Query letters are out. Or your book is on submission. Or your editor is sitting on option. Something MIGHT happen, so you stop doing and start waiting. You burn up your creativity with scenarios. They’re reading it right now. They hate it right now. They’re going to make an offer. They’re spilling coffee on the pages. It’s going to sell! It’s never going to sell; your career is over, never going to start, and this is worth a million dollars and will be a bestseller.
You waste time online, you waste time offline. You master Angry Birds because there’s no point in working on anything new while you’re WAITING. You master Bejeweled. Luxor. Farmville. You’d start playing World of Warcraft, but you don’t want to get all involved in something while you’re waiting– when something finally happens, you’ll have to abandon it. Likewise, no point in writing, no point in– hey, let’s stalk editors on Twitter.
Let’s google. Let’s read conference notes and interviews and SCBWI profiles. She would LOVE this book; nope, he’s going to hate it. What are they saying on Twitter right now? They’re reading a manuscript, is it YOURS? It could be yours. Let’s read between the lines, now they’re talking about Starbucks, BEA, American Idol, that new book you have but you haven’t read…
It’s been a while. You should probably do something. Research, critiques, Angry Birds, read the trades, read the trends, get in an argument about self publishing. Get in an argument about self publishing with JA Konrath, because come on, if you’re going to go, go big. Tweet @neilhimself to see if he’ll respond. If @msleamichele will respond. What about @aplusk? Come ON, Ashton Kutcher replies to EVERYBODY.
Somebody will respond. You will read 5 reviews, 15 books, 32 blog posts about query letter rules, 157 tweets about trends and the back of the toothpaste tube approximately 300 times. And eventually you’ll admit you’re not doing, you’re waiting. And waiting is not an active verb. You’ll feel sheepish, and itchy, and come to a realization.
It’s time to get back to doing. Whatever happens will happen; it will happen if you’re building houses of cards, or writing your next book. Nothing you do in the meantime changes what happens to that submission, so it’s probably time to start working on the next submission. Because once you have an answer, yes, no, you will have to start all over again.
I wanted to say a little more about boys, books and what’s out there in YA. The position I have, I feel absolutely comfortable having because there are actual YA novels that speak to the male experience, and/or feature male protagonists. Boys have not been entirely shut out; they’re not in a position where they can’t see representations of themselves in their fiction.
YA novels about boys are absolutely less common, there are absolutely fewer male YA authors– but they’re not non-existent.
Using Harold Underdown’s numbers, we get 4000 new YA novels a year. At most, at the outside most, 100 of them will be lead titles. The ones everyone hears about, the ones with massive marketing pushes and publicity out the wazoo. The rest languish in the midlist. My novels are midlist; most YA authors’ novels are. They’re harder to find unless you already know what you want.
I believe completely and entirely that we, as a society, need to start teaching our young men that books about girls are for boystoo. But I also believe in putting books in hands, first and foremost. So I’d like to share a list of books featuring young men, many about the male experience, many written by men.
With a few exceptions, these are books that came out in the last couple years. I’m not going to dig back 10, 20, 30 years. You can find these novels on your library shelves or at your local bookseller right now.
Ashfall by Mike Mullin
The Afterlife by Gary Soto
The Barnaby Grimes series by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci
Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez
The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk
The Deathday Letter by Shaun Hutchinson
Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Dull Boy by Sarah Cross
The Demon’s Lexicon series by Sarah Rees Brennan
Flash Burnout by LK Madigan
The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander
Gentlemen and Trapped by Michael Northrop
Ghetto Cowboy and Yummy by G. Neri
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Harry Potter and the Absolutely Everything by J.K. Rowling
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I Will Save You by Matt de la Pena
Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Mamba Point and Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta
Maze Runner by James Dashner
Me and the Morgue by John Ford
The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt
Percy Jackson & The Immortals series by Rick Riordan
Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard
Struts & Frets and Misfit by Jon Skovron
Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach
Suck It Up and You Don’t Know About Me by Brian Meehl
The Vladimir Tod series by Heather Brewer
The World as We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
White Cat and Red Glove by Holly Black
will grayson/Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green
Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey
You Killed Wesley Payne by Sean Beaudoin
This list is by no means exhaustive. These are just some of the books that I have personally read in the last couple of years. I know I’ve forgotten some that I absolutely loved, and I apologize to those authors right now. My brain only holds so much! To get more fantastic suggestions, check out Guys Lit Wire and Guys Read.
