That Minotaur Wasn't So Scary

Image from Payton's Dungeon.

Actually, the Beast-in-chief wore a blazer and stylish spectacles. At the MWA NYC monthy chapter meeting this week, I got to converse with writers I know, sit with our own WoM Elaine, and learn some things about St. Martin's Minotaur, part of the Macmillan/St. Martin's mystery fiction behemoth. Their imprint alone puts out about 120 books per year. Andrew Martin (no relation to the saint, but horned god of Minotaur) was there to speak to us, as was executive editor Kelley Ragland, and some other folks who handle editing, administration, publicity (Jessica was sitting next to me), and library sales were scattered around the tables. I didn't hear all the full names often enough to remember with my sieve-like recall. So, forgive me, because I stink as a schmooze hound, and I wasn't avidly collecting cards and networking. I just felt like carousing and soaking up the info with the chicken gravy.

I can accurately report that the Minotaur folks seemed enthusiastic about their work and even more pleasantly, they seem to care a lot about the quality of the manuscripts, cited like a mantra as the sine qua non of getting published. Conveniently, and unlike Providence, it's one part of the process and industry the writer has control over. I also heard the (shocking) advice not to overstretch your marketing efforts online if they're getting in the way of your writing, and that they're willing to see authors build over several books. Immediate blockbusters are not required, though always welcome, of course. All nice to hear, and especially nice for the Minotaur authors present. Given that March 31st has come and gone without a congratulatory phone call, I think I probably did not win the First Crime Novel Contest that Minotaur and MWA co-sponsored this year. So, I'm not in that happy company yet.

Did you get the call? You can tell us. We could seriously rename ourselves the Women of Discretion and also of Mystery, but only after Discretion first. Spill.

The Minotaur guests also didn't much like the talk of "trends" and find it counterproductive to chase them. For what it's worth, if you're an espionage author or foreign author selling U.S. rights, perhaps you're in luck trend-wise. But those categories don't apply to me, so I'd best keep grinding out what I can. It was funny when a writer asked how Minotaur handles touring schedules etc. for their authors with other full-time jobs. The reply was that people have to work out individually what activities will be possible for them, but Minotaur would never decline a good manuscript because an author couldn't tour, and besides, almost all their authors still have day jobs. Welcome to the glamor of crime writing.

They're experimenting with various avenues of online marketing, like many publishers, but it's not clear which strategies are working and the double-investment in traditional approaches as well as the new creates in-house expense and confusion as well as potential. One such new initiative is Moments In Crime, a rotating blog from their huge roster of authors. Andrew Martin said that post-Kindle, e-books did double in sales last year, but that means from tiny number to twice a tiny number. However, audiobooks began like that, too, and have grown to a substantive piece of business today. On the acquisitions side, they deal almost exclusively with agented authors, and it's difficult for a self-published title, even with good sales numbers, to find its way to one of their editors.

If you're an MWA member, in a few days, you'll be able log in and hear the entire Past Meeting as a podcast, but I think those are the high points. If you have other questions about a particular topic of publishing interest I skipped, feel free to ask in the comments. I'll try to remember what was said or make up something that sounds plausible.

Speaking of day jobs: Today, I'm sewing table linens and planning menus and gardening and cleaning for houseguests. Call me Innkeeper. Meanwhile, Elaine is busy, busy with editing deadlines. Laura's manning her trade show booth this weekend. Nan has her own viper's nest of complications to wrestle before Malice Domestic, so I can only hope Terrie and Lois are beaming with pacific contentment somewhere. But I have my doubts. Now that spring is really starting to sproing, it's hauling tail like a lead-footed trucker on white crosses. Hope you're enjoying the breeze in your sails!

Update: In other publishing news, Harper Collins will publish you, but not for money exactly, and retailers can't return surplus. (WSJ article via Roger L. Simon's blog.) But perhaps you'll receive total consciousness on your deathbed, which would be nice.

Don't Care What. Who Do You Write For?

From the amazing Branded in the 80s blog, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I hope blogger Shawn will be my peep.


Elaine posted this week about the ever-shifting definitions within genres. As I see it, shelving arrangements are as much fashion as fact, and I know writers who have to check 2 or 3 sections to find themselves. But the purpose of knowing your market as a writer is to help you explain it to agents and editors and readers, to help you hit the bullseye of your story goal better. And I find keeping up with the slapdash scorecards of Hot and Not subgenres only make me confused and dispirited.

