Jon Say's Blog

Finding the Right Fit – Before Sending out the Queries

Now that I’ve identified the 77 agents who look like a good fit for Blood Pools, I’ve decided to narrow those down further so my initial queries go out to the agencies who look like the best fit among those 77.  But what criteria should I use to do that narrowing? 

I read through all of the one or two-line notes I’d made when assigning the initial values of A, B, or C to the entire list of 139 agents, and identified 10 of the A group as being A+.  This was based on either a well-written blurb in the agency listing mentioning they were actively looking for my genre (mysteries), welcomed new writers, obtained new clients through query solicitations, or some other blatant remark about actually wanting to be queried.

My ‘A+’ pass identified 10 out of the 77 agencies.  I didn’t think that was a bad place to start.  It took an hour to identify those 10 out of the 77, based on going back and reading their listings in the 2013 Guide to Literary Agents.  In so doing, I discovered a very important step in the process for vetting agents:

Go to the agency’s website and read it.

These websites list agent names, what sort of work they want to see, and specific submission guidelines.  But most importantly, the website contains the latest info on whether the agency is even accepting submissions.

In 3 cases out of the 10 A+ agencies, their website told me they were no longer accepting unsolicited admissions.  This was updated news since the “2013 Guide to Literary Agents” was published.  One office was moving, and not accepting submissions until further notice.  Two were overwhelmed with volume, and were only accepting queries from referrals.

It wouldn’t have been the end of the world had I submitted to those 3 agencies, but it would have been a guaranteed 3 rejections and a waste of time and money.  The good news is I know the following about the first 7 agencies I’m going to query for Blood Pools:

Agent’s name
Agency’s street address
Agent’s email address
The specific submission criteria they are seeking
The expected turnaround time for a response

All of those elements will make my submission appear as professional as possible, and maximize the chances that Blood Pools will be taken seriously.  At the very least, Blood Pools will get a fair chance to succeed on its own merits.  Not sure I can ask for more than that. 

Let the querying begin…

I Need to Go 1 for 77…

The quest for an agent to represent “Blood Pools” continues!  I decided to classify the list of 139 agents in the 2013 Guide to Literary Agents that list “mystery” as one of their areas of interest/specialty into three groups.  Those that seem like a very good fit, those that seem like an adequate fit, and those that wouldn’t fit no matter how hard I tried to get them on.  My process consisted of reading the 139 entries and grading each one A, B, or C according to the scale above.  Along the way, I discovered two additional agencies that looked tempting, so my list expanded to 141 total.

After grading each of them, here’s the way things shook out:

A = Great fit = 77 agencies

B = Adequate fit = 40 agencies

C = No fit at all = 24 agencies

Interestingly, I recognized 17 agencies who actively rejected “Flesh Wound”, and 10 who never replied to my query for “Flesh Wound”.  Do the math and  you’ll discover the I submitted “Flesh Wound” to 27 agencies.  If I submit “Blood Pools” to only the “A = Great fit” agencies, that will be 77 submissions – three times as many chances to succeed.

Submitting a query to 77 agencies seems like it could take most of a year, but in reality, most of them want an email query consisting of a query letter and sample pages, which is very easy to put together and send.  So I am hopeful that over the course of the next several weeks, I can hit all these agencies.

Now obviously, the possibility exists that I will get rejected either proactively or passively by all 77 agencies, and who wants 77 different subject matter experts to tell them that there are prettier girls to dance with than them?  No one.  But there are a couple of coping mechanisms I plan to employ.  First, I only need 1 of the 77 to like “Blood Pools”.  Second, if all 77 do in fact thumb their literary nose at me, I can go into self-publishing with no doubts that it is the right course of action.  It feels sort of like having a lottery ticket.  And hey, someone has to win.

So off I go to start writing emails….

Step 1: Finding an Agent – How Hard Can It Be?

Now that I’ve finished the first draft of Blood Pools and polished it up with a review for continuity and editing, I’m ready for the world to read it.

There are a couple of different routes I can go with this.  I can either find a publisher directly, find a literary agent who will hopefully sell Blood Pools to a publisher, or I could publish it myself on BookBaby, Amazon’s Digital Text Platform, or some other site.

