Author: ireneg

No one likes an agent hopper.

Someone who has had four agents in seven years is not attractive. It shows that they can’t stay put, they have no loyalty, and they probably have poor judgment. Sure, anyone can make a mistake and sometimes good relationships need to come to an end. But to hop around like a kangaroo shows instability. It looks like ill-placed opportunism.

The best agent relationships are more like partnerships. The agent and the author work together to build the author’s career. There may be times when the agent is the author’s only friend. Sometimes things don’t go as they should, and the easiest person to blame is the agent, because it’s not that hard to change agents. It’s much harder and more complicated to change publishers.

I’ve had authors leave, and then they find that their new situation may be a little different, but not really better. Sometimes they want to come back, and if they do, my answer would be no. The grass is always greener, and someone who gets restless is going to get restless again.

This does not mean, of course, that you should remain tethered to someone who is no longer what you need. Just look before you leap. If you jump out of the frying pan, you don’t want to land in the fire and burn up. If someone is negligent and truly not doing their job, that’s one thing. Unrealistic expectations on the part of the author is quite another. I’ve had people come to me saying their former agent did “nothing.” Then it turns out the former agent sent the material to 37 places and got no bites. Well, what does the author think I’m going to do? Pull out my magic wand? And 37 submissions is a lot of work. It’s definitely not “nothing”.

Are some agents better than others? Of course. But are they better for you?

Let’s say you have a character who is stuck at the bottom of a well in the middle of nowhere. Her phone is dead. What is she going to do? What are her options?

She can sit there and wait to be rescued.

She can scream for help.

She can say her prayers and wait to die.

Or she can take an action.

Is it possible for her to climb out? Are there rocks or branches in the walls that she can grab? Is there something she can throw? Is there any kind of object she can use to help herself? Is it narrow enough for her to “walk” her way up?

Whatever she does, as long as she does something, she is now an active character instead of a passive character.

And that makes all the difference. A resourceful character is a character we can admire and take interest in, even if that character is a villain. You rarely see an inactive villain.

A passive character is not interesting. But a character who initiates action is a character who can take control. And that is the kind of character who makes for a good protagonist. If the story is about George, then George should be the one taking most of the action. If something is being done to him, he must react accordingly. He cannot just sit there complaining. We will quickly get tired of him unless he tries to help himself. Worse, the story will lose interest. If George doesn’t do or say anything, whatever his problem is, then there really isn’t much of a story.

Sure, we can see his family doing something. Or the police. Or whoever. But they are all peripheral. if you want George to be a character we can love and root for, he has to be at the helm. He has to be resourceful. Otherwise, it’s not really a book about George. It’s just a situation with various people doing various things, but without a real center.

Setting is one of my favorite topics, because so many writers don’t use it well. Some don’t use it at all, which is a terrible waste of an opportunity.

Try to imagine CATCHER IN THE RYE being set anywhere other than New York City. Try imagining TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD set anywhere else but Maycomb,Alabama. It just doesn’t work. Think of all the best books you have ever read and picture the setting. More often than not, the setting played a big part, if not an essential part.

Not only does the setting let us know where we are by using all of the senses, but it helps to ground the story and define the characters. Sometimes the smallest details jump off the page and bring the entire scene into view. Like the etched glass swan double doors on a Victorian house. Or a liveried doorman walking backwards on W. 57th St. in New York with one arm up and a whistle, hailing a cab. Or the metal Coca Cola sign on an old screen door that slams on rusty hinges. All those things bring a strong sense of place, which means we are that much more transported.

Let’s break those examples down. A Victorian house can seem vague in your mind without those doors. Suddenly, you are picturing a real house, not just a blur of a house. Who would live in such a house? Who are these people and what are their lives like?

That doorman on W. 57th St. brings with him a wealth of information. It tells us we’re in an upscale neighborhood. The people who live there are comfortable and urbane. I see his cap and his white gloves. I can see the hem of his coat flapping as he walks along. I can hear the piercing shriek of the whistle over the constant noise of the traffic. I can see a cab whizzing to a halt just past the avenue at his bidding. All that from one doorman!

Oh, and that screen door. I’m picturing a café in the deep South, with ceiling fans and stools at a lunch counter. I’m seeing old-fashioned autos from the 50’s or maybe even the 20’s. I am sensing the aroma of freshly baked peach pie.

Think of all these places and ask yourself what kind of person would live there? How would that setting affect who they are, how they see the world, how they talk, and how they live? Even if that character has moved somewhere else, he or she is going to bring that background along. If you have a well-dressed businessman in Chicago, maybe he grew up in Butte, Montana. How would that affect how he talks or does business? How would he dress and style his hair? He might look like any other Chicago businessman, but if we know he’s from a craggy mountain, maybe he’s a bit craggy too.

You can’t go wrong using setting for all it’s worth. Your story will be better for it and you will have succeeded in taking your reader on a magic carpet ride to another place and time.

If I were asked what is the one thing authors get wrong, it’s this. They don’t understand that publishing is a business. The second thing is they don’t know what a plot is, but let’s stick with the business.

The purpose of a business—any business—is to make money. If it doesn’t, it will soon go out of business and that will be the end of that. It is not the job of a trade publisher to encourage literature or keep the fires burning. The only job of a trade publisher is to make money. If they fail at that, they won’t be able to publish any books at all. (I’m talking about trade publishing here—the realm of bestsellers and popular books that may be literary or not. I am not talking about university presses or small places that look for avant garde material.)