When I use the term story goal, I don't mean anything tremendously formal, just the way you'd like readers to feel at the end. Should they love/hate the protagonist, be pleasantly spent from the thrill ride or the laughs, feel like they've just left a bowling alley full of entertaining regulars, have a brooding sense of tragic reality or of difficult justice done? I think once you're far enough in a manuscript, you ought to know what overall effect you hope to achieve, so your editing passes can refine and amplify it. But who is it you're trying to affect?

The category I'm finding most persistently useful as a career-oriented fiction writer is target readership. Who are my people and who else do they read? If I capture that, the publishing types can encode it into whatever slot for the catalog, because by the time I start calling myself "fill-in-the-blank-lit" in a query, that label may be so February. Laura recently posted about finding unusual new ways to reach potential readers. Knowing who readers are means you can better locate them outside the bookstore and library, and better understand how certain agents or publishing approaches may help you reach them. Addressing the crucial question of readership, however, means addressing one of the most common and infuriating assumptions I hear again and again from other aspirants.

Aspiring Writer's Conceit #1: I am writing for all ages, both and mixed genders, all strata of society and anarchy, a tale that translated into every language on the planet can bring enjoyment and enrichment to any intelligent, sentient being of any species currently known or unknown.

Oh sure, we can't assemble five people to agree on the proper preparation and condiments for a hot dog, but I'll say Amen to your lofty claim if you'll do the same for me. Okay, now may we at least admit that establishing our inevitable, global readership requires a beachhead? First, the readers of Ed McBain's police procedurals, for example, then the world.

For my latest project, I've confessed my peeps (with visual evidence) in this post. When I'm standing near people in a line or on the subway, the clothes they're wearing and the media or products they're carrying or discussing tell me whether they're my potential readers. Some of these folks (sadly) enjoy less of the printed prose for leisure than other media. No matter, I still think they're awesome, so I have a comic book and will have a web comic as a portal to my created world. I hope it may lead some of the more prose-phobic to try out a novel of mine someday as well as adding facets and bonus content for those finding the book first. My target readers are probably 18-54, significantly male though I'm not (tricky), and geeks of some niche who like modern technology, games, mysterious histories, and having their brains tickled. They enjoy the absurd and fantastic as a way to play with real-world dilemmas and existential concepts. Robots versus ancient ghosts in an Apocalypse with banana peels.

So, are your peeps buying recyclables or scrapbooking, volunteering at animal shelters or attending concerts, watching Judge Judy or reading biographies in the bathtub? Are they of a certain age or gender? Do they read 2 hardcovers a month or 4 paperbacks a week? Who are their current favorite authors? I'm going on a limb as an unproven quantity here, and welcome any feedback from authors farther down their professional paths. I've spent a lot of time imagining my protagonists and plot, but I believe it's also important to spend time imagining what their consumers might be like. Who are they and what do they value in their reading experience? Then, it'll be more obvious to the many people a writer like me must convince between invention and publication how my final manuscript will delight that readership as well as myself.

Why Do You Surf?

A while back I wrote a bit about why people would want to set up author sites and what both authors and readers could expect from them. Recently, I ran across this post over at Lit Soup, in which Jenny Rappaport takes on some readers who have gotten on her case about the fact that she hasn't been posting about "agency issues." In other words, people were only reading her blog in order to get information that might better their chances of gaining representation.

Well, okay. I'm a big proponent of research, as I've probably said here a time or two. And I think agents who are willing to take the time to blog deserve a lot of credit. But that's not the only reason I read their blogs. There are far too many of them out there to read them all, even if I wanted to! No, I read them for the same reason I read anything--they interest me.

Now, I don't read all the posts on any blog (except, of course, the ones I post on), which is why I have a feed reader. (If you don't know about feed readers, I have some information on them at the bottom of this post.) But it would never occur to me to take a writer to task for not writing what I want to read. If I don't want to read something, I just...don't.

