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Posts relating to the business of publishing books or magazine articles.

Rejected

Rejection, Thy Constant Companion

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Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. –Winston Churchill Most writers worry about rejection, not acceptance. Ray Bradbury says that the successful writer has to deal with both: “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.” Several articles on this site (usually in the “For Writers” section) offer advice to aspiring writers who are trying to find agents or publishers. The most common question I’m asked (after “How do I get an agent?”) is: “How many query letters should I send out?” Or, “I found an agent willing to represent me, but she has submitted my manuscript to five (or eight, or twelve) publishers, with no takers. What should I do now?” Most writers start out asking “Is my writing any good?” but that inevitably leads to the question: “Is it good enough for me to get paid?” Literary agents are pretty good at spotting what sells, or at least what they can sell to an editor at any given time. Good agents know the marketplace. Writers, even working writers, don’t usually know what sells. Writers know how to make interesting sentences, some of which may sell, others […]

On Publishing

On Writing Aspiring writers often seek advice about how to find a publisher or a literary agent. Unfortunately, most authors don’t know much about the book business, unless they happen to live and work in the New York publishing world. Jane Friedman I once featured links to various sites about how to get published or how to query a literary agent, but now I send aspiring authors to Jane Friedman’s site on Book Publishing. Jane has good advice on how to get your book published and how to find a literary agent. Here are some other good books about what it means to be a writer, how to tell if you might be one of these unfortunate wretches, and above all why you should quit writing immediately if you “kind of like writing,” but are mainly interested in becoming rich or famous: On Writing, by Stephen King. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions On Writing & Life, by Anne Lamott. Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell. Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, by Flannery O’Connor. Three Uses Of The Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama, by David Mamet. The Art Of Fiction, by John Gardner. When professional writers […]

How To Query A Literary Agent

How To Query A Literary Agent

Ye Olde Query Letter I loathe writing. On the other hand I’m a great believer in money. –S.J. Perelman Many large publishing houses accept only manuscripts submitted by agents. Many agents aren’t interested in representing unpublished authors. So now what? If you are an unpublished novelist, don’t bother a literary agent or anyone else in the book business until you have finished writing your novel. Agents and editors work at desks surrounded by stacks of completed manuscripts and are too busy to entertain “ideas” that may one day become books. Writers of nonfiction who are also experts in their book’s subject may attract an agent by submitting a compelling proposal, outline, and sample chapters. But most editors and agents advise aspiring writers that time spent peddling an unfinished book would be better spent finishing it. If you have a complete manuscript, you should approach one or more literary agents by writing a query letter. Introduce yourself and your book, and ask permission to submit the entire manuscript. Jane Friedman I once featured links to various sites about how to get published or how to query a literary agent, but now I send aspiring authors to Jane Friedman’s site on Book […]

Would My Book Make A Good Movie?

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Books and movies are two different languages. To compare the two is like comparing pottery and stained glass. –Russel Banks Probably half the movies made in Hollywood are adaptations of stories that originally appeared as novels, nonfiction books, comic books, graphic novels, short stories, plays, poems, or what have you. Hollywood studios and production companies aggressively scan major magazines and the lists of New York publishers looking for books and stories that would make good feature films or television shows. If Random House or Harper Collins or some other “major” house published your book, chances are that a professional “reader” has already read your book and written a short memo (called “coverage”) assessing its movie potential. (Scott the Reader and screenwriter, John August, both have entertaining descriptions of their careers as “readers” in Hollywood.) If your book was self-published, or published by a smaller press or University press, it’s less likely that a Hollywood “reader” has assessed its movie potential. Hollywood is usually interested in making “big,” popular, commercial movies with wide appeal, so they scan publishers’ lists looking for big, popular commercial books. If your book received unfavorable coverage, or if it was published by an obscure press, then […]