“We need more good works of realistic fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, on- or offline, that invite boys to reflect on what kinds of men they want to become.”
To which I reply, those books already exist. Women have for centuries managed to read material written by men, about men, and still walk away being able to figure out how those stories apply to them. To be fair, we had to, and in many cases, continue to have to.
News flash: the only markets in which women dominate literature are romance and YA. All the rest of it is predominately male and male-oriented. Somehow, though, James Patterson and John Grisham still manage to be bestsellers– because women are reading their novels.
The problem that needs to be fixed is not kick all the girls out of YA, it’s teach boys that stories featuring female protagonists or written by female authors also apply to them. Boys fall in love. Boys want to be important. Boys have hopes and fears and dreams and ambitions. What boys also have is a sexist society in which they are belittled for “liking girl stuff.” Male is neutral, female is specific.
I heard someone mention that Sarah Rees Brennan’s THE DEMON’S LEXICON would be great for boys, but they’d never read it with that cover. Friends, then the problem is NOT with the book. It’s with the society that’s raising that boy. It’s with the community who inculcated that boy with the idea that he can’t read a book with an attractive guy on the cover.
Here’s how we solve the OMG SO MANY GIRLS IN YA problem: quit treating women like secondary appendages. Quit treating women’s art like it’s a niche, novelty creation only for girls. Quit teaching boys to fear the feminine, quit insisting that it’s a hardship for men to have to relate to anything that doesn’t specifically cater to them.
Because if I can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and want to grow up to be an archaeologist, there’s no reason at all that a boy shouldn’t be able to read THE DEMON’S LEXICON with its cover on. My friends, sexism doesn’t just hurt women, and our young men’s abysmal rate of attraction to literacy is the proof of it.
If you want to fix the male literary crisis, here’s your solution:
Your debut is almost here, and you’re no doubt freaking out. Will you make foreign sales? Audiobook sales? Will you sell at all? Why isn’t your cover up on Indiebound? Why is the wrong cover up on Amazon? What if nobody wants to interview/guest blog/blog tour you? Why did that person on Goodreads just give you two stars for a book that’s not even off your hard drive yet?! What if none of the other authors like you? What if the booksellers hate you? How do you do a launch party!? Do you need a launch party!?
What if you don’t have anything and that author there has EVERYTHING? Will your book be in the catalog? The catalog for Bologna? What are they saying at Bologna? London? Frankfurt? Why haven’t you sold another book yet? What if this first book in your series tanks, oh god, you have two more books to come after it! What if Kirkus hates it? What if Kirkus ignores it? What do the B&N rankings mean? What about the Amazon rankings? OH MY GOD WHAT DOES THIS BOOKSCAN MEAN!?
I’m here to tell you a thing I wouldn’t have believed in October 2008, right before my debut novel came out. And that thing is: I know you’re going nuts right now but eventually, you’ll care less. I know it seems impossible when there’s so much to learn and so much at stake.
But one day, you’ll care less. You’ll forget a foreign rights festival was coming up. You’ll willingly ban yourself from Goodreads. You’ll stop charting every single lead title in your year by B&N ranking and Amazon ranking in an attempt to figure out how many books you have to sell to get to 42 on one and 523 on the other.
And this is a good thing. Right now, you’re at the place where you have to do all the things, and learn all the things, and freak out about all the things so you can eventually relax and just write your books.
The marketing push your house gives you is going to be the biggest push available; the things you can do for yourself aren’t nearly so encompassing as it may seem at this moment. And the thing that matters, that truly, truly matters, is writing a great book.
But, maybe it will help you better enjoy your debut– your one and only debut– to have some answers. So…
Will you make foreign sales? Maybe. The less regional your book is, the more likely it is to sell elsewhere.
Audiobook sales? Maybe. I’ve never gotten one***; they seem to go for lead titles and perennial favorites rather than midlist debuts.
Will you sell at all? Yes, you will. There has never been a book in the history of books that sold ZERO copies.
Why isn’t your cover up on Indiebound? Sometimes they don’t get sent through. You can ask Indiebound to add it. Just create an account there, then go here to add your cover. (That second link won’t work until you have an account!)
