So on Friday, I posted my very first query letter, which was a pretty bad query letter. Agent/Writer/Deb Extraordinaire Mandy Hubbard popped by to say it wasn’t half-bad. And it wasn’t- with some tinkering, I did manage to get a couple of partial requests with it.

Here’s the thing- I think most competent writers will produce an okay query letter. I know you’re scared, and your whole everything is tied up in your novel, and it’s a big deal to be searching for an agent and OMGSTRESS. But seriously– if you’re a competent writer, your query letter is probably okay. Not great, but okay.

That’s why it’s important to send your query out in small batches. I would send it to 5 or 10 agents at a time. If I got no response or instant rejections, then I’d revise the query letter until it got a better response.

So let me show you a successful query letter. Notice I’m not calling it a good query letter. Because at the end of the day- it’s still a query letter. I learned from the first one, I had a draft of this that I tested, I tinkered and this is the version that I sent that got several partial requests, which ultimately led to representation.

Dear Ms. Agent:

Nothing ever happened in Ondine, Louisiana, not even the summer Elijah Landry disappeared. His mother believed he ascended to heaven, the police thought he ran away, and his girlfriend felt he was murdered. Decades later, certain she saw his ghost in the town cemetery, fourteen-year-old Iris Rhame is determined to find out the truth.

Enlisting the help of her best friend Collette, and forced to endure the company of Collette’s latest crush, Ben, Iris spends a summer digging into the past and stirring old ghosts in search of the truth. What she doesn’t realize is that in a town as small as Ondine, every secret is a family secret.

{ The difference between this and the Weston query? It sets up the conflict immediately. This is what’s going to happen in this book, and this is who’s going to do it. It also sets the tone, because it confides in the reader, guess what– there’s something the characters don’t know, dun dun dun! }

My name is Saundra Mitchell, and I’ve been a writer for fifteen years, both in film and fiction. Currently, I write the Fresh Films short film series, and shorts from this series have been juried selections at Academy Award-qualifying festivals for the last three years. In fiction, I’ve recently published “An Accounting of Sins,” short fiction, with Edgar Literary Magazine, and “Revival Season,” flash fiction, with SmokeLong Quarterly.

{ I still include screenwriting information in this query because by then, I was doing well enough to name check the Oscars, so I thought it might help. (It didn’t.) But, this time, I had excised the random, extraneous publications and focused on my fiction as my primary credits. }

“Last Summer’s Iris” is a Southern Gothic young adult novel, complete at 50,400 words, and I’d like to offer it for your consideration. I’ve enclosed five sample pages; please feel free to recycle them if they’re unneeded. Thank you for your time; I look forward to hearing from you.

{ Hey look, I gave the title, I gave the genre, I gave the category. Now the agent knows exactly what’s on offer here. And by this point, I had figured out that no matter how good (or bad!) the query was, I got a better response rate if I sent pages. If an agent asked for more than five, I sent more. If they didn’t say either way, I sent five pages. I also gave them an out to just throw them away instead of trying to stuff them in my SASE and search for make-up postage. }

Sincerely,

Saundra Mitchell

{This part, I still got right.}

Since I wrote both of my queries, you can see that they’re pretty similar.

But now that you’ve seen both, I think it’s clear why one was more successful than the other. The Weston query contains shockingly little information about the book. It’s almost a query that says, “I wrote a thing. Will you look at it?”

Whereas this query, for the book that became SHADOWED SUMMER, says, “I wrote this book. It’s about X, it contains Y, and it features Z. Will you look at it?”

My bad query wasn’t half-bad. And my successful query is still a query letter; the pages mattered the most.

So please take a deep, deep breath, and relax just a tiny bit. Querying is incredibly stressful, especially lately– but don’t let all the talk terrify you into believing your query letter has to be the word of the Muse dripped in gold-blood ink on the page. It doesn’t. Write your query letter, send it in small batches. If you’re not getting a good response, revise the query letter! Send five pages (or more if the agent requests them.)

You can do this! And if #queryfail, #queryslam and Slushpilehell are getting you down, here’s a gif by Omar Noory that I enjoy when I need some perspective:

Everybody writes bad queries, at least at first. There’s no set way to create one, advice conflicts on what to put in one, and frankly, it’s a skill like any other- you must practice it to excel at it.

In light of #queryfail #queryslam and SlushPileHell, I’d like to take another approach. Most people don’t have their learning curve slapped up on the Internet and soundly mocked, and I don’t think writers should, either. But people are going to do what they’re going to do– what’s important is how we respond to them.

So I’d like to share with y’all my first query, for my very first novel. It’s NOT a good query. I’m not proud of it. But I want you to know that I learned from this lousy query. And I learned from my naively crafted* first book. And eventually, I got competent enough that my query sold my book, I got manuscript requests, and I signed with an agent.