And even though I have an agent now, I still read Jenny's blog. And Kristin Nelson's. And Nathan Bransford's. And, of course, the BookEnds blog. Not because I am desperate for advice, but because I am interested in their views on both the business and life in general. I skip a lot. Right now, for example, Nathan Bransford is posting on "The Largely Indispensable First Paragraph Challenge," and Kristin Nelson is running a blog pitch workshop. Since those don't thrill me, and, being honest, they are no longer of use, I don't read them

So, yeah, some of what I used to read I read for research. But I didn't "tune in" just for help.

And then there are the author blogs. Some of the mystery writers I love keep blogs I don't love. And, believe it or not, some mystery authors whose fiction I don't like at all write blogs to which I am completely addicted. My personal blog has been obsessed--for weeks now--with the plague of hives. I don't expect most people to be interested in that at all. (If you are interested, all the easy stuff has been ruled out and we are now on to new and fancy doctors with multi-syllabic titles.) I am of two minds about that blog. One day I am pretty sure I'm going to close it, the next I think I'll keep it around. One of these days, I'll make up what little mind I have!

What about you? Do you read any blogs specifically for research? Do you read blogs where you skip a lot of posts? Do you read some because it's like watching a car wreck--you don't want to, but you can't seem to look away? (Sometimes, the query competitions are like that for me; I don't want to read the horrid things, but I just can't help myself.)

What makes you want to read a blog? What keeps you there once you run across it? Do you want to know your favorite author's political stances, or should that be kept out of things? Do you want to know if their kid has measles, or should that stay off the web?

And you, do you want your readers to know that you broke your leg in an embarrassing escalator incident last week, or would you prefer to appear the consummate professional, only posting on things having to do with writing?

C'mon, tell! I want to read your comments!

So What's Next?

Well, now that the contracts are signed and I am no longer afraid of jinxing things, I can announce that...

I have an agent! It almost makes up for the hives! (The latest theory: I could be allergic to garlic--how ghastly would that be? Did you know that virtually every packaged food has garlic in it? Any time a product says "spices," it means garlic. But that's a topic for another day.)

Anyway, I am the kind of person who sets a goal and works toward it, rarely considering what I will do once I achieve it. So for however long, I've been submitting to agents, going to conference, working and reworking my manuscripts. Now what? Oh, sure, I have to work on the next books, but what happens at this point? Since I figure I can't be that different from other people, who might not have considered the "what's next" aspect of all those endless submissions, I thought I'd post here a couple of things I've learned since I got "the call."

The book Jessica wanted is a cozy. That means it's the first of a series. Before she could submit to publishers, she wanted brief paragraphs on the premises of the next two books. Yikes! Luckily, I had some ideas for those and she said I don't have to stick to them too strictly once everything gets rolling.

My book is a cozy with a bead theme, so she also needed some "stuff." You know, like there are recipes in a culinary mystery. Those aren't too hard for me, since a great deal of my "day job" consists of explaining things to other beadmakers, customers, jewelry makers, etc, but it never occurred to me she'd need them up front, before she could submit to publishers.

And now that she's submitted the package? Well, we wait. Hmm...it seems I've been here before. I wasn't any good at waiting then, and I am no better now.

Wired For Sales

Please forgive me in advance for any incomprehensible gibberish--I returned from Italy mere hours ago. I should be catching up on "real" things, but instead I've been trying to catch up on all the Internet chatter from while I've been gone. Among the pages I read was this post by Nathan Bransford. Although Bransford makes a good point, what actually interested me was the last paragraph...and my reaction to it.

Bransford mentions his client's new book and my immediate reaction was to click the link and read about the book. It's not the kind of thing I usually buy, at least not in hardcover (though I am a political junky of sorts), so it wouldn't show up on my Amazon recommendations. And unless it made some kind of big splash, it might have passed under my radar entirely. But chances are that it will end up wrapped into a present for one of the other poltiical junkies in my family at Christmas.

This is something I hadn't considered in my own agent search. Sure, I read a lot of agent blogs. And I submitted to people who I got a sense of from their posts. But I never considered that my choice of agent might make a difference to my actual sales. And maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the copy of The Almanac of Political Corruption I buy as a holiday present will be the only one sold on the basis of that post. But if whoever I give it to reads it and recommends it, Bransford's post could have further-reaching effects.

Something to think about.

