spend a few bucks on a self-published novel (understandable, believe me), there are a few short stories you can pick up for your amusement.



It's been five years since the plague struck and humanity hangs by a thread. Infected outnumber the healthy a thousand to one, driving the survivors into hiding wherever shelter can be found.

Now what remains of the military is putting to action a desperate plan, a bombing of the mainland to wipe out the infected in an attempt to start over, and the only hope for the pockets of survivors scattered throughout the land is to make their way to the coast.

Lane Dollard is one of those survivors, and the road to the coast will not be easy. Many dangers lie between his colony and salvation that lies just off the Texas coast, both in the form of infected and his fellow survivors, who may or may not be able to be trusted.

In the midst of catastrophe, only the strongest are able to survive, and The Plague is a story of those with the fortitude to last through the worst of disasters.

bluefire, i don't have a kindle, but I purchased "The Plague" from Amazon and sent it as a gift to my Mom for her birthday. Congratulations on having several of your works good to go!

If I can jump on the self-promotion band wagon, my dad just finished a novel and I'm very proud of him. Please check it out (and you can even buy one!) He is a wonderful dad to three Aggie children and five future Aggie grandchildren.

It's a murder mystery based in Texas in a real town named Climax. My daughter has a shout out in the book.

http://www.thecottonwidow.com

Awesome, thanks for the support Morpholino!

kjb, added the link to your father's book to the second post. Thanks for sharing!

Just finished the first draft of a suspense novel I'd been working on in my free time. If anyone is curious to check it out, I made a Facebook page for it that I'll be keeping updated when i'm done with the editing phase and ready to e-publish it.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lohmans-Crossing/135293139975307?fref=ts

Summary: When a pair of teenage outcasts marked by childhood tragedies find an artifact with the power to reshape their world, one embraces that power toward his own sense of justice while the other comes to fear for everyone he loves.

If any of you other e-publishers has any advice or experiences you'd like to share, I'd like to hear it. Hope everyone on here has been finding the success they're looking for.

FYI There are excellent literary agents in the Dallas area who routinely work with New York publishers. One is Jim Donovan of Jim Donovan Literary--he's also an author (recent Alamo history and Battle of Little Big Horn history). He represents history, nonfiction reference, genre fiction, biography and more.

Suzanne Miller has high-profile self-help authors.

David Hale Smith does a little of everything.

If you're looking for an agent and don't have any contacts, then look for the Acknowledgment section of a book you enjoyed. Chances are, the author gives a thanks to the agent and that gives you an idea of what he/she represents.

(I'm an Aggie who's worked in nonfiction publishing for *ack!* 25 years.)

Do what you love first . . .

ttt

doing some writing tonight and remembered this thread. how's everyone doing?