Literary Agents: Working for You, or Against You?

I came across an interesting (and alarming) blog post today that I wanted to share with you guys:  http://kriswrites.com/2011/06/01/the-business-rusch-agents-surviving-the-transition-part-3/.

Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch breaks down her thoughts on why working with a big, corporate literary agency may be hurting writers more than helping them as the publishing world changes.

She calls out a few things that writers absolutely NEED to be aware of, such as unethical agency clauses, rights grabs, as well as conflicts of interest as more and more big agencies turn into e-publishers to keep the money flowing.

Please, if you're looking for an agent, have an agent, or had one and parted ways, check out this blog article.

What do you think?

Are agents still relavent during these changing times?

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Stay tuned tomorrow as I make an appearance over at author Callie Kingston's blog!  She was kind enough to interview me, and asked thought-provoking questions about my journey, the characters in Legacy of the Empress, and my thoughts on the publishing landscape.  Check it out then!  I'll be there answering questions in the comments :).

P.S. Remember to comment on my contest for a chance to WIN :)!

Agent Query Contest!!

Hi, All,

Sorry I've been a little on the spotty side with my blogging lately :). I've had a lot of home improvement projects in "real life" (pffffft) that have been taking my time away from my favorite place: The Internet.

However, today I logged on to querytracker.net and saw This Little Gem. There is a contest running with agent Kathleen Ortiz, where everyone, that's right everyone who enters will receive feedback on their submission.

This is an excellent opportunity, so be brave and go enter! :) Go, go, go!

What are you waiting for? I'm going, too!

Good luck everyone, and happy querying!

______________
Update: Apparently the contest filled up after 2 mins :(. Popular, no? I didn't make it unfortunately. I'll keep my eyes peeled for other opportunities, and let you guys know! :D

Hug an Agent: It's the Law!

Why, you ask?

Because it's Unofficial Official Agent Appreciation Day, of course!

It all started with that crazy trendsetter Kody Keplinger, and spiralled out into the blogs of bajillions of agented authors.

The love in these posts warms the cockles of my wee heart :). (Okay, I'm actually not sure what the "cockles" are, but you get my drift.) As others have said, it's kinda like writer porn to read about how much these dudes appreciate their agents!

Just check out the impressive list of sites gathered up by authors Lisa & Laura, as well as author Elana J! My awesome author friend Christine Fonseca also has blissful agent love to share :).

So, check it out! Share the love!

And hug an agent today!

New Writers' Forums & Things To Come!

EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

... or else.

(don't those newsies look like they want to beat you up?)

Anyway, I have exciting news for all of you fellow wanna-be authors out there :). There's a *new* and exciting place to hear about publishing news, interact with a cool agent, and get query critiques!

This week, beloved agent Nathan Bransford added FORUMS to his agent website and blog. Yes, now we can cyber stalk him in style, and on his own turf, too! (Restraining order sold separately.)

I went over there today to start helping out w/ the queries, and there are some cool and talented people there already. Go! Sign up! Strangely enough, my user name is RebeccaKnight. Let's hang out :).

In other news, I'll be posting and interview I did with author Lisa Dale on Monday! I read and loved her most recent book, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (women's fiction/contemporary romance), and now have her debut, SIMPLE WISHES on my Christmas list.

Also, don't forget to enter your ideas for my Deal With the Universe contest by midnight this Friday! I'll pick my favorite three and let you guys vote on what I'll have to do *when* (fingers crossed) I get my first book deal.

Any news to share on your end? :)

The Man's Been Keeping Us Down, Man.

Have you ever encountered those writers who tell you the reason they're not published yet is that the MAN (or "Big Bad Publishing Industry") is keeping them down?

Well, let me tell you a little secret I learned today.

Come on, don't be shy... Lean in as I whisper it in your ear....

IT'S TRUE!

OMG!

IT'S ALL TRUUUUUE!!!!

I knew it!

The Rejectionist said so today on her blog. And take it from me: The Rejectionist never lies.

So, quickly Everyone! Grab your manuscripts and head for the hills! The only way to overthrow publishing's agent-driven, literature-crushing, tear-fed war machine is by living in a commune and distributing our manuscripts to one another hand scratched upon leaves and bound with forest vines. I've thought this through, and it seems like a solid way to stick it to The Man.

JOIN MEEEEE!!

I'll bring snacks for when the Revolution comes :).

After all, no one likes to revolt on an empty stomach.