So here it is, in all its awful glory, so you can learn from it too!

Dear Ms. Agent:

Short skirts, cheap gin, and jazz reigned in 1928, but they never made it past the front gates of Weston Prep. More gothic than ivy, Weston tried to make gentlemen of near-society boys, but when JT Keller, a sheltered Catholic boy from Baltimore, and Jesse Stein, a townie who preferred playing Juliet to Romeo, accepted places in the class of 1932, Weston pretty much failed.

Initially homesick and baffled by strange customs, JT slowly absorbs some of the best, and the worst, traits from his new friends in their quest to run the school, scheme a way for Jesse to move in, and at the same time, oust the roommate they never wanted. In “Weston Boys,” JT discovers his father isn’t perfect, friends keep secrets together and from each other, and that an entire world can end in a single, black Monday.

{TOO LONG! What’s the book about? Who the heck are all these random people?! And why should we care about JT and his daddy issues??}

My name is Saundra Mitchell, and I have been a working writer for twelve years. For the last four years (and currently,) I’ve been the head writer for Dreaming Tree Films’ short film series, “Book of Stories,” with over forty short film productions, and next year, principal photography will begin on my first feature, “A Rain of Blood.” I have also published fiction with ATM Magazine and Smokelong Quarterly, poetry with Poems Niederngasse, Doll World Magazine, and Parnassus, non-fiction with @Internet Magazine and The Familiar Magazine, among others.

{This is all completely random. Writing scripts is interesting, but has nothing to do with writing novels, or my ability to do so. Neither does writing essays or poems– and the one thing that really matters, the fiction publications, are smooshed in with everything else.}

“Weston Boys” is my first novel, a literary piece in the vein of O’Neill’s “At Swim, Two Boys,” and Wolff’s “Old School.” I would like to submit it for your consideration; it’s complete at 75,511 words, and a full or partial manuscript is available on request. Thank you in advance for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

{This is also a mess. First of all, one does not call oneself literary- and I should have used the full name of the authors I’m namechecking. Second of all, I haven’t told this poor agent whether this is a picture book, YA fiction or adult mainstream fiction. Third of all, saying it’s complete is all the agent needs to know- they’ll ask for a full or partial based on their needs.}

