Why I WANT an assissant to read my query and MS

This is a follow up post from yesterday's post.  I want an assistant reading my query and my manuscript because I imagine he or she would FIGHT for me. 

This is the scenario I have in my head, keep in mind, I have never met an assistant or know how his or her report is with the agent.  This is purely for my amusement:

Agent is sitting at her giant cherry desk with the skyline view of New York behind her.  She appears to be working, but is playing Angry Birds on her i-Pad.    Helpful Assistant comes in.  (for my sake only from this point one Helpful Assistant will be known as HA)

HA approaches slowly,  "did you get a chance to read that book No System At All?
Agent looks up from her game, blinks confused and clicks on the file on her desktop, "Oh yeah." Agent shrugs, "I think I'm going to pass on it.  I don't know.  I feel sort of meh about it.

HA yells in outage, "Meh? How could you possibly be meh about it?"

Agent shrugs, "I couldn't relate to Colin. I don't buy the smart guy who's socially stupid."

HA, "Come on! It's genius,  It starts off with a dick joke, then launches into a super heartwarming scene and ends it with another dick joke."

Agent eyes up Angry Birds, "dick jokes aren't hard."

HA giggles.  Giggles morph into uncontrollable laughter.  HA laughs so hard no noise escapes.

Agent rolls her eyes, "dick jokes aren't hard to write.  Whatever I'm still going to pass on it."

HA stops laugh and is instantly serious. "No you can't.  You have to make her an offer."

"No I don't think I will."

"I will lick everything in your office if you don't make her an offer." HA hangs her tongue for proof.

"Stop that, what are you doing?"

HA leans in to the computer. "make her an offer."

"No."

Like an eagle dive on to a trout HA licks the computer screen.  "Your keyboard will be next."

"This really seems more like a punishment for you than me  Besides if someone from HR came in, you'll  be stuck in another twelve hour sexual harassment seminar. "

 HA pause "I'll beat that level of Angry Birds if you make her an offer."

The agent says and returns to flinging a pissed off bird at an  jolly pig and hands over the i-Pad.  "You know what I really loved, the YA novel about the girl who's life is in danger and she has to pick between the nice boy next door and the sexy dangerous bad boy."

HA frowns "You're kidding, right?  Do you know what that book is missing...dick jokes."

Agent smiles, "I think I know what to do."

Dear Erinn,
We are pleased to offer you representation if you make a small editorial changes.  Colin needs to be called Colleen and she needs to fall in love with the a bad boy with a heart of gold and the super cute nice boy next door. Maybe someone could be trying to kill her, just a suggestion.  Also if you could make Colleen a vampire that would be great.

-Looking forward to working with you
SUPER AGENT.

Dear Super Agent,
I am thrilled that you have offered me representation   I love the editorial notes.  I have no problem at all turning Colin into a girl named Colleen who is also a vampire who is trying to figure out what to do with her life after she's rejected from Juilliard and is tossed up between two possible love interests.  Oh yeah and someone is trying to kill her.  Yes that's all great. But I'm afraid if I do that, I'll lose every penis quip in my story. I have TOO much artistic integrity to do that. 
I'm going to have to pass on your offer.

-Erinn.

Agent reads the email and shrugs.  "Hey HA, do you know why these birds are so damn angry?"
"Probably because the pigs couldn't tell a good dick joke."


No disrespect was intended to ANYONE who works in the publishing industry.  No pigs or birds were harmed in this blog.

Queries the dos and don't

I started the query process.
Since then I've associated clicking send with the vomit swelling my in throat.

Lovely image early on a Thursday Morning.

The shark herself posted, never talk about queries on your blog, never post by name which agent your querying.  The agents WILL find out. 

So obviously I will not be posting who I queried or any news about rejections.

Instead I will talk about HOW pick agents-

Everyone talks about RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH.  But what does that really mean?

According to querytracker.net there are 348 agents who rep YA.
Should I query every single one?  HOLY HANNAH, NO WAY!

So this was my process.
A few months ago Writer's Digest listed a bunch of agents looking for clients.  I went through and circled all the agents who repped YA.   I created a spread sheet, listing all their names, website,  if I thought they would be a good match with my novel.

Then a few weeks ago I went through the Guide of Literary Agents and looked at different agency that represented YA.   I circled all the agencies that I felt was a good match.   I added them to my spread sheet.

Then the hard work started.

I researched every agency and picked which agent would be the best match.

Then I cross referenced my list with Literary Ramblings and checked out if they had an agent profile. 

Literary Ramblings gave me WAY more information about the agent and helped me gauge if we would be a good match.

