Agent Hunting by Philippa

All it took was a trip to London and a Writers Workshop Masterclass

in May of this year to convince me that I needed to get an agent. 

The event was held, one early evening in May, at Waterstones in 

Piccadilly. Happily there was time for a day in the city to make the 

most of my railfare. First I made a long anticipated visit to the 

Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square – quite fascinating and a place 

where many poignant stories could begin. A quiet lunch was followed 

by a little browsing in Regent Street, before the heat of the 

streets drove me early into Waterstones.

    There can’t be many better places to use up time than in a 

bookshop. Over numerous floors, this huge, art deco building housed 

multiple layers of books. The enormous competition from so many 

published authors was evident. I always knew that publishing was a 

vast industry but on this day the extent of it was literally spread 

before me. I looked closely at the names, stored for posterity on 

the spines of books; some were famous, some unknown, some I’d read, 

others were on my to do list. I watched other people drift like me 

and wondered if they were writers too. Eventually about 45 of us 

found our way to the top floor, coming together over a glass of wine 

and polite conversation before the event began.

    

     What did we discover?

- You need a good quality manuscript.

-   You need an agent.

     Well that seemed clear enough.

-  Longlist professional committed agents with an open door, who like your genre. Do research on agent search sites such as Agent Hunter, Agent Query.com or Writers Market.

-  Filter the list, looking for points of contact, similar tastes, common interests or a comment on a tweet that clicks.

- Approach a group of agents all at once (batches of 10 at a time).

-  Carefully check their submission requirements, as all seem to want something slightly different (eg.3 chapters, 10,000 words, 50,000 words, attached or pasted …). Make sure your manuscript is ready.

     This was starting to sound more complicated.

- Get name on query letter right, include title of book, word count, genre and just a short biography – the manuscript matters more than you do. Include one paragraph about your book, a hook, a USP.

- Get the synopsis right – what is the story? Make it clear and easy to navigate. Notation can be telegraphic. Include and highlight main characters, add a layer of emotion, maybe a sprinkle of spice. Is there an inciting incident?

- Allow at least 6-8 weeks for a reply. Be patient.

- Keep going with another batch. Keep trying.

     Three individual agents generously gave their time to answer our questions. All confirmed the huge numbers of submissions they receive and the low acceptance rate. It’s now taken me three months to prepare to send my first batch of submissions, requesting representation – okay, family illness, a bereavement and a much needed holiday got in the way, but having a little space and avoiding the temptation to rush was actually helpful. I now feel ready for the replies and potential rejections. I feel ready to keep trying.

NYC Midnight Short Story Competition

Clare and I have taken on the NYC Midnight Short Story challenge this year, a competition worth considering if you want to hone your writing skills or be forced to write outside your comfort zone.

 The competition consists of a series of time-constrained challenges which increase in difficulty the more successful you are.  The first round lasts 8 days in which time you are asked to complete a short story (max 2500 words) with a given character, genre and subject.  For example, Clare was given:     

Character: Limousine  driver

Subject: Anger

Genre: Romantic Comedy

In contrast I wrote Historical fiction, about a widow and with the subject of sworn enemies.

If your story is successful, you proceed to the next round (you are competing against around 40 people in your category).  In this round you are given three days to write another story with a new genre, character and subject.

Although the entry fee is quite high, there is detailed feedback given on every story entered.  

Not only does this challenge encourage you write new material to a deadline, but also forces you to use new techniques in your writing, including language and style.  

This can only improve your writing skills in the long run.

http://nycmidnight.com/

How to get your story on a short-list

I thought I’d share some of the things I have learned, which have helped put my stories both on competition short-lists, and made them winners.  Think of it as a check list before you send your story off.

So you think you’ve finished?