My first choice is going to be the traditional route – a publisher or an agent.  The big advantage I see there is the promotion and marketing a major publisher can provide is something I simply can’t duplicate on my own.  A lesson I learned from having Flesh Wound published by a small, independent house was that the visibility of your book is so small that it isn’t likely to gain enough traction to sell well, regardless of how good it is.

So my first step was to pick up two reference books.  The 2013 Writers Market and the 2013 Guide to Literary Agents.  The former will give me all the contact info I need for publishers, and the latter will do the same for agents.  In addition, there is some great info on how to craft a query letter, which is the one chance I’ve got to capture enough of someone’s interest that they’ll want to read the manuscript.

So I jump right into the Guide to Literary Agents, which is helpfully organized by the genres the agents represent, and find out there are 139 literary agencies out there that represent mysteries.  I think this is awesome.  Can you imagine the novel you’ve worked on for the last half-year being rejected 139 times?  That doesn’t matter, really.  All I need is for 1 agency to want to represent it.  The other 138 can regret their bad decision when Blood Pools hits the NYT Bestsellers List.

138 rejections won’t happen, of course, because not all 139 agencies are going to be a good fit for Blood Pools.  My job now is to go through those listings and decide which ones are most likely to be interested in Blood Pools, given work they have represented before.  Let the prioritizing begin…..

“Blood Pools” Completed – The Journey to Publication Begins

Well, blog followers, after a long break I’m happy to announce that I have completed my next novel.  It is titled “Blood Pools”, and introduces two new main characters, Perry White and Lola Rodriguez.

Perry is a 44-year old divorcee and father of a 12-year old daughter, who believes his grandmother has been dead since before he was born.  So when he receives a call from a lawyer in Santa Barbara telling him that she has just passed away and he is sole heir to her multi-million dollar estate, he’s a bit shocked.  There’s just one catch – she left a letter saying she believes she’s going to be murdered, and to inherit the estate Perry must fly out to Santa Barbara and find her killer. 

This novel is a lot different than Flesh Wound in that there are new characters and not a dominatrix to be found.  However, the dialogue is rich, the story fast paced, and Perry and Lola are primed to continue their adventures in future novels!

So now the process starts of finding a publisher for Blood Pools.  I intend to document my search for one on this blog, and hope it serves as a useful and entertaining reference for other writers looking to negotiate the labyrinth of getting their work from their laptop out to the world.

Stay tuned!  We’re just getting started.   And as usual, thanks for reading.  Send me questions any time at jon@jonsay.com.

 

It’s funny how things work out…

Hi everyone, it’s good to be back on the blog!  I’ve been away for awhile, jumping back into the conventional workforce.  The dream of having my writing become my primary means of financial support isn’t quite there yet – but it is not something that has to be discarded as pie-in-the-sky, either.  Like life, that plan is turning out different than the way I drew it up, but that happens with just about everything.  The good news is that after not writing anything more than notes to myself about story ideas, character ideas, and observations over the last seven months, the desire to write again has risen up strongly enough to overshadow how tired I might be at night, or how much I want to stay in the cozy bed in the morning before work.  I firmly believe that people do what they want to do and then justify it however they need to, and at this point I want to write again.

It’s funny how things work, but shortly after I made that decision and realized I wasn’t going to be satisfied just thinking about writing, my conventional employer decided to send me to the West Coast for a business conference.   Out of the blue, first business trip since I started working there.  That means I’ll have a 4-5 hour plane ride, both ways.  That might draw groans from most people, but to me it is like a big, flashing neon sign saying, “Writing time….Writing time…Writing time…”  The fact is that I haven’t had a 4-5 hour block of undistracted writing time since, well, since I started working again.

Decision to write again regardless of a full-time working schedule, immediately followed by a gift of 8-10 hours of writing time, and probably more at night in the hotel room.  Coincidence?  Believe what you want.  I don’t believe in coincidences.