Writing a Synopsis or Outline

Happy Friday, everyone!

This will be a short post because it's my 4th anniversary (yaaay!) and I'm off to go watch Transformers 2 and hang out with my husband.

I wanted to share this post I found the other day on the fabulous blog The Rejector: http://rejecter.blogspot.com/2009/06/infamous-synopsis.html.

The Rejector is an agent's assistant, and is giving out tips on how to write a good outline or synopsis, and more importantly, telling us that all of the obsession and panicing we do over these things just doesn't matter.

What I learned from the article? DON'T PANIC.

The agents want a 1-2 page breakdown of your plot, not Shakespeare. We can all relax a tiny bit because we won't be instantly rejected if we use Times New Roman instead of Courier, etc.

What do you guys think? Have you ever worried about your synopsis/outline?

Any tips you have to share?

Happy Friday! :)

Revising: When is Your Book Actually "Done?"

There has been a great discussion going on over at agent Nathan Bransford's blog today on how you know when your revisions are finally over with and you can type "The End."

Yesterday, he posted a very helpful Revision Checklist (http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/06/revision-checklist.html), and followed it up today with a post titled "You Tell Me: How Do You Know When Your Novel is Really Finished?" (http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/06/you-tell-me-how-do-you-know-when-your.html)

A ton of people are participating in the discussion in the comments section, ranging from aspiring writers working on their first manuscript, all the way up to agented/published authors.

It's amazing how similar everyone's experiences are, which I find strangely comforting :).

Me being sick of Legacy of the Empress is apparently a good sign. The elusive end is near!

So, jumping onto the Bransford Bandwagon, I ask you...

How do you know when it's "done?"

Medal of Honor Tactics

Calling all rule-followers!


As the Rule Following Master Champion I want to share a breakthrough I had today. My husband was talking about people who win the Medal of Honor and laid out a very simple truth: they are all rule-breakers.


People who follow orders don't get Medals of Honor.


It's the people who know what needs to be done and take the risks, who become great, and are honored.


I think you might see where I'm going where this applies to writing. We hear so many rules each and every day about how to start a novel, how to write a proper sentence, how to do fill-in-the-blank.


And a lot of us obsess about it, which is good to a point. My epiphany today is that you need to learn the rules in order to separate yourself from the masses. If you know what you're doing, and what's expected to be competent, you're already ahead of the curve.


The next step after you know the rules?


Break them.


A lot of great novels start with a dream sequence or a crazy prologue that happened 500 years in the past. A lot of authors begin sentences with "And," or use dashes instead of semi-colons.


They take risks, they do the unexpected, within the framework of skilled writing.


Those who do find themselves rewarded, time and time again.


What do you guys think? Are you a rule-breaker or a rule-follower?


What are your successes with either?


How might doing the other help?

We're Gonna Be Okay

I wanted to share some comforting things I read this week from my favorite blogging agents, Janet Reid (the Query Shark) and Nathan Bransford.

Janet posted that she thinks blogging agents have terrified the wrong half of the aspiring writers out there: http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2009/05/weve-terrified-wrong-half-of-yall.html.

Nathan followed this up in his "This week in publishing," confirming that, yes, they want to reach out to the writers who don't know what they're doing, but those writers... you guessed it... don't read agent blogs: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-week-in-publishing_22.html.

This is comforting to me because these articles made me think "Hey, maybe I'm not as clueless as I feel sometimes." Apparently we who read agent blogs are ahead of at least half of those querying out there. Now, doesn't that make you feel better?

Let me tell you, I've been very nervous that I'm not doing "it" correctly. I breathed a large and cathartic sigh of relief upon reading these posts.

How about you? Do you feel terrified about the query process? Do you feel better knowing it's not necessary directed at you?

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, and happy querying to everyone out there!

I'm Back!

Hi, All,

I'm sorry I've been strangely absent both from this blog, and from QueryTracker lately. The husband and I have been busting some ass this past week on getting our house ship-shape for an appraisal and.... whew... yeah. Instead of blogging I crawled into bed each night panting and clutching my heart. (Okay, it wasn't all that bad, but I hate housework ;)... and there was LOTS of it.)

Anyway, I was back today, reading blogs and getting caught up in InternetLand, and came across this great post by Nathan Bransford, agent extraodinarre:

http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/05/hoops-vs-hints.html.

I know I've heard a lot of my fellow queriers getting discouraged or disgruntled because of all the so-called "hoops" we have to jump through, so I want to know:

What do you guys think?