• ·         Before sending your entry off, always read your story out loud or even better get someone else to read it out for you.  This is the only way to discover how smoothly your story flows and to get rid of all the clichés.
• ·         Print your story out in an annoying font .  Sometimes we can be fooled into thinking our story is polished simply because it looks nice on the page.
• ·         Pare down your adjectives and adverbs, especially words like suddenly. 
• ·         Ask yourself:  Does your story have a consistent point of view?  Who is telling the story and are they still telling it at the end? 
• ·         Make sure your story has a reason for existing : What does it say? What have we learnt about the character or the situation?
• ·         Give your story a proper ‘end’ or resolution.  If the story starts with the character standing over a dead dog, there must be a reason for it, and this reason must drive the story.  Your closing paragraph should ideally repeat the theme in your first.
• ·         Makes sure your opening line is the best it can be.  Don’t start with backstory.  Sometimes it is worth deleting the whole of your first paragraph to get there.

Some great first lines:

"Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father.  My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle:it didn't matter what.  She was in the white corner and that was that." Oranges are not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.

"All this happened, more or less."  Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

"I think of Louis as a decorative essential.' The Space Between Louis and Me by Mary O'Donnell.

"What if I'd never poisoned my neighbours dog when I was ten?" Butterfly Wings Raw Eggs and What Ifs by Tracey Iceton.

"I cut my boyfriend in half; it was what we both wanted. I said we could double our time together. He said he could be twice as productive." Don't try this at Home by Angela Readman.

• ·         A really unusual title will get your story noticed (but will not get you short-listed by itself). 
• ·         Finally don’t forget your presentation.  Usually 12 point Times New Roman (or Arial), and double spaced.  But always check the rules as science fiction often requires stories to be typed in Courier.  Flaunt these rules and your story will find the quickest route to the judge’s bin.

For other ideas (and more in-depth advice), these blogs are very good:   

http://writetodone.com/seven-ways-win-short-story-contest

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/three-dynamic-ways-to-open-your-story.html

Promoting your work

Promoting your printed book.

If you're going to self-publish, then you're going to have to think about your own marketing and distribution. If you've self published a hard copy, perhaps as print on demand, then you're going to have to consider issues such as storage (even on print on demand you still need to be able to provide inspection copies), who you're going to get to stock it, and how you're going to reach them. If you have an obliging local independent bookseller you may be given a launch, and this will enable you to get your name out there and make some sales. But quite how you reach further than that is simply down to how much time and effort you're prepared to put into travelling and approaching other booksellers. Don't expect Waterstones or WH Smith's to bite your hand off and pile them up in their doorway. Publishers pay booksellers a lot of money to push their books under the noses of potential buyers, and you're not going to be in that game.

Using Social Media

If you've published an e-book, then you'll probably have heard or read about the power of social marketing, such as Twitter and Facebook. Well, as far as I know, I've sold one book through Twitter. And if you're a Twitter user, you'll probably already be aware of the amount of publicity that some writers try and generate to publicise their books, banging out tweet after tweet, bombarding you with endless tales of how wonderful and exciting their book is. Well, it might be. But have you read it? No. So what makes you think anyone is going to read yours? The same goes for Facebook. This is because blatant advertising is just annoying.


So just how do you make social media work for you? Well, the first answer is, with difficulty. The second is, with a lot of effort. And the time to start making that effort is actually before you publish your book.


Now, to be honest, I'm not really very good at this myself. However, I thought I'd share with you some things that have worked for me, and some things that could work if I put more into it.


The first thing you need to do is start chatting. Join a number of forums (or fora, I should probably say). These can be forums of writers (though to be honest, these are less likely to get you readers, because everyone there is on the same mission). Do you have any other interests? Photography? Knitting? Car maintenance? The forum that got me the most readers initially is one I've been chatting on for years, so I have a relationship of sorts with the other people on it. That gave me a couple of hundred potential readers. Not enough, but a good start. And that forum is nothing at all to do with writing, though I did discover that there are a couple of other writers on there. But the thing is, you have to give before you get. And on that site I've both given and received advice on all sorts of things, from what sort of towels to put in a holiday let, to how to optimise your website visibility. Even the copy I sold through Twitter happened because I began a conversation with someone because I noticed he lived in a very attractive place. I wasn't initially looking to sell him my book.


