How to Get Published by Referral or Direct Hit with Literary Agents and Editors. Wicked Witch of Publishing Fluffs Up for Media Bistro Galley Cat Book Industry Party.
If you are sitting holed up in a dark corner working on the magnum opus that will rock the literary word and catapult you into the stratosphere of book publishing, but are lamenting your pitiful inability to get a literary agent or editor to appreciate your genius, and you think there is nothing wrong with your query letter, synopsis and sample chapter, then shelve The Writer Magazine, shut down your computer and step out into the sunshine and start networking your way to a literary agent or editor.
Meet One New Person A Week
One of the biggest mistakes I made when working as a young director of sales and then a group publisher of developmental product at A/S/M Corporation (former publishers of AdWeek magazine) was that I spent too much time on the actual business of publishing and not enough time on the business of lunch. “Lunch” should be a 24/7 event. Lunch means getting out, being seen and elbowing your way around the publishing industry whenever and wherever you can: front door, side door, back door.
You don’t have to know someone to weasel your way into a literary agent’s office or the chair opposite an editor’s desk. It helps a lot, but it isn’t 100% necessary. You can score a direct hit yourself simply by positioning yourself cleverly.
- March into your local library. Let them know you are a local writer who has completed a book if the librarian doesn’t know you already. Tell the librarian that you’d like to meet other local authors and ask if he/she can help you. Three weeks ago I met Tom Clavin in the Montauk Library where he was promoting his book, Dark Noon, the true story of the tourist-laden fishing vessel, the Pelican, which capsized in a terrible squall off Montauk Point in the early 1950’s. Clavin is the author of six books, and for fourteen years covered sports, business, and entertainment for The New York Times and other publications. He is a six-time winner of the award for best magazine article of the year from the Society of Professional Journalists. I made sure I knew all this before I even got to the Montauk Library. What I didn’t know was that Pelican had out-sold the last Harry Potter book (okay, at Barnacle Books in Montauk, but still…) and that his next book, Halsey’s Typhoon, was already signed, sealed and delivered to Morgan Entrekin, the head of Grove/Atlantic Press, publisher of Cold Mountain, Sex and the City, and Black Hawk Down. (Grove/Atlantic Press is a very big deal, by the way.) I sidled on up to Clavin at the end of his fascinating talk, flashed a big smile, passed him The Publishing Contrarian business card and invited him to drop by my blog and leave a comment.
Mr. Clavin (whoops, now Tom) called me about my blog and left a message. I returned the call and left a message. (The plot thickens. More later.)
- Hit the nearest independent bookstore. You’ve got a friend in a local “handseller.” Buy books, for heaven’s sake, at their stores and quit carrying on about the discount and free shipping on the Internet. Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor, which is an old whaling town just down the road from East Hampton, has one event after another. Maryann Caldendrille runs workshops for writers, and the bookstore is a magnet for local talent. Look what’s going on at Canio’s next week!
- Sat. Aug. 12, 6 p.m. Novelist Sandra Scoppettone reads from her latest murder mystery featuring detective Faye Quick, Too Darn Hot.
- Friday, Aug. 18, 6 p.m. Protest poetry featuring George Held reading from W is for War; local poets read from Here, Bullet by Brian Turner.
- Saturday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m. Poet Wendy Salinger reads from her memoir, Listen.
- Friday, Aug. 25, 6 p.m. Musician/scholar Steve Sanfilipo performs sea chanties and discusses their literary sources.
Who has time to write? Check out your own independent bookstore and participate enthusiastically. If you don’t know anybody or “the right person” in publishing, it’s your own fault.
- Big City Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders. You love to hate them, but they’ve got grinding, efficient publicity and promo machines in place to promote big-name authors on tour for Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, St. Martin’s Press and other big publishing companies. Big-name authors have big-name friends who will be in the audience. Big-name literary agents may also be in that same audience sitting next to YOU. (Hey, they are doing what I’m telling you to do!) Familiarize yourself with the book and the author’s credentials. You’ll find all the info you need on the Internet, including flap copy and comments on Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com so you can ask a smart question! Don’t just arrive, sit down, and then leave immediately after the Q&A period. Bring business cards! You have them, don’t you? Talk to the people on your left and right. Commiserate, if nothing else, with other unpublished or first-time published authors in the mix. Take names and numbers. Hang around. Cultivate people who want to cultivate you.
