The Agent/Author Conversations: How to Make the Most of Your One Chance

As the "Now What?" Months continue, we’ll be hearing from agents, editors, self-publishers, and authors about the road towards sharing your work. We’ve asked several authors to interview their agents for a peek behind the curtain at what it takes to write and sell a book. Today,  Stacey Lee and her agent Kristin Nelson discuss the long road between rejection and redemption:

Stacey Lee: You’ve said that the one word that sums up your inbox in December is NaNoWriMo. Any words of advice for those coming off of their NaNo drafts?

Kristin Nelson: Your novel isn’t 100% ready at the end of November. Get your beta readers on board to read and critique. Revise until you think it’s the best it can possibly be for you as a writer at that moment. Then query us!

Sadly, that’s not usually the path many writers take. We get a ton of queries in December. If we ask for pages and they aren’t ready, it’s just going to be a “No”, and there won’t be another chance with us for that project—unless it radically changes and we don’t recognize it in a later incarnation.

Stacey: I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time letting go of a project. There’s always one more thing to do, one more comma to unhook.

After nine months of writing Under a Painted Sky (working title), I still wasn’t sure it was ready. I decided to take it for a test drive at a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference, where, to my shock, it won the Golden Gate Award. When I heard them announcing my name, my first thought was, there’s someone else here named Stacey Lee.

You don’t have to wait until you win an award to start querying, but if you query before your manuscript is watertight, you blow your one chance, and many agents don’t do R&R’s (revise and resubmits).  

Kristin: Both Sara and I used to read R&R’s, but sadly time constraints make that tough these days.

Stacey: Have you sold any books that started off as NaNoWriMo projects?

Kristin: Yes, but I usually don’t find out that they were NaNo projects until years later! NaNoWriMo is powerful because it’s a great motivator and goal. Most writers will never finish a first draft, and that’s a huge hurdle. You have to finish what you start, even if that is not a novel that will get published. Just the act of finishing is the biggest first step a writer can take.

There is so much camaraderie, too! You aren’t in it alone. Even published writers are doing first drafts during NaNoWriMo. It’s a community.

Stacey: Taking on a client is a big decision for you because you are a career agent—you take clients on for the length of their careers.  Outside of the manuscript, how do you know if you’re going to have chemistry with your client? 

Kristin: I actually don’t know if I will have chemistry with a client or not when I offer representation. That’s impossible to discern in an initial Skype or phone conversation. But interestingly enough, if I love the writing, it just seems to work out that the author and I are simpatico.

Stacey: I remember when you first called me.  You were at the annual Romance Writer’s of America conference in Chicago.

Kristin: With so many meetings and events at RWA, one tends to get a little ramped up, and I couldn’t fall asleep. So I started reading your novel. By two in the morning, I was in trouble because I just wanted to finish it!  I had to get up five hours later to attend a breakfast event.

Stacey: I loved your enthusiasm for my book, which never waned even when it was raining rejections. Were you ever afraid you weren’t going to sell it? 

Kristin: As an agent, there is always the fear that something wonderful won’t sell. In my mind it’s ludicrous that editors would pass something that I love. Seriously though, we did have 26 passes during submission.

Stacey: I don’t think I knew it was that bad. Pardon me for a moment, while I go put a cone on my head.

Kristin: Yes, that’s hard on you and me. It means we are running out of places to send it and the reality is that a lot of good young adult novels don’t sell—despite our passion for them. But once your editor Jen Besser called to say how much she enjoyed it, I knew we were on the right track and that it was just a matter of time before we said “Sold!”

Stacey: You have great instincts.  And I secretly think you like challenges.

Kristin: Well in my mind, I never call it a challenge! For me, I don’t want to sell a redux of whatever is currently hot. I want something I haven’t seen before. I want to create the next trend. And trust me, a Chinese girl on the run with a former slave in the American West was definitely something that wasn’t crowding my inbox at the time it came in.

I love multicultural stories. Stories that take a bit of history that we think we know and give us a whole new lens in which to see it. And it was a great romance. Now I’m not sure stories set in the gold rush American West will be the next hot thing mind you. But it’s a great story. It’s history that’s not remotely boring to read.

Stacey: Thanks Kristin, I’ll do my best to start gold rush trending.  (Psst: #goldrush – you heard it here.)

Stacey Lee is a fourth generation Chinese-American whose people came to California during the heydays of the cowboys. She still has a bit of cowboy dust in her soul. A native of southern California, she graduated from UCLA then got her law degree at UC Davis King Hall. She plays classical piano, raises children, and writes YA fiction. Under a Painted Sky is her first book, debuting in Winter 2015 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons. You can find her on Twitter at @staceyleeauthor.

Kristin Nelson is President and Senior Literary Agent at Nelson Literary Agency. She is equally happy reading a Pulitzer prize-winning literary novel for her book club as she is reading a sexy historical-romance. She established Nelson Literary Agency, LLC, in 2002 and over the last decade of her career has represented over thirty New York Times bestselling titles and many USA Today bestsellers. When she is not busy selling books, Kristin plays tennis and also enjoys playing bridge. She can also be found hiking in the mountains with her husband and their dog, Chutney.

Kristin is looking for a good story well told. How you tell that story doesn’t need to fit in a neat little category. For specifics, check out her examples on our Submission Guidelines page and read about Kristin’s latest sales at Publishers Marketplace.