And that's the next thing, get a blog, a website, an author page on Facebook, on Google+. It doesn't matter if you haven't got all of them, but you need a web presence of some sort. When I was developing my website to advertise my holiday property I got myself on to all sorts of lists. And you can do the same for your book. At the end of this post I'll list some of the sites you can look at that will give you some coverage. One of the things I've done is write articles for an e-magazine called e-zine articles. At the end of the articles you can add your 'signature', which will include reference to your published work. Two of my articles have then been syndicated across a wide range of e-magazines. I don't know how much good it's done me – unfortunately there's no way of measuring – but it keeps putting my name in front of people.


Get your book reviewed. This is probably one of the most useful things you can do. There are a number of review sites (I haven't actually done this yet) who will review your book. The downside is, of course, that they may give you a bad review. The other downside is that they get an enormous number of requests for reviews so it can be months before they get round to you. Some sites will do it more quickly for payment. Others will do it for an exchange review. Either way it's worth pursuing some of these sites.


Something else you can do is get on other people's blogs. Begin by writing comments. Then offer to do a blog post. But it has to be something useful that you're offering. For instance, you could offer to do a review, either of the blog owner's book or of a book that's recently been published. Or offer to write on a subject related to the main theme of the blog. If you have a blog or a website, invite others to do a guest spot. Even if they don't host you in return they'll tell their readers about their guest spot on your blog, and some of them will then find out about you.


Join Goodreads. This works in a rather complex way, and I'm still feeling my way round it. It's really a site for readers, not writers, but by definition a writer needs readers! You need to do a lot of reviewing of published work before your own book starts to get noticed, but a lot of people have done very well from it. If nothing else you'll read some good recommendations for your own reading pleasure. At the bottom I give a couple of links to information that should help you understand how to use it as a writer.


Give stuff away. Don't expect the rewards to be always immediate or direct. For instance, I gave away a short story for an anthology of crime stories relating to the publishing industry. As a result, not only will my name be before readers of that anthology, with links to my novel on Amazon, but an unexpected return was that I was then interviewed for a blog with a very wide readership. See the link here: http://maggiethom.wordpress.com/the-write-to-read/


Enter competitions. Even if you don't win, some competitions publish all entries, and they'll allow you to provide a link to either your blog, your Facebook page, or even directly to the means of purchasing your book.


The main message I'm giving here is that your marketing has to be subtle, but unrelenting and you need to use a range of techniques. Simply telling people that you've written this fantastic book won't get you very far. You also need to give something away first, and take the time to develop a relationship with your potential readers. Unless you have thousands of friends who're all just champing at the bit to read your work. Or you're already famous for something else. If your name's Jamie Oliver or Kirstie Allsopp, you have a blueprint to sell loads of copies, but otherwise……


Something I haven't got round to trying yet, but I intend to, is to read some extracts of your book to You Tube. You could even serialise it that way if you wanted. Or just read some short stories. Don't forget to include a link to any published work.


Printed or other conventional forms of marketing.

Don't forget more traditional forms of promoting your work. A review in the local paper can sometimes be the start of something bigger. If your local paper has a book review section, send a hard copy (if you have one) to the editor of that page. If you don't have a hard copy, will one of your friends write a review for you? Editors are busy people, and sometimes they're grateful for a press release to fill up an empty slot. Sometimes they don't want it themselves but will pass it on. As a result of one press release that didn't get published I was recently interviewed by the features editor of another paper with a much wider circulation, because the first recipient passed it on.


What about local radio? My local radio runs a series on local women of interest, and I was not only interviewed for that section, but invited to read extracts from the novel as well.



Whatever you decide, you will need to find the time and effort to really work at it. I wish you the very best of luck.