Sincerely,

Saundra Mitchell

{I got that part right, at least!}

~~~

*Amended to soothe my Boo.

To be a writer, you don’t need a BA, an MFA; you don’t need to belong to guilds, go to conferences or to workshops.

All of those things certainly help. They will help you learn to be a better writer. They will help you refine your craft and your art, but as a poor ass girl from the east side of town, I want to be really, really clear to all the young, impoverished artists coming up behind me:

You don’t need those things. It may take you longer to succeed, you may have to consider how much a book of stamps costs when it comes to querying, and whether you can afford to query anyone who isn’t digital. You may have to say no to a lot of networking and social opportunities because you can’t afford to attend one and to be part of the greater community as a whole.

Maybe it will be a harder, more expensive, longer journey for you than it is for people who are lucky enough to be able to partake in everything this amazing career offers. But if you want it, if you fight for it, you can make it. The only thing you need is the desire, the will, and something on which to write.

And I will be waiting here to congratulate you when you do.

I was looking around online yesterday for awesome trail mix that has nuts and dried fruit, but no candy in it. I realized halfway through my search that I could just @()#* buy nuts and dried fruit, and shake them up together in a bag. Duh.

This is the last full week of August, so it’s a great time to back up your computer for the month! Don’t forget to back up your documents, your music and your photos! Hardcore backer-uppers will also want to back up their program settings, bookmarks, and mailboxes.

I will be signing Shadowed Summer with Christine Johnson, author of Claire de Lune, during the Irvington Halloween Festival this year. We’ll be in costume, and yes, we will have candy! Please stop by Bookmamas on October 30th, 2010 between 2:00pm and 4:00pm to see us. Get your signed books for holiday gifts and free candy all in one trip!

October 30, 2010 – 2:00PM – 4:00PM
Costumed signing with Christine Johnson, author of CLAIRE DE LUNE
(We will have CANDY!)
Bookmamas
9 Johnson Avenue
Indianapolis, Indiana 46219

A while back, I wrote a YA novel that never went anywhere. I could go into the endless details of what happened, and what I think happened, etc., etc., but the bottom line is- I wrote a novel that never went anywhere.

But I really love this book, flaws and all, and I thought people might enjoy reading something new from me- it’s been, and continues to be, a long wait between SHADOWED SUMMER and THE VESPERTINE.

So I formatted it for e-book publication, downloaded a gorgeous royalty free image photographed by Linden Laserna  for a cover, and slapped it up on Amazon and SmashWords under a pen name.

So anyway– here’s the odd little book of my heart (wearing somebody else’s name)– JANE DOE.

JANE DOE
By JT KELLERMAN

Adopted from India as an infant, Jane Watts doesn’t really match the rest of whitebread Waverly, Indiana- especially not since she started shaving half her head, and wearing a shroud.

Secrets, lies, sex and death- Waverly, Indiana probably isn’t the place you go when you want to be important, but it’s the only place Jane’s ever been.

Ron Adner and William Vincent recently wrote an article about ads appearing in e-books for the Wall Street Journal. The entirety of the article is behind a paywall, but here is an excerpt.

What would the world look like with ads in books? For consumers, the free samples of digital books now available would surely include ads. Because not every consumer who reads a sample chapter will buy the book, it’s reasonable for the publisher to extract some additional value. Seeing ads in the sample may also convince a reader to pay for a premium, non-ad version of the full-length book. The old market segmentation of paperbacks and hardcovers will be replaced by ad-supported or ad-free books.

Publishers will need to come up with new ways of evaluating a book’s commercial value. What is a best seller? Today the criteria is simple: total unit sales. Yet with advertising in the mix, a book downloaded 100,000 times but never read (think of that yet-to-be-opened prize-winning 600-pager) may be worth less than one downloaded 50,000 times and read cover-to-cover. Unread books suddenly become less profitable to a publisher.

Though I want to, I’m not going to rant and wring my hands over the idea of ads coming to e-books. It will surely happen, as surely as product placement proliferates in film and television. But I was a screenwriter first, and I’ve spent 15 years working with a variety of levels of product placement.

So what I’m going to rant about today- and I hope both agents and authors take this to heart- is the fact that WE NEED TO GET PAID. Period. This is NOT gravy money for the publisher, this is money- like subrights- that should be split between publisher and author/agent. And this is why:

You generally have three kinds of advertisers interested in product placement.

{ MONEY SHOTS }

This is a non-creative placement. This is straight up pay for visibility- if your character is using a computer anyway, here’s 1000 bucks for that computer to be a Mac. If your character is having breakfast anyway, here’s 1000 bucks for that bottle to be full of Sunny Delight. These advertisers don’t really care HOW you use their product. They just want a money shot. Money shots in no way affect the story.

In an e-book, this would be akin to your copy-editor going through with an extra mark- let’s call it $$$- using it each time you mention a brand name, or something that could BE a brand name.

You can stet or accept those marks, the publisher takes the manuscript to the companies and say, “Can we has 50 bucks for Iris drinking RC Cola instead of Coca Cola?” The story is already there; the publisher is just selling the gift of money shots.

Sometimes, part of the payment for these simple money shots is the merchandise. In television and film, it serves the purpose of providing the exact model the company wants to advertise- but we get to keep these items once the shoot is over.

{ MANUFACTURED MONEY SHOT }

Manufactured money shots aren’t creative placement either, but they aren’t initially part of the story. Let’s go back to our imaginary copy-editor. She reads through your manuscript as is, and then adds a new mark- $?. This indicates places where you COULD have your character use a brand name item, though she doesn’t currently do so.

This could be as subtle as adding a line where your character puts on Nike trainers before going off to slay the Formor Demon. Or it could be as extensive as adding an entire scene where your characters go to Pizza Hut and drink Coca Cola while they discuss the entire rest of the plot.

You’d have to create these advertising moments, so it’s not as simple as accepting the change. You’ll have to craft an advertising moment in your manuscript.

So while these manufactured money shots don’t really alter the structure of the story- you’re still adding something to the text to specifically facilitate the advertisement.

{ PRODUCT INTEGRATION }