Back to Tom Clavin!
This past Sunday, yours truly, leopard bikini-clad and sporting a bad case of Sunday morning pillow-hair, could be found reading The New York Times, digging her toes in the sand and chatting amiably with the dog walkers and early beach goers at 8:30 a.m. on Atlantic Beach in Amagansett, just one town east of East Hampton. (Jerry Seinfeld was spotted strolling along the beach!) Not only was I perfecting my stunning tan, but I was potentially networking. By noon, however, I was in a cerulean-blue, one-piece bathing suit, hair tamed, and relocated to Louse Point on the bay for the East End Classic Boat Society picnic. Brazen marketer that I am, the night before going to the beach and the picnic I telephoned Tom Clavin. I invited Tom to join some friends of mine and me at the picnic. I thought wooden boats? Pelican? A good excuse to get to know him better and a fun event to attend as well. Guess what? Tom said…yes! Such a charming guy.
One of the members of the East End Classic Boat Society was wandering around the picnic table with the third edition of VOX in hand. VOX is a new, hot, hot, hot, perfect-bound, 4/c, magazine filled with smart articles about life in The Hamptons. There is no competition for this beautiful publication. The photos are smashing. The writing is excellent. Did I know that Tom Clavin had written for VOX? No. Did I know that Katy Gurley, also at the picnic on my blanket, had written for VOX? Yes. Did I know Katy had discovered Managing Editor Susan M. Galardi was at the picnic on one of the wooden boats sailing around Accabonac Harbor? No. Of course, we all introduced each other while eating the cherries (pre-washed, I was assured) that Tom had contributed to the picnic table. We talked of local authors, lousy contracts, where to rub elbows, book tours, the annual East Hampton artists and writers softball game. (I’ll be wriggling my tush into front row bleachers for that event. Move over, Fatso.)
- Stop working in isolation. Get up. Get out. I don’t care if you are living in the Unibomber’s old cabin and your Kohler bathroom is an outhouse, you need to market yourself in order to market your book. Inertia is the bane of a writer’s existence. Whining and cursing the fates that you can’t get published and howling about the unfairness of it all because you don’t know the publishing industry from the inside won’t get you published. Taking action will. Meet one new industry person a week, in person. Read industry blogs. Make contact. Keep in touch. (I feel like I know bloggers Michael Allen of Grumpy Old Bookman, Frank Wilson of Books Inq and Maxine L. Clark of Petrona even though I’ve never met them in person.
The one thing I am sure I don’t have to tell you is that great writing alone doesn’t get you published!
Cultivate people. It’s almost September. Things start happening in the fall in publishing, but August is the time to get ready. Update your submission package. Make a list of events you plan to attend. Erase some of those lines you put through old contacts in your address book and make room for some new ones.
How many new people did you get to know last week? What serendipitous event led you to meet someone in publishing? What’s the plan for the next six months?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: On Wednesday, I will be back in New York City at the Media Bistro Galley Cat mixer for publishing professionals at Me Bar. (Didn’t RSVP? Too late! What did I tell you?) New York City this time of year is a 3-4 hour drive in horrendous traffic from East Hampton. I don’t care. I’m looking forward to clinking wine glasses with Ron Hogan and meeting his fellow Galley Cat editor, Sarah Weinman. I hear M. J. Rose of Buzz Balls & Hype will be there, too. I’m also going to say hi, in person, at last, to Carl Lennertz, VP Marketing for the HarperCollins imprint, and fellow blogger at The Publishing Insider. How do I know he’ll be there? Because I invited him and he quickly RSVPed to Galley Cat! I also emailed Miss Snark, the mystery literary agent. No response yet, but I’m hoping she’ll give me a sign (wink, wink) if she’s there, too.