List of useful promotional sites:

www.goodreads.com
And two sites to introduce you to using Goodreads:
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/09/03/goodreads-for-authors-patrick-brown/ http://www.amazon.com/Goodreads-Authors-Promote-Your-Books-ebook/dp/B00BKE039I/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid= (I've just bought this)

If you're interested in writing articles:
http://ezinearticles.com/ (and here are links to a couple of my articles on there to give you an idea how it works. http://ezinearticles.com/?Editing-Your-Novel-Part-2---Character&id=7826799 and http://ezinearticles.com/?Editing-Your-Novel-Part-3:-How-to-Show,-Rather-Than-Tell&id=7929107)

A site where writers help promote other writers: http://worldliterarycafe.com/content/readers-get-connected

And a list of free sites to promote your work: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/free-ebook-promotion_b52130

WivWords 12/13 October 2013

Writing can open up new doors for many of us. This summer both Sue Dawes and I have become involved with the WivWords festival, having been co-opted onto the committee by our mutual friend Petra McQueen. This is what Petra has said about the event:-

 'Wiv Words' is Wivenhoe's own literary festival that will take place on October 12th and 13th. It will be an unstuffy celebration of local talent. There are talks, walks, workshops, theatre, comedy and poetry events. There are events for children, teenagers and adults. The weekend will culminate on Sunday night with a show by John Cooper Clarke and Martin Newell.

As well as being a writer and active member of the committee, Sue describes herself as a jewellery-crafter and lover of all things hand-made. You will be able to see some of her work at the Paperformance exhibition in William Loveless Hall during the weekend, and also at Cutting Corners Picture Framing, situated in Wivenhoe Business Centre, Brook Street, Wivenhoe. Here there will be a small exhibition of jewellery created using book pages, paper and other materials.

 I have been asked to speak at the Voice of Wivenhoe Women event to be held on Saturday evening at Open Space, also in the Business Centre, Brook Street, Wivenhoe. This will give an opportunity revisit some of the women interviewed by Charmaine McKissock over the four series of Wivenhoe Women, broadcast on Radio Wivenhoe since 2012. I believe Sue Dawes has now been interviewed too. The recordings, which are fascinating to hear, are still available on a play-back facility. I was one of the earlier interviewees and found the whole experience very revealing. Charmaine brought something out in each of us with her charming and clever interview techniques. The spoken word rather than the written word gave added insight.

I have been delighted to contribute to the on-going Writing Relay organised by Broomgrove Infant School in Wivenhoe. Alexander McCall Smith kindly provided a starter paragraph which has been added to in turn by various school groups, businesses and local townspeople. My page was written on behalf of The Wivenhoe Surgery. It was a challenge to read a story developed by others and then continue it, providing continuity as well as giving somewhere for the plot to go - a very different experience from creating ones own plot and I can’t wait to read the end of the story. I do hope it will be available for us all to read in due course.

The Shed writers group, based at the Wivenhoe Bookshop have organised a 60 word writing competition. Now here’s another challenge, open to all, to write a 60 word piece (prose or poetry) containing the word ‘shed’. Why not give it a go? The entry form will be available at the bookshop throughout the weekend of the festival and four winners chosen by November 4^th. I hope we might be allowed to publish their words on this blog shortly after.

So writing and word related projects are springing up all over the place, raising money for the Mayor's charities, and many published writers will be giving talks and workshops over the two days of the festival. Anyone seeking ideas and inspiration for their writing should have a look at the full programme on the Mayor’s website; wivmayor.co.uk or pick up a printed version from Wivenhoe Bookshop, 23 High Street, Wivenhoe CO7 9BE.

Philippa

Do you need a track record?

One of the best pieces of advice I received on my MA course was to get a track record (or writing credit) before sending any work to an agent.  For me this meant taking the plunge and entering short story competitions, even though what I really needed to do was finish my novel. 

Was it worth it?  In short, yes because not only am I able to show agents that I am serious about my writing but also that my writing has been judged, on its quality, by others in the profession.  I believe it is the difference between having your submission read quickly and it ending up in the proverbial slush pile (to be read when one of the overworked staff has a moment).

Of course there is also the thrill of finding out you’ve been shortlisted for a competition.  For me this meant being able to justify the many un-paid hours I put into my writing, often stolen from family- time, and confirmation that I should start taking my writing more seriously.  

Winning of course is fantastic (and helps to justify the entry-fees) but being short-listed is no less an achievement.  Choosing a winning story from a short-list is down to the personal taste of the judge (we often chose ‘voices’ similar to our own) whereas to be part of a short-list, is a statement of quality.