As a screenwriter, I didn’t really mind the money shot placement. They’re not hard to throw in, and they don’t screw up my story. And sometimes, I could have fun with them. Samsung Mobile was one of our sponsors for years, and they were AMAZING. They didn’t care HOW we used their product in our films (if we used them at all- they got a producer credit, so either way, they got exposure.)

Consequently, I blew up Samsung phones, I drowned them, dropped them down wells, and in one memorable script that proved that Samsung was most interested in making good movies, not good commercials, I used their cell phones to record teenaged serial killers on a murder spree.

I tell this story with a great deal of fondness because this is not how product integration placement usually works. It’s an EXCEPTION, not the rule. And the rule… sucks.

For product integration placement, oooh, you get tons of money. And you give up tons of creative integrity. Marketing flacks come up with ideas of how you could use the product in your work. They write lists of ways you CANNOT use their product in the work. (Generally, nothing that would put the product in any kind of bad light, or compare it to a competitor.)

Sometimes, you get pages and pages of data about the product, including the product’s personality. They specify how many times they want to see their product on screen, and more specifically, HOW they would like to see it.

An example from a recent film project I worked on- our sponsors sell hair spray. They didn’t just want a can of hairspray on the shelf in the bathroom while the character talked to herself in the mirror. They wanted this character, for no particular reason, to sing in the bathroom and use the can of hairspray as a microphone.

That scene had nothing to do with the story, or the tone of the story, or good filmmaking. But I had to get it in there, and I had to figure out how to make it work- because that’s what the client wanted. (How many times have you seen that scene, friends? Now count how many times you could see the brand of hairspray/cola/whatever on the can she sings into. Mm hmmm.)

Even more exciting (read: horrifying) about product integration placement is that the sponsor has to read and approve the placement. Imagine this, authors- you finish your revisions and turn the book into your editor. Normally, you get your line edits, your copy-edits, your FPPs, and then it becomes a book. Throw in an extra step after line edits, where the advertiser gets to read your manuscript and make comments that you have to integrate.

And not all of these comments will be about the pages with the product. After all, the whole book has to set the product off in a good light. They can, and they will, and they will be allowed, to change aspects of the story to better serve the advertising.

Now you know why broadcast television series have been massacred in recent years by cable series. A show on ABC has to pass through the producers, and the studio, and the advertisers. A show on HBO has to pass through the producers. It’s obvious which one has more story integrity.

{ CONCLUSION }

So the authors of this WSJ article are probably right- ads are coming to e-books and there’s not much we can do about it. But I don’t want authors and agents to look at it and think, well, let them link to Prada, it’s not a big deal. It IS a big deal, and we must understand how advertising is going to affect both our bottom line and our books.

We may have no choice about the coming commercialization of our text, but we absolutely have a chance to make it benefit writers and agents, as well as publishers. Product placement should be treated as a subright- I propose, on the same percentages as foreign rights subrights. Approximately 25% to the house, 75% to the author.

If we’re going to be forced to put advertisements in our books, we have a right to be part of that decision. We have a right to profit from that decision. And if we’ve learned anything from e-book rights royalties, authors and agents need to establish that baseline early.

Product placement should earn down our advances, and it should feed into our royalties. Merchandise payments should be paid first to the author and agent, then the house. (We’re more likely to need two new laptops than Giant Conglomeration Business Inc., don’t you think?)

And I think that authors should be allowed to decline, at the very least, product integration offers. Anything that fundamentally changes the text ought to be very, very expensive for the sponsor, and very, very acceptable to the author.

Change is coming; I hope this time we can be ahead of it.

The very short version: a handful of parents decided that they should decide for everyone’s children (not just their own) that they shouldn’t meet acclaimed author Ellen Hopkins at the Humble, TX Teen Lit Fest- to which Ellen had already been invited.

The superintendent of schools, Guy Sconzo, disinvited her, and bragged “…there are more authors that we would want at our Teen Lit Fest than we could ever have enough Teen Lit Fests to accommodate.” No big deal if we practice censorship, there are more authors where that one came from!

So Pete Hautman, Matt de la Peña, Tera Lynn Childs, and Melissa de la Cruz have also dropped out. I couldn’t be more supportive of them.

The wonderful Holly Black has said “Not every book is for every child, but for every child, there should be that one book.” I couldn’t agree more- there’s extraordinary power in seeing yourself reflected in the pages of a novel.

It was an awakening for me when I was a child to finally see a neighborhood like mine in THE OUTSIDERS, an awakening. It made me feel less alone in the world; it gave me hope.

Shame on the Humble Teen Lit Fest for stealing that hope from other children. Shame on them.

ETA Melissa from Mel’s Books and Info left this comment about one of her young patrons and how much Ellen Hopkins’ books have meant to her, and it truly, truly illustrates why we need all kinds of books, even books that may make some parents uncomfortable.

I had a teenage girl in the library last night who loves all of Ellen Hopkins books. She told me a little about her life, and how Hopkins writes books that she can really relate to and it helps her face some of the things she has had to face in her own life. And let me tell you from what she said she has faced more hardship and heartbreak in her young life than she should have. This isn’t the first time I have read about Ellen Hopkins not being allowed to speak at an event or a school because parents thought her books were unsuitable, but what these parents fail to realize is that Hopkins writes about a darkness in some teens’ lives that really does exist. She is examining the heartbreak that is very real to far too many teens including the one I spoke to last night. If she doesn’t bring that darkness to light, who will these teens have to turn to? I watched that young girl leave last night hugging the book Impulse to her chest before she left, she told me, “This is my story.” I could have cried.

These may be interesting books for kids who have everything going for them, but they are important books for kids who don’t. THAT’s what Guy Sconzo, Teen Lit Fest and the Humble ISD have decided to ban- an author whose books are a lifeline.

Otters teach their pups to swim? I had no idea.