August 8th, 2006 at 11:42 am
[…] Then head over to Lynne Scanlon’s a/k/a The Wicked Witch of Publishing blog and read — nay, study — what she writes about book publishing, networking, and why you should get off your ass more often. Her advice is dead-on. Why do I know this? Well, it worked for me. Case in point: it’s how I hooked up with my literary agent. […]
August 8th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Who knew a bing cherry klatch with your own kind would materialize at a picnic at the East End Classic Boat Show Society? (Not that I belong to the society; I was merely a guest of the Wicked Witch who—me, not her—elbowed her way into a glorious sail around Louse Point beach, the beach of my childhood. But I digress.) The point is you don’t necessarily have to hang around publishing circles, you can meet writers and editors and publishers at any gathering. Personally, I hate the term networking–it sounds so clinical–but getting your grumpy self out from behind the screen (computer or otherwise) and getting out is not only good for contacts, you can actually have some fun. Great column, WW!
August 8th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Oh sob! I will be missing the party of the year. I am distraught at the fact I will be passing up on meeting both Sarah
Weinman and you, Lynne.
Maybe next time — lunch, definitely!
August 8th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
[…] The Publishing Contrarian – Discussions about Dramatic Change in the Business and Operation of Publishing […]
August 8th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Tom’s Uncle Cliff was an old mentor of mine when I was in Boston. Indeed, this is all good stuff that I suspect many/most writers loathe, but t’is true that “doing lunch” in one form or another is the only way to win friends and influence the beautiful people. Her Wickedness as always gives good advice. I’m glad I can relax, sit back and say, as the old Chinese man was fond of noting, “Perhaps.”
August 9th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Great timing, Lynne. I’ve just about depleted my summer reading list and was putting together my list for Amazon.
Duly chastised, I will take my lazy self to the independent bookstore in town.
This posting is definitely a reality check for writers. Even though I cringe at the time involved with networking, I know it is just as important as slaving over the manuscript.
Thanks for the push!
August 9th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
My cabin never belonged to the Unabomber, but my Kohler bathroom is, in fact, an outhouse. And I’ll be the first to admit that mornings spent in the woods, perched over a dung-filled pit with a soggy copy of Harper’s in my hands makes the thought of networking intrusive, to say the least. I’m writing more than I have in a couple of years, but I’ve also got four appointments I’ve been meaning to make, and they’ve been on my list for weeks.
I’ll make some calls.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Rigel! Great to hear from you. Your comment made me laugh out loud! You and Tom Clavin should chat. Your books are of the same genre! Network. Do it!
August 9th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
THANK YOU, Lynne, for your point about independent bookstores! We try to support local authors any way we can, yet many authors seem completely oblivious to the reality of our situation. I can’t tell you the number of times an author has sent me a poster to advertise his/her signing AND PUT “AVAILABLE AT AMAZON” AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FREAKIN’ POSTER!!! (Okay, I’m a little calmer now.) I know I can’t wish Amazon away, and I know authors have to market to them as well. But when you’re marketing to your local indie, be aware of some of our issues and don’t ask us to advertise our competition. (And, if you have a Web site, why not include a link to BookSense.com, along with the Amazon link? It may not net you many orders, but it does show you’re a friend of indies, and we like to help our friends.)
Indies may not have the muscle of the big guys, but one thing that we can bring to the table is that indies create word-of-mouth buzz far more effectively than the chains. If you don’t believe me, just ask author Sara Gruen, whose wonderful novel “Water for Elephants” is now on the New York Times list, thanks at least in part to the fact that every independent bookseller that read it pre-pub immediately got hot with Handselling Fever. I doubt it registered a blip on the big guys’ radar, but it was the talk of BEA.
Frazer
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hi, Frazer. I was hoping you would check in. Good insight and good advice, as usual!