So here is what to look for – a new short story coming out on Jonsay.com next month, as well as my existing short stories and my novel becoming available on Smashwords.com.  If you are not familiar with Smashwords, it is one of the latest sites to electronically publish work in a format that is compatible with every electronic reader on the market.  It also makes it available in the Apple iBooks store, Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon.com for the Kindle, etc. etc. etc.  Look for the link coming on Jonsay.com next month!

In the meantime, thanks as always for reading!  Keep your emails and questions coming at jon@jonsay.com!

It's funny how things work out…

Hi everyone, it's good to be back on the blog!  I've been away for awhile, jumping back into the conventional workforce.  The dream of having my writing become my primary means of financial support isn't quite there yet – but it is not something that has to be discarded as pie-in-the-sky, either.  Like life, that plan is turning out different than the way I drew it up, but that happens with just about everything.  The good news is that after not writing anything more than notes to myself about story ideas, character ideas, and observations over the last seven months, the desire to write again has risen up strongly enough to overshadow how tired I might be at night, or how much I want to stay in the cozy bed in the morning before work.  I firmly believe that people do what they want to do and then justify it however they need to, and at this point I want to write again.

It's funny how things work, but shortly after I made that decision and realized I wasn't going to be satisfied just thinking about writing, my conventional employer decided to send me to the West Coast for a business conference.   Out of the blue, first business trip since I started working there.  That means I'll have a 4-5 hour plane ride, both ways.  That might draw groans from most people, but to me it is like a big, flashing neon sign saying, "Writing time….Writing time…Writing time…"  The fact is that I haven't had a 4-5 hour block of undistracted writing time since, well, since I started working again.

Decision to write again regardless of a full-time working schedule, immediately followed by a gift of 8-10 hours of writing time, and probably more at night in the hotel room.  Coincidence?  Believe what you want.  I don't believe in coincidences.

So here is what to look for – a new short story coming out on Jonsay.com next month, as well as my existing short stories and my novel becoming available on Smashwords.com.  If you are not familiar with Smashwords, it is one of the latest sites to electronically publish work in a format that is compatible with every electronic reader on the market.  It also makes it available in the Apple iBooks store, Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon.com for the Kindle, etc. etc. etc.  Look for the link coming on Jonsay.com next month!

In the meantime, thanks as always for reading!  Keep your emails and questions coming at jon@jonsay.com!

Inspiration has arrived…

Over the last week, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that spurred an idea for my next novel.  Suffice it to say, there are practices and products being developed at a certain now-infamous insurance giant – yes, the one that nearly single-handedly destroyed the country's financial system just a couple of years ago – that so compellingly lay a plot line out for a novel that it's impossible to not write it.

This comes at a good time.  The sequel to "Flesh Wound" , which was 25,000 words done, had stalled for me.  I still knew the story, but it was no longer inspiring.  A lot of life events that happened since I started writing that book had a lot to do with the cooling of that internal fire, but the fact is that book needs to hibernate for now.

It's good to feel re-inspired.  This book will take a long time to write, but that's good.  It will be a test of the mettle of the idea for it to remain compelling over the time it will take to write.

Now, on to research…

It’s been a couple of months..

…since I last blogged.  Jumping back into full-time employment has consumed my attention and time, and I’ve written almost nothing.  I’m not surprised by that – when I accepted my current position I sort of figured that was going to happen.  I spent some time annoyed that I was back in the corporate rat race, but then I got paid.  And then I got paid two weeks after that.  And again two weeks after that.  Life is always trade-offs, isn’t it?  And sometimes, they’re hard to argue with.

 

So my wife and I watched the final three episodes of Oprah.  They were something to see, and after we’d turned the DVR off after the final show, I was brushing my teeth before jumping into bed and the following dialogue ran through my head.  That’s how the process works for me – when I’m concentrating on something else, dialogue will find me.  A lot of times it can lead to short stories, or if I’m writing a novel it will move the story forward.  Anyway, here’s what I “heard” after watching Oprah’s final show:

 

She glanced over at him behind the wheel, thinking he was unusually quiet this morning.  He wasn’t looking at the car in front of them, he was looking past it into some vision of the future or past that was making him frown.  She looked back at her laptop and started typing before breaking the silence.

“Something on your mind this morning?”