Are you noticing a trend here?

At every step I am evaluating if my novel matches what the agents likes.

I did not take into account the size the agency but my list contained big named places and small agency's as well.  

The next step is to rank and list them

I have a list of top 10, 10-20, 20-30. I should say, I was extremely through with my first list that ranking the agents were extremely hard. And really for most of them the only difference between a top ten and a 20-30, was some of the top ten's like John Green.  Sometimes it came down to how super facial stuff like the web design.   As far as I could tell from my research, every agent was professional and sold books.  But all 30 agents are awesome. 

I made a list of Round 1, Round 2, Round 3.

I pulled three agents from each list, my top ten, 10-20, 20-30.
So each round is mix of a bunch of different agents.

This way if I need to tweak my query,  I haven't blown my chances with all my top tens.

How long did I research?
Two hours for the writer's digest
Two hours with the Guide to literary agents
Six hours researching each agency and picking the best match.
Hour double checking to make sure I have all the submission requirements.


At least 11 hours of RESEARCH. 

Why would I spent three years writing a book and just sent it to any agent?  Why would I waste my time and theirs?

That's just silly.

I will NOT be posting on my progress on querying.  That's between me and the agents. 

Although I'm not above tweeting when I do a happy dance.


Jess also covered this topic AMAZINGLY on her blog go check it out 

30 minutes with an agent

A few months ago my hubby won a full MS crit and a 30 minute phone call from Kathleen Ortiz.  Awesome right?  I'm sure you've stopped reading because you've been blinded by jealousy.

Well here's my issue, it's the 30 minute phone call.

I"m sort of a spaz.  Seriously I'm a freaking idiot on the phone,  I'm even worse when I'm speaking to ab agent,  See How to Lose an Agent in 30 seconds if you don't agree.

So I need a plan of attack.  A list of questions to ask her.

1) Did you like How to Pwn nOOBz? <----I figured though I'd be able to infer the answer from her comments in the MS.

2) Do you think it's marketable? <--  That's a pretty important one.

Now it get's tricky...

So readers, lurkers, bloggers, writers, puppy sized elephants, what would you do?  You have an agent for 30 minutes, what questions would YOU ask?

I need really specific questions.... I don't think you guys FULLY understand what sort of a spaz I am.  I need a plan of attack before this phone call happens.  

Weekend Reflection part 1

In one word--AWESOME.

This post is going to be about the writers' conference. I promise not to name drop or do anything annoying like that, but there will be a few names placed in this blog.

Alicia and I arrived in New Jersey on Friday at 7 pm-- there was a ton of airport issues but the important thing is we got there. The hotel was having a prom, which was weird because my prom was held there and the book I was pitching had their prom in that same hotel.

We woke up too early and got dress and awkwardly hung around the hotel room until we opted for coffee. By the time we got back, the breakfast was up and running. The keynote speaker was incredible. She described the pain and depression of writing -- which sounds like a total bummer but it was funny and touching and accurate. The best part about it, for me, was when she spoke about being a mom and a writer. That it's ok to do both. She puts the MothErhood. Me in motherhood. I rushed out and bought her book Dairy Queen.



The rest of the sessions were excellent, I went to one on Character, Conflict and Pacing which confirmed what I knew about writing. IT was run by a agent who knew his stuff. No name dropping but he runs his own agency and it gets 2000 queries a year.

The agent panel was excellent too. There were six agents there and they answered all sorts of questions, from how many queries do you get in a day to what is the project you're most excited about. They even answered my question of, "When is the paranormal teen romance trend going to end? Should I wait to query until its over, because I don't have a werewolf questioning his sexuality in my book." It got a big laugh. The answer was "it's not going anywhere, so you might as well query because there are agents who are sick of it too."


Lunch was amazing-- Mary Kole sat at my table. (We had assigned tables) I introduced myself to her and when the girls who were sitting next to her left. She patted the seat and told me to sit next to her. We talked about books and what sort of books she likes, and what makes a good conference for her. Very cool person. And I didn't throw up on her shoes, so that was a pretty big victory for me.

I had a one on one with an editor--- who edited The DUFF (its coming out in September I believe and it's going to be huge) She liked my 15 pages, thought it had good voice and the dialogue was funny. She had some concerns about the setting but in my mind that's a pretty easy quick fix.

Only two sessions were sort of lame, but that's not a big deal, everything else was amazing.

Would I go back? YES!
Should you go to a conference? YES
Is it worth the money? Depends on the conference, but I'm going to go with a yes on this one.

Anyone wanna share their conference experiences?