August 9th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
WW: How can I maintain my solitary writing trance when you’re always plucking at my tarp? Next you’ll be pressure-spraying my Reynolds-Wrapped windows with Morse Code demands that I attend–Ugh!–
writers’ conferences! I was actually weakening on that account until they moved our region’s annual July desperate-writers’ conclave from its idyllic venue on the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Airport Marriott. No editor interview is worth that.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: The Strait of Juan De Fuca (somewhere off the state of Washington?) is supposed to have near-tropical weather. No wonder you toyed with the idea of going. Alas, a Marriott at the airport is a Marriott at the airport. Still there’s ordering up a shrimp cocktail delivered to the room upon arrival. (Don’t tell Kenneth Fadner, former President of AdWeek and now Chairman of Mediapost.com! That’s what I used to do on my treks to their various offices to check on my ad sales team. Another Marriott, another shrimp cocktail!) Go to the conference. Find out who the attendees are in advance, if you can, so you can target people of particular interest to you living or working in your area. If there are any exhibitors, visit all their booths and chat, chat, chat. Have your pockets stuffed with your business cards. Exchange cards with others like crazy. Write the date and conference on their cards. Keep in touch when you have something of interest or value to tell them—perhaps a comment on a blog or in a trade publication that they might have missed, for example. PS I do own a power-washer. Look out!
August 10th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Lynne:
Thanks for your kind words about me and my book, “Dark Noon.” Sorry I missed out on the leopard-skin bikini.
Looking forward to seeing you Saturday at “Novel Night,” the huge fundraiser for the East Hampton Library, featuring oodles of writers, editors, and agents.
Tom Clavin
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Yes, that bikini is a show-stopper, particularly when I am trying to get out of the ocean at Georgica Beach! Thanks for arranging for me to attend this event! I’ll try and tune into “The East End Show” on LTV tonight at 6PM to catch you live when you are talking about Dark Noon. (Networking pays off!)
August 10th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Cool! We call that part of Washington bordered on the north by the Strait–the wide channel from the Pacific to
Puget Sound–The Banana Belt, because it’s in the Olympic Mountains’ “rain shadow,” thus much less rainy than the rest of soggy Western Washington. Temperatures, however, are decidedly un-tropical. It’s cool.
Here’s a map, via Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Juan_de_Fuca
Oh, all right, I’ll print up some cards and get out there. Fortunately I’ve missed this year’s Pacific Northwest Writing, Begging, and Canned Shrimp Fest down by the airport.
And, you might be interested in the fact that Gloria Steinem’s been spending the summer writing at our local woman-writers’ retreat on Whidbey Island. Seattle Times: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=brodeur06m&date=20060806&query=steinem
August 10th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Lynne, not only are you amazing, you’re right. I was going to say I wished I had a tenth of your energy but that’s missing the point, isn’t it. It’s about hard work. Marketing. Interacting. Selling. Key components of the writing process.
All the same, the right attitude helps. And you have that in spades. Hm, there’s a lesson to be learned here.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Hard work is right, Bill. Sometimes, if I am having an efficient week, I actually create a mini-marketing plan so that I don’t have to think about what my plan of action will be, day to day. Of course, other days I just go to the beach! Any news from Macmillan re A Half-Life of One? I like your book!
August 15th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Just talking to people about your work wherever you are can work too. I got my former agent through a conversation with a fellow poll worker on election day in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Turns out his brother was a big-time entertainment lawyer in NY. I called the guy on his brother’s recommendation, though I was sure nothing would come of it. The lawyer-brother gave me several names of good agents and told me to use his name. And it worked. Or helped, anyway.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Excellent! I’ve got a pocket full of business cards with me at all times.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Thank you, Wicked Witch.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
There is some good advice here that applies nation-wide. Sadly, building up such an insider’s contact list becomes much more difficult if you are not on the coasts or near a large city. And unfortunately, regardless of one’s contacts, publishing a book seems to first require having an agent, and there is a very limited number of these. These, in turn, have to make a living, so they must follow the preferences of publishers themselves, which have become increasingly narrow and non-innovative in many cases.
But all that aside, it’s clear that establishing a wide range of contacts within the broader publishing industry can provide a better feel for what’s required these days, as well as a shoulder to cry and complain on. (It’s helped me on both fronts.) And unless one is willing to do something else newsworthy enough to make the front page of the New York Times (which seems to guarantee a book deal), trying to follow Lynne’s ongoing advice seems like the best path toward making it on the shelves.