“Hmm?  Oh, I was just thinking that James Bond probably never had to sit on a freeway entrance ramp waiting for a green light to get into his job at MI-6.”

“He never went into the office, did he?  What’s the problem?” she asked.

“Wife and I watched the Oprah finale last night.  You know, the one where Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise and Stevie Wonder showed up to tell her how amazing she was?  It totally depressed me.”

“How can that even be?  Oprah is second only to God in the amount of benevolence shown to mankind.”

“That’s just it.  Compared to her, how can you not feel like you’re just taking up space?”

“Of course you’re just taking up space.  Right now, you’re taking up space on a freeway ramp like everyone else, helping to create this traffic jam.”

“I mean,” he continued, ignoring her, “being employed as a middle manager at an insurance company is exactly nowhere in terms of having an impact on anything.  Oprah came from nothing and created the largest media empire owned and run by a black woman in the history of the free world.  I came from middle class America and am now working my ass off to try and stay there.”

“Maybe you’d have been better off being born in the inner city,” she said absently, reading an email from a colleague.

“That’s another thing.  Unless you’re a victim of a horrible personal tragedy, an uneducated black person in the South or in Africa, or you get tickets to one of her ‘favorite things’ shows, you’re invisible to Oprah.”

“Hey, don’t be hating on Oprah.  The woman has done more to help humanity since we began this conversation than you’ll do in your entire life.”

“My point exactly.  I’m not hating on Oprah.  I can’t help loving her like everyone else on Earth.  But I felt completely irrelevant after seeing everyone she’s helped go to college, how she’s filled libraries with books, inspired parents who’ve lost children, and on and on and on.  What am I doing?  Working a job every day to support my wife and child, and trying to figure out how many push-ups I have to do to stay out of a nursing home in thirty years.  It’s pathetic.”

“Your wife and child may not feel that way.”

He sighed loudly.  ”Of course they don’t.  I just wish, I don’t know, that I was able to do more, be more, somehow.”

“Yeah,” she said vaguely, pressing ‘Enter’ and shaking her head.  Then she looked over at him brightly.  ”Hey, did you see ‘Dancing with the Stars’ last night?”

He gave her a withering look.

“Oh come on, Roger, lighten up.  It’s some people’s job to change the world.  It’s other’s job just to hold it together.”

He looked at her with surprise.  ”Did you make that up?”

“No,” she shook her head, “I heard Bruce Springsteen say it during an interview once.”

He rolled his eyes.  ”Great.”

“Hey, it doesn’t mean it’s not true.  Light’s green.”

 

And then I went to bed.

If nothing else, it’s good to know the machinery is still working on some level.  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

 

It's been a couple of months..

…since I last blogged.  Jumping back into full-time employment has consumed my attention and time, and I've written almost nothing.  I'm not surprised by that – when I accepted my current position I sort of figured that was going to happen.  I spent some time annoyed that I was back in the corporate rat race, but then I got paid.  And then I got paid two weeks after that.  And again two weeks after that.  Life is always trade-offs, isn't it?  And sometimes, they're hard to argue with.

 

So my wife and I watched the final three episodes of Oprah.  They were something to see, and after we'd turned the DVR off after the final show, I was brushing my teeth before jumping into bed and the following dialogue ran through my head.  That's how the process works for me – when I'm concentrating on something else, dialogue will find me.  A lot of times it can lead to short stories, or if I'm writing a novel it will move the story forward.  Anyway, here's what I "heard" after watching Oprah's final show:

 

She glanced over at him behind the wheel, thinking he was unusually quiet this morning.  He wasn't looking at the car in front of them, he was looking past it into some vision of the future or past that was making him frown.  She looked back at her laptop and started typing before breaking the silence.

"Something on your mind this morning?"

"Hmm?  Oh, I was just thinking that James Bond probably never had to sit on a freeway entrance ramp waiting for a green light to get into his job at MI-6."

"He never went into the office, did he?  What's the problem?" she asked.

"Wife and I watched the Oprah finale last night.  You know, the one where Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise and Stevie Wonder showed up to tell her how amazing she was?  It totally depressed me."

