GRAPHICS BY MCKENNA GARDNER & HEIDI BIRCH
TEXT BY PENNY FREEMAN
Editor’s Note: As an increasing number of staff members and authors of The X are appearing on panels at conventions and other events, they have been requested to make their presentations public. To that end, we will be adding them as part of our regular Featured Friday content. Please comment below.Tell us what you think of what we shared, what we missed, or maybe even what we got wrong, so our next presentations will be that much better.
This presentation was part of an author/editor panel at Salt City Steamfest in August of 2014, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
What about your work is going to really make the screener sit it up and take notice? An original plot? An intriguing mystery? Characters that step out of the stereotypical molds or challenge preconceived notions of what they should be? Vivid imagery? Rich, detailed world-building? Ideas to challenge conventional wisdom and/or popular opinion; that demand introspection of the reader? What about your work will make the publisher want to put their imprint on the spine?
Do you have a fantastic idea that just needs fleshing out? Do you have a few chapters and an outline for the rest? Or, do you have a completed, well-researched, and polished manuscript? If you have a great idea, try submitting to one of our short story competitions. If you win, if we prove to each other the worth of the relationship, we just might help you turn your ideas into a full book. However, the manuscripts that really get our attention are those that are completed and polished to a high sheen before we ever see them.
An original plot, real characters, and deftly crafted prose will get the reader’s attention, but the writer’s storytelling abilities will allow the mundane world to drop away as they immerse themselves in the tale. The best authors are those that disappear into the aether of the worlds they build.
Make sure that the agents you submit to know the genre, especially what readers and publishers are looking for. It’s important that you both ‘speak the same language.’ This especially true of publishers. If your speciality is Chicago Red Hots, chances are you won’t be hired at Chateau le Snoot. But you might be a perfect fit at Wrigley Field.
At The X, we accept speculative fiction (Steampunk, paranormal, fantasy, and science fiction) and mystery/suspense titles. Please refer to our submissions page for restrictions.
Each publisher and agent demands a different constellation of requirements for submission, but you can bet their guidelines have everything to do with their production processes. Give your work a fighting chance. Respect the process.
The production of a book (turning it from a submitted manuscript into a published work) requires team effort, from the person culling the slush pile to the graphic artist illustrating the cover to the marketer recruiting book reviewers and bloggers, and every point in between. An author’s willingness and/or ability to comply with our submission requirements tells us the value they place on that team effort. Because we prefer to reject a work based on its actual merit, rather than its typeface, we have provided a webpage, a YouTube video, and a follow-along download explaining our requirements.
Unsolicited submissions are the least likely to survive the slush pile. The absolute best way to survive it is to never get into it. Cultivate your social media contacts by participating in online forums and groups. Attend conventions and conferences. Connect personally with publishers, editors, and agents, polish your elevator pitches, get invited to submit your manuscript. Get bumped to the head of the queue.
What’s your elevator pitch? Your one-second catch phrase? If you were at a convention and a customer passed by your table, how would you get them to pause? How would you get them to buy? With a bizillion things going on around them, competing with you for their attention, what would you say to get them to spend their mad money in your stall, rather than the one across the alley?
Remember, in such a situation, you don’t have time to tell them the story or expound on the characters. All you have time to do is grab their gut and hang on, so much so that they have to take home that book. They have to read it. Pitching your book to an agent or publisher, whether in person or through email, is exactly the same. Practice your pitch on people you know and people you don’t. Then, when you feel confident you’ve figured out the best angle, write the blurb for your query letter. Sell, don’t tell.
Claims: if you tell a publisher or agent that you have an impressive fan base, or that you’ve made it to the top of a best seller list, or received some prize or award, you can bet they are going to check up on that claim. Be confident and positive, but be realistic. The only way anyone is going to believe you’ve got Chris Hemsworth lined up to play the lead of your book-to-film is if they actually sit down and have lunch with the man and walk away with a signed contract. So, if you and Chris have an understanding, keep it to yourselves until you can make that rendezvous happen. Otherwise, the claim is going to cast doubt on everything else you assert.
Demands: know the industry. Know what is reasonable to expect in a contract. Remember that agents and publishers have ways of doing things, and writing is not brokering deals or selling books. If you have an artist you would like to use, say so, but don’t make signing them a deal-breaker. The publisher just might have someone else who would work even better. Make the broader perspective of your publisher and agent an ally, rather than an adversary.
Be educated and informed, be an integral part of the process, but be teachable and a team player. By all means, be the quarterback, but all quarterbacks need coaches, especially someone up in the box who can see the whole field and the patterns in play. And, there’s a word for quarterbacks without an offensive line: toast.
Make yourself accessible to your agent and publisher. Provide at least a phone number and an email addresses (alternates are even better), as well as your shipping address. If you have an email that you use specifically for your writing (such as for your pseudonym), check it regularly. Even if you have a nom de plume, correspond with your agent and editors as yourself, the real, live person who is going to sign the contracts.
Now, what questions can our authors and editors answer for you?