D-Day

Zero hour. Today I go to the post office to pick up a Priority Mail envelope to send off the first three chapters of my new manuscript.

Once upon a time, whether to send your pages Priority or not was a question. The latest changes in postal rates and requirements have eliminated that concern--Priority is now the only practical way to send anything you don't want to fold into a #10 envelope. Given that a part of my job requires mailing things for a living, I find it hard to believe I have no envelopes at home, but that's the way it always seems to work. Because I have a big show next weekend, in the past week my glass saw has needed a new belt, then a new blade, and now my oxygen generator needs new holding tanks. (At least the hives are under control--Zyrtec and Benadryl may be a sleep-inducing cocktail, but they do work.)

I've edited these three chapters within an inch of their lives. The first few pages went to my writing class members for critique and subsequently underwent major revisions. I hacked and chopped and supplemented. I polished. I put a fresh cartridge of ink into my printer. And now there is nothing left to do but print. (20# bond or 24? Times or Times New Roman? Decisions, decisions.)

Now, every piece of advice you see tells you that you should submit to multiple agents/editors at the same time. There are several reasons for this. First, you have a better chance of getting an offer. Second, you might even get two (or more!) offers and be able to choose between them.

Multiple submissions is a concept I have always had trouble with, however. First, I hate submitting/querying blind. I much prefer to send off my work to people I've met at conferences or in other situations, which limits the number of potential recipients. Second, I am never certain that the agent or editor will not make some kind of comment about the work that would improve it so much that it would have a much better chance of being accepted by someone else should I make a recommended change.

So today, the pages go to only one agent. Maybe next week I will have the energy to come up with a second cover letter and be able to send it off to someone else. (Cover letters are always personalized, which also makes multiple submissions harder--if you're blind querying, you can at least have a basic form with which to work.)

Wish me luck. I'll get back to you in three or four months when I hear something.

News: Meg Ruley and Jennifer Crusie Split

Check out Jennifer Crusie's blog entry about how she and her agent, Meg Ruley, parted ways:

http://www.arghink.com/2007/07/31/on-the-road-laguardia/#comments

Is this like a divorce from your agent, or would this count as the firing of a writer?

Very interesting, especially since this presents one side of a sad story. I wonder how much trouble this created for Meg with Crusie's publishers.

As Jennifer suggests, change can be good, but it can come with some tough realities.

I wish them both the best of luck.

Write On!
Nan

Platform: The Professional's View

Serendipity! Jessica Faust of BookEnds has just posted about platform over at her blog.

Platform

In the non-fiction world, books are sold on "platform." Miss Snark defines platform as

the other-than-the-usual ways you'll be able to get visibility for the book. A syndicated newspaper column like Maureen Dowd or Dave Barry is platform plus. A radio show like Dr. Laura is platform plus plus.

Today, my sister-in-law (who, I proudly point out, was mentioned by Miss Snark as an example of "having platform" for her book on wedding etiquette) and I were discussing the concept of platform as it applies to fiction. Over and over, I've heard that platform is not necessary for fiction, and that's undoubtedly true in some cases. Where, after all, will you find readers no one else has found, what PR can you get that no other novelist can find? Let's take, for example, your average science fiction novel. Not much you can do in the way of platform unless you're L. Ron Hubbard and you start your own religion.

Celebrities have "celebrity," which is different from platform--if you're Dr. Phil, you don't need platform to sell a novel--but other cases are not so clear. What if you're the creator of an internet dating site and you write a romance? Will you bring readers from your website, or are those two things too separate?

This subject is on my mind today because I returned from a show in my "day job" as a maker of glass beads to find a copy of a forthcoming magazine with an article I wrote in it. This is the second time my work has been shown in trade magazines. The first was last summer, when the woman who designed the cover piece for a magazine used my beads in her project.

Even without the article having come out yet, this weekend's expo was good for me. I sold a lot. In fact, I sold so much that I really shouldn't be here typing, I should be in the basement with the glass, as I have a show in two weeks and the biggest show of the year (for me) three weeks after that.

But I've had platform on the brain. My customers don't make the kind of beads I do, but when I mentioned that the article was coming out, they were all excited to buy it. I can't imagine they'd feel any differently if I wrote a novel. (Heck, with the price of magazines these days, the novel wouldn't be much more expensive.) Likewise, my fellow vendors buy each other's magazines, and some promoters make a point of mentioning their vendors' articles.