"How can that even be?  Oprah is second only to God in the amount of benevolence shown to mankind."

"That's just it.  Compared to her, how can you not feel like you're just taking up space?"

"Of course you're just taking up space.  Right now, you're taking up space on a freeway ramp like everyone else, helping to create this traffic jam."

"I mean," he continued, ignoring her, "being employed as a middle manager at an insurance company is exactly nowhere in terms of having an impact on anything.  Oprah came from nothing and created the largest media empire owned and run by a black woman in the history of the free world.  I came from middle class America and am now working my ass off to try and stay there."

"Maybe you'd have been better off being born in the inner city," she said absently, reading an email from a colleague.

"That's another thing.  Unless you're a victim of a horrible personal tragedy, an uneducated black person in the South or in Africa, or you get tickets to one of her 'favorite things' shows, you're invisible to Oprah."

"Hey, don't be hating on Oprah.  The woman has done more to help humanity since we began this conversation than you'll do in your entire life."

"My point exactly.  I'm not hating on Oprah.  I can't help loving her like everyone else on Earth.  But I felt completely irrelevant after seeing everyone she's helped go to college, how she's filled libraries with books, inspired parents who've lost children, and on and on and on.  What am I doing?  Working a job every day to support my wife and child, and trying to figure out how many push-ups I have to do to stay out of a nursing home in thirty years.  It's pathetic."

"Your wife and child may not feel that way."

He sighed loudly.  "Of course they don't.  I just wish, I don't know, that I was able to do more, be more, somehow."

"Yeah," she said vaguely, pressing 'Enter' and shaking her head.  Then she looked over at him brightly.  "Hey, did you see 'Dancing with the Stars' last night?"

He gave her a withering look.

"Oh come on, Roger, lighten up.  It's some people's job to change the world.  It's other's job just to hold it together."

He looked at her with surprise.  "Did you make that up?"

"No," she shook her head, "I heard Bruce Springsteen say it during an interview once."

He rolled his eyes.  "Great."

"Hey, it doesn't mean it's not true.  Light's green."

 

And then I went to bed.

If nothing else, it's good to know the machinery is still working on some level.  Thanks for reading.  -Jon

 

To Theme or Not To Theme

I read something recently that proposed that fiction writers tend to settle on a theme of some type that inspires their writing over the course of their entire career, and sometimes, they are not even conscious that they have done so.  In other words, they sit down with a story idea, plot the entire novel, write it, then move on to the next one and do the same thing, all without realizing their work is orbiting a central theme as certainly as Earth is orbiting the Sun.

One example given was Ernest Hemingway's obsession with Death.  I have to admit that everything of his that I've read (and I haven't read all of it) has featured death as a noticeable theme.  He also committed suicide, which doesn't do anything to dispel the notion that death was on his mind quite a bit, consciously or not.

I tried coming up with examples of this claim from some of my favorite writers, and it actually wasn't too hard to do.  Raymond Chandler's main detective, Philip Marlowe, was constantly defending those who were walked on by the mean and callous who usually were rich, amoral, and not averse to violence.  Robert Crais' primary characters, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, do whatever is necessary to defend those who are incapable of defending themselves. 

So what about me?  Although I've only had one novel published, I've actually written three.  All three feature Max Chandler, and when I look back on what happens to him across all three books there is a central theme that emerges.  White collar criminals abuse their power and/or manipulate existing social and business structures for gain, regardless of the cost to others of doing so.  And Max stops them, driven primarily by the desire to prevent harm to the innocent victims.  It isn't what Max or any of the other characters in the book do, it's why they do it that determines character and right versus wrong.

I'm okay with that theme.  I find that it picked me, rather than the other way around.  Even as I plot my next book – actually, even as I notice which patterns of behavior around me or which news stories capture my interest – I can see that theme runs through all of them.

So what about you?  Even if you're not a writer, what themes do you find yourself drawn to in the fiction you choose to read?  I think the answer is revealing of some of what makes you tick.  Which is what those of us who write are trying to appeal to in the first place.

As one of my close friends likes to say, have a 5-star day!  Thanks for reading. -Jon