Are the "hoops" a necessary evil, or helpful hints on how to get noticed?

I'm a rule follower by nature. I like plans laid out before me that say "if you do X and Y you will be noticed because of your hard work." I like working hard, and I like having clear cut guidelines.

However, I've recently come to realize I may be a freak.

Is there anyone else out there that says "Yay, guidelines! I'm going to kick some ass!" or do you think "Damn hoops! Why do we have to do these things?"

I can see both sides, and I'd love to know :).

Hoops or hints?

QueryDay Lessons: Sharing is Caring!

I participated in the Fabulous QueryDay today on Twitter (well, ok, lurked), and wanted to say that IT ROCKED!

Strangely enough I wished there was a wee bit less asking of questions and little bit more query rejecting. Weird, right? However, even though I missed a little bit of the old "fail," I did have a great time reading the questions other writers had and the answers from the agents.

One thing that absolutely blew my mind was this: Agents prefer only one space after a period!

Holy Uncomfortable Wrongness, Batman!

My whole life I've been living a lie. Everyone told me this was correct from birth until now, and I just learned today that the publishing world prefers the one-space rule. Agent Colleen Lindsay said it looked funny on her e-reader when there were two spaces, creating vast deserts of whiteness that was hard to look at.

Who the heck knew?

While I was crying over the thought that I'd now have to go through my manuscript sentence by sentence and remove the offending extra-spaces, I had an epiphany I would like to share. You can do a Search & Replace in Word by typing in Search For *space space*, Replace With *space.*

Magnifico! Technology to the rescue :). Needless to say, I love Bill Gates right now, and am grateful that Microsoft Word is so awesome.

I hope this helps any of you just now learning this same fact and thinking "blimey, so many spaces...so maaaaaany!"

Tell me: am I truly the last person on earth to discover this rule?

Happy Friday, Everyone!

#QueryFail 2: Queries Never Die

Remember all of that intarweb hoopla a couple of weeks ago caused by #Queryfail on Twitter, and the scathing responses in #Agentfail?

Well, hold onto your hats, because tomorrow is #Queryfail 2: Queries Never Die! It's actually been renamed, which I think is sort of cool, to #Queryday, so please make sure you search for that if you're going to follow it.

Here's the link to agent Colleen Lindsay's post about it: http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2009/04/heads-up-rules-for-queryfail-2-queries.html.

The agents have really taken the feedback they received to heart and are aiming to make this a more friendly, educational day.

I was morbidly fascinated by the first round of #Queryfail, but am even more excited about #Queryday. We get to ask questions as well as seeing the query-readage in real time. SWEEEEET!

So? Who's in? :D

Agent for a Day!

Today I participated in Nathan Bransford's blog contest "Agent for a Day."

To my surprise and delight, going through queries is FUN AS HELL! If you haven't already, I recommend you get yourself over to http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/, read the rules, and dive on into the slush pile! The water's fine.

Basically, I got the chance today to sift through 50 real queries and decide if I loved them enough to request some sample pages. We could only request a total of 5 out of the 50, to make it realistic (agents can't help their clients if they are waist-deep in sample chapters, after all), which was the hardest part.

I read each and every query and found at least 7 that I really, really liked. THEN I had to go through the agony of paring it down to those I absolutely loved.

I see much more clearly now that when an agent rejects you, it may not be because your writing stinks or your query is poor. It could be that they are just in "like" with your project, but not head-over-heels in love with it.

And it has to be true freakin' love when you have that many queries to get through in a day.

So, KUDOS to all the agents out there :). I love your job, and I can see why a lot of you really enjoy reading queries on a day to day basis. But I also get how hard it is to reject people, why you need form letters just to keep on schedule, and that you have to be truly nuts about a book before you can say that fateful "Yes."

Good luck to all you queriers out there, and remember: sometimes it's not you. It's the slush pile.

Book in a Nutshell Contest!

The Knight Agency is having a contest called "Book in a Nutshell," which is exactly what it sounds like. They would like to see your book condensed into a deliciously chewy three sentence nugget, using 150 words or less. Up for the challenge? Brevity can be the biggest challenge of all, as many of us know.

The details are listed on their blog, http://knightagency.blogspot.com/, posted 3/24/09. Best of luck to everyone!

They are looking for the top 20 entries, who will then be checked out by their very own agents. Can there be a better prize than that? I've already queried them, so we'll see how it goes :). Woot!