So is this "platform?" Is it worth mentioning? I travel up and down the east coast doing bead shows, but I've never tracked how many distinct customers (as opposed to returning buyers) I have at a show, and I didn't bother to count how many people--customers and vendors--expressed interest in the magazine article. And, naturally, I have no way of knowing how many of them actually will buy the issue, though history shows they follow their favorite artists quite devotedly.

The huge number of "niche" books, particularly in the area of traditional mystery series, seems to indicate that having platform in some niche market or other would be a good thing. If you have a cooking show, even an obscure one, you have a place to tout your cooking mystery. If you own a knitting store, you can sell your books there, or at least keep a copy to tempt your customers into searching it out at their local bookstores. Goodness knows, a vet could sell thousands of cat-based murder mysteries right out of his office if they were halfway decent.

So does my experience as a beadmaker and published writer in my field translate into platform? And does it even matter whether it does? Will any agent or editor care whether dedicated beaders will recognize my name and rush out to buy my murderous beady mystery?

As I sit here attempting to compose a cover letter, I certainly hope so.

Covers

Recently, Agent Kristin had a post about cover art and what not to do when you see yours for the first time and freak out about how awful/inappropriate/whatever it is.

Which reminded me to post these two covers. Someone should have asked the artist whether he'd ever done the exact same cover in the past.

Enough is Enough

The pundits say make your manuscript the best it can be before you start sending it out. I wouldn’t think of doing anything else. But my dilemma is, how do you know when it’s the best it can be?

At Sleuthfest in April, I had a pitch session with an agent I greatly admire and I was thrilled when she asked to see the full manuscript. In the months before the conference, I had completed two major edits/rewrites on the book, one to include some changes that I thought were necessary and the second, in response to the critique of a writer friend, to tighten and clarify. So I left the pitch session confident that the manuscript was ready to go in the mail as soon as I got home.

But on the plane flying back from Florida the nasty little voice in my head convinced me that I couldn’t send the book out without checking one more time for spelling errors and stray commas. It has to be the best you can make it, the voice said, you’d better ask Sherry, an excellent copyeditor, to read the book again and do another edit at the same time as you.

Sherry did her part quickly and she found surprisingly few problems. I, on the other hand, could not limit myself to copyediting. In fact, I found myself in the midst of another extensive rewrite that included slashing, tightening, rearranging, searching again for the perfect word, and … well, you get the picture. Three weeks later, it was ready to go. But then I asked Sherry how she liked what I had to done to the book since she last read it, several versions ago. “It’s great, much stronger, the writing gets better and better, I like it a lot,” she said. But, I pressed, tell me, did it drag or not hold your attention anywhere? “A little slow before we get to the murder,” she said, “but you can't change those scenes, they’re so well-written and, in and of themselves, interesting and exciting.” I knew what she meant. I loved those scenes too.

But how could I expect an agent to read the entire manuscript if a friendly reader thought it dragged a bit in the beginning? Was it really the best I could make it? I went off to think and gnash my teeth. It wasn’t the first time I had considered these scenes. In fact, each time I did a draft (many, many) I struggled with this section, trying to figure out how to speed it up, but I couldn’t see a way. Then, suddenly, as often happens with writing, it was clear that those wonderful scenes, my darlings, didn’t move the story forward and they needed to go. Not only that, I knew exactly what to keep from those scenes and where to put it. So I got rid of my darlings and rewrote other scenes to include the important points. At the end, I had deleted 5,000 words from my 100,000 word book. I think it is a better book now. Is it the best I can make it? Right now it is. At least I hope so, because I sent it to the agent last week.

Catherine

Positive Rejection

I just got a great rejection, and I'm reporting it here in detail.

The rejection came via an assistant to an agent, in response to the 100 pages of my mystery, as they had requested. It gives lots of stuff to mull over, and it shows a great relationship between assistant and agent.

Here's the key elements of the rejection:

---

Hi Na n ,

Thanks for sending this – what a fun premise! ...We think you have a perfect setting for a juicy mystery here, along with the right elements for a more serious subplot.