Why is the wrong cover up on Amazon? Amazon has spiders that crawl the Internet and pull information automatically. Your book cover is one of those things. If your publisher has an alternate cover on their webspace or FTP site, Amazon will pull it and post it. Feel free to mention it to your agent or editor, but don’t worry. As soon as the correct cover goes live online, Amazon will replace it.
What if nobody wants to interview/guest blog/blog tour you? Somebody will, I promise. Bloggers are incredibly nice; they don’t bite. I swear.
Why did that person on Goodreads just give you two stars for a book that’s not even off your hard drive yet?!Sometimes, people accidentally add stars when they mean to just add you to a TBR list. Sometimes people want to vote down books they think are competition for their favorites. Sometimes, people just suck. This is one of those things that is literally out of your control. Accept the struggle and stop struggling against it!
What if none of the other authors like you? We will. Writing YA & MG is like joining a big club. We already like you; we’re thrilled that you sold your book. We can’t wait to meet you.
What if the booksellers hate you? Without you, no books. I promise, at least some booksellers will like you. (As long as you’re not a jerk!)
How do you do a launch party!? Contact your local Indie bookseller and ask if they will host you. What do you need? Well, it’s a party! Bookmarks, maybe some door prizes, balloons, and refreshments of some sort. Cupcakes are super popular– get the frosting in the same colors as your book’s cover! Announce it online, send a notice to your local paper, and make sure all your friends and family know!
Do you need a launch party!? No, but if you like parties, they can be fun. Even if you don’t like parties, they can be fun.
What if you don’t have anything and that author there has EVERYTHING? Then that’s the way it is. If it makes you feel better, the people with everything are often pretty sheepish about it, and also kind of lonely because people keep their distance. Don’t keep your distance. They’re scared, too!
Will your book be in the catalog? Yes.
The catalog for Bologna? Si!
What are they saying at Bologna? Stuff in Italian. Foreign sales happen all year long, so don’t get wound up over one book fair. Especially since most deals don’t even close at the fairs.
London? Frankfurt? See above, only replace Italian with English and German.
Why haven’t you sold another book yet? I’m not going to lie. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes it takes a medium amount of time. As long as you remember that you’re not getting your NEXT deal, you’re getting A deal, that will help keep it in perspective. Every new book is a new experience. And if it takes a while, that’s okay.
What if this first book in your series tanks, oh god, you have two more books to come after it! Sometimes a series gets cancelled, it’s true. But you don’t get thrown out on your butt and told never to darken publishing’s door again. Sometimes the publisher will buy out your contract. Sometimes you and your editor will come up with a different book to fulfill your contract. Either way, there will be some disappointment and some opportunities, and quit worrying about the first book tanking anyway. It’s not even out yet!
What if Kirkus hates it? Chances are, they will. Consider it a badge of honor. Or make a video about it.
What if Kirkus ignores it? They may. But somebody else will pick it up. You’ll get trade reviews, eventually.
What do the B&N rankings mean? How well your book is selling both in the physical B&N stores and B&N online (compared to other books selling at B&N.) Less than 5000 is good. Less than 75,000 is not bad. But it’s still a relative number.*
What about the Amazon rankings? How well your book is selling compared to other books selling at the exact same time on Amazon’s website. This is ALSO a relative number; it doesn’t tell you much either.*
OH MY GOD WHAT DOES THIS BOOKSCAN MEAN!? Nothing. It only counts sales from reporting stores. It doesn’t capture sales from many Internet booksellers, from Wal-Mart, from libraries or schools. My bookscan number has always been 25% of my total actual sales. So even though Amazon lets you look at it, don’t worry about it too much. The sales numbers from your house, that you get on your royalty statements, are the ones that really matter.
I hope this helps. And if you’re ever freaking out, and just need somebody to talk you off a ledge? Drop me a line. Or ask on Twitter. Other authors are standing by to help you through this stressful time. No matter how completely insane it gets (worst the month before and the three months after your debut,) I promise you, it doesn’t last forever.
And better still– eventually you’ll care less. You’ll get back to doing what’s amazing and magical and wonderful about this job– writing your books. It really is a good thing.
Good luck,
Saundra
* Tell me one secret about the rankings so they matter! On the Sunday after your debut, if you debuted on Tuesday– if your book is in double digits on B&N and in triple digits on Amazon, then you may have sold enough books to hit the NYT Bestseller list.