[However] we [assistant and agent] weren’t quite there with your characters going through each moment with them. While we love the idea of [the protag's] business and her style and her moxy, we didn’t feel that these things all came through loud enough on the page – we needed more descriptive detail about [the characters]. You’ve set up a fantastic plot...but we came away from these pages wanting to connect more with your characters, and to really be rooting for them throughout the book. When we didn’t feel this way, I’m afraid we lost some of the excitement that we initially had for your story.

Keeping all of this in mind, we don’t feel that we would be the best person to represent your work at this time. I’m sorry we won’t have the chance to work together... We wish you much luck and success in finding the right home for your work, and do feel free to keep in touch in the future with other projects.

All the best,

---
My reaction was rather joyeous, having been through this querying process a few times. I sent them a thank-you with a secondary query:

---

Many thanks for your extended comments. You gave me great insight into the missing/weak elements in my manuscript. I had suspicions that I'd missed the mark, but wondered if I was close enough to be invited for a resubmission. I will be rewriting based upon your advice.
Would you be willing to look at a major revamping (pardon the expression) based upon your suggestions in 2 to 3 months (or more, if you prefer)?

I remain convinced that you are a great match for [my story] and that my ability to rewrite will provide you with something you might want to consider.

However this proposal might fare, you have my sincere gratitude for your enlightening comments.

---
Then, minutes later, came the following response:

Thanks very much for your email. Please feel free to send us a revision whenever you have it ready, and we would be happy to read.

---

The moral of the story: when you get a rejection from someone enthusiastic about your submission, appreciate that for all it's worth and take a risk in your reply. AND, some assistants are gems! Treat them with respect. In a couple years they might be a full-fledged agent looking to represent your manuscript!

This, too, proves to me that reading books with characters similar to yours will aim your agent queries in the right direction. Track down the agents who like your kind of characters, and you'll be saving a lot of pointless queries.

Now it's back to the drawing board. I plan a major reworking of my story, and I'm glad to have the grace of time to do just that. Once I get the hang of writing a mystery that works well, I sure do hope the subsequent revisions/new manuscripts will have fewer problems.

Any observations or interpretations of the exhanged notes or the route I should head for in my revisions would be greatly appreciated!

Write ON!

Nan

Miss Snark Is Retiring

Sadly, the wonderful Miss Snark is retiring. Her advice has always been tart but incredibly useful. And the crapometers, ah the crapometers.

Even after her retirement, however, she is leaving her blog up so we can still learn from it. So if you need to find advice on a particular topic, go over there and type whatever you're looking for in the "search" box.

For example, in the current phase of my writing, I need to know about synopses. If you, too, need help, get thee to Miss Snark's Synopsis Crapometer!

Querying 101 - To E-query or Not to E-query

While trying to decide which agents to query for my outside-the-box protag (Busty Biggs), the question of e-queries spread a dark cloud overhead. I'm not good at filling in forms, and many of the agencies asked for submissions via e-mail form. Ugh!

Forms DO indicate what most interests the agency. BUT forms diminish our ability to control the way we present our manuscript to the agenting world. I dithered over that for a while. It's like a challenge: Here's a little white box, now tell me what makes you and your story any different than all those other word-filled boxes on all those other email queries that I'm slogging through, droopy eyelids and all.

And, if you're targeting one agent in particular, why in the world would anyone ever submit a query to the submissions box of the agency? Well, let me tell you...

Since I'm both a neophyte with equeries and a weenie, I was dubious about agency/internet protocol - Would I be violating modern etiquette by ignoring the agency's wishes and contacting one agent directly? - I finally opted for the more cooperative route. I went to the agency's submissions page and copied the form they wanted me to submit. I printed the form out and chewed my lip, trying to sound exotic-yet-fascinating, co-operative-yet-clever.

First off, they asked "How did you find our site?" Hoorah! From the get-go I knew I had a good hook - Stephanie Kip Rostan (one of their agents) was/is the agent for Stephanie Lehmann, author of THE ART OF UNDRESSING. Although that novel is not a mystery, it does have a prominently featured exotic dancer (retired) and includes frequent mention of sex toys and parties where toys are sold like Tupperware products. (She makes Busty seem prudish by contrast!) And, it's written with a great sense of humor.

Better yet, I had spoken with Stephanie Lehmann while getting her autograph on that book last year, at the Backspace Writer's Conference. She had mentioned having a great agent, whose name I promptly forgot. Luckily, she thanked the agent (Stephanie Kip Rostan) in her acknowledgements.The agency practically invited me to plug my meeting with Stephanie Lehmann, and then state my primary interest in getting through to Stephanie Kip Rostan. Stephanie Lehmann's name was my opening hook. And, I think that paid off.

How do I know? This is what was in the SUBJECT box: "RE: Slush from someone who met Steph Lehmann." SLUSH??? SLUSH??? Okay, so the queries to the agency went straight into a slush pile - now why did that surprise me? But, did you notice the rest of that subject box entry? "...from someone who met Steph Lehmann." STEPH Lehmann. Now THAT told me the hook had sunk in a bit. The note was from Rostan's assistant, Monika, who saved my query from the dreaded slush pile. WHEW! Lived to fight another day.

Since I sent that agency query, I've been advised by folks far wiser than myself that e-queries should be sent to the specific agents. And that's what I'm doing now, as I continue to query other agents - just in case Stephanie Kip Rostan doesn't turn out to be the agent for me. At least that's my plan until something better comes my way!

Any comment and/or advice is welcome!

Querying 101 - Initial Success Hints

News: Stephanie Kip Rostan's assistant, Monika, requested the first 50-100 pages of my mystery. Woo-Hoo!

Not that I haven't been down this road before - last year I queried a mystery around that featured two teachers who were reluctant sleuths. Those queries pulled in some requests for partials and for fulls, but none of them resulted in a contract. I submitted that manuscript to competitions exclusively for unpublished mystery novelists. Good idea, but my story never made it to the final rounds of any competitions. So I crawled back into my shell and decided that THAT mystery either needed lots of work, or it was, simply, not astounding. Meanwhile, I'd been working on this OTHER manuscript that sizzled in my brain, demanding more attention and giving me a greater sense of accomplishment as I polished off page after page. Heck, anything's better than a string of rejections after sending off partials and fulls. Time to shift gears. I polished up the manuscript and started amassing a list of potential agents.

But, as I said, THIS manuscript is different. This time I've got an unlikely protag: Busty Biggs. The name alone gets either laughs or scorn right up front. Me? I love her. She's not your average gal. She's a mix of Bette Midler, Dolly Parton, Mae West and Dr. Ruth W. (sex proponent for good health and great marriages).

Heart of Gold meets Dauntless Entrepreneur meets Queen of Flirt. And then there's the murder.

And here's the kicker: Busty secretly participates in a Native American underground network where the most endangered victims of abuse can disappear entirely from the tracing techniques that powerful stalkers and rabid cops rely on. When a young woman turns up dead in Busty's safe room, Busty takes on the hunt for the killer. She must protect the Native underground from being discovered (especially by a police investigation), but she vows that nobody, but nobody will get away with murder on her turf.

That's a nutshell orientation. CLEARLY my protag isn't everybody's cuppa. Especially now, when the circus surrounding Don Imus is dominating the air waves. Busty's name isn't politically correct, so that doesn't make the querying job any easier. But don't even suggest that I change the name. Busty arrived in my head with her name implanted, so I'm sticking to it. In preparation for querying agents, I've compiled a list of agents who like off-base characters. I figured I had a decent chance with them. Ah, me! As the rejections came in, with no requests for partials, let alone fulls, my confidence headed downhill.

But, Monika's request for a partial has bolstered my hopes. Stephanie Kip Rostan is my idea of the best agent for Busty. Rostan represents a writer I met, Stephanie Lehmann, who wrote THE ART OF UNDRESSING. That's not a mystery, but her protag's mother is a retired exotic dancer and her cast of characters is delightful. I believe that link - from Stephanie Lehmann to Stephanie Kip Rostan, to Monika is what got the request for more pages. Wonder how I'll do trying to connect with Bubbles Yablonski's agent (Did I spell her name right? Gotta go check!)

Lots more to say about the art of hunting agents, especially for hard-to-place protags. I'm starting my second round of queries - like the last time, I'll be sending out 5 equeries and 5 snail mails. Remind me to talk about equeries next time!

I'll keep you posted on my query exploits. Would love to hear about yours!

Write On!
Nan