They make money where they can find it. It might be a big, important novel that becomes a classic. Or it might be a book of Sudoku puzzles. Or both. But they are always looking at the bottom line, because they have to.

So the first question you should ask yourself is how will this book make money. Are there others like it that did well and so maybe this one will too? Is it something fresh and different that catches a lot of interest? Is it a memoir about something interesting and new? Has it been told a zillion times before? If so, do you have a new twist?

Many authors think the way to write a book is to get an idea, write the book, and hope it sells. That is a backwards way of doing it.

First, look around and see what’s out there. Your task is to write something that fits in and yet has a new angle of some kind. It can be the book of your heart about your eccentric family in India or it can be a fun mystery novel because you have read many of those and you like them.

Maybe you thought writing was going to be all about being creative, baring your soul, or adding to the progress of literature. And it can be all those things. Just as long as it sells.

This happened to a younger colleague of mine. It was one of the first sales she made, but it was a doozy.
She discovered a well written urban fantasy novel.

She received an offer of one book for $6000. Okay, it was modest, but it was something.

Then someone else made an offer for three books for $10,000 each.

Competition set in and the amounts continued to climb. Some publishers dropped out when it became more than they wanted to spend.

This kept going until there were only two publishers left. One of them got on the phone with me and remarked that the young agent had a tiger by the tail. I could tell she was surprised. She thought this would be easier, and that she could snap this up for little money. After all, the agent was a beginner and so was the author. I smiled and replied that yes, she was doing very well.

The auction ended after three days at three books for $125,000 each. A far cry from the opening offer of $6000 for one book. All three books made the NY Times Bestseller list.

I love this story because it shows that you should be ready for anything. You might be bitterly disappointed, or you might get a lovely surprise, but anything is possible. You never know what the day will bring. But the bottom line is that the agent was very well versed in the genre. She knew exactly how good the material was–and how valuable. She was going to let the market dictate the price, but on her terms.

Here’s a little trick I picked up somewhere along the way. I started using it when an author had to make a decision. Say she’s got two offers and doesn’t know which one to take. Or she’s presented with two different cover designs. Or she can’t decide how to start her first page.

Here’s what you do. Get a coin. Any coin will do. Assign Option A to one side, and Option B to the other side.

Flip the coin.

Now before you look at it, ask yourself. Are you secretly hoping it will be one or the other? That’s your answer.

I have rarely encountered a situation where the secret wish wasn’t there. If it isn’t, make a list of pros and cons for each. If that doesn’t work, take a walk and don’t think about it. Then think about it very suddenly. It will come to you. It may even come to you while you are asleep, but it will come.

It’s what’s on that page or screen that counts. Not your social media. That helps to sell the book once you have been published, but it can’t get you a contract. Not the fact that we met at a conference and really hit it off. Not the recommendations of prominent author friends. Not the fact that you pitched someone at a conference and they asked to see the manuscript. Not the accolades from all your friends, your mom, and your dog. Not the freelance editor you hired and not the writing class you took.

In the end, it comes down to the reader and what’s on that screen. They are alone together, just the two of them. You cannot stand there and advise the reader that the coming section is really good or that you know you need to work on Chapter Five.

Once you send something out, let it go. Now is the time to work on something else. Don’t fret (well, you will, but try to turn your attention elsewhere). Once it’s gone, it’s out of your control.

Don’t try to edit once it’s sent. Just let it speak for itself.

That’s really all you can do. The important thing is to keep going. You can’t fail if you don’t quit.

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER

Admit it. You’re jealous of someone. And you probably don’t know it, but someone is jealous of you.

It may be human nature to be jealous, but it’s a really, really, really bad way to live.
You have your path, and they have theirs. You both bring different backgrounds, styles, attitudes, energies, talent, and drive. There is no way that recipe can ever come out the same.

If you have a writer friend and that friend seems to be doing a lot better than you, let it go. The likelihood is probably that she is selling better than you and that’s why she gets more money. Authors sometimes think that publishing is a ladder of success that everyone can climb equally.

No, it’s not. Just because two authors started at the same time, have published the same number of books in the same genre, and may even have the same publisher does not mean they are entitled to equal recognition or treatment. Because one is almost certainly selling more books. That means it isn’t equal at all. And that easy, obvious, inconvenient little fact is the answer.

I have seen several cases of “joined at the hip” author friendships, where two authors become best friends and swear their friendship will last forever. In every single case, they ended up parting company, sometimes not very amicably. Why? Because one started doing a lot better than the other and that put a serious chink in their relationship. In every single case, the author who wasn’t doing as well never looked in the mirror and asked how he might be contributing to this imbalance. The answer is usually that the person doing well is simply writing better books. Or they are much more adroit and current with social media and keeping their platform strong. Or all of the above. That’s something no one wants to hear (I never promised rose-colored glasses in this blog), but it’s better to face the truth. The truth will set you free and you will be rid of the soul-eating jealousy. What can you do to write better books? What can you learn?

Or maybe you can’t. Maybe you are capable of writing A- books but not A+ books and maybe that’s okay. I know of at least one major bestselling author who always hangs out with the same two author friends. He is a household name. They are not—not even close. But they have all stayed friends, because they all recognize the reality. He has a magic spark that they don’t have and that’s just how it is. Jealousy doesn’t play a part, because they all accept the reality and this is how it was meant to be.

Have you ever seen the movie Amadeus? It’s about Mozart and his then-rival, Antonio Salieri. Salieri is the only one to recognize the depth of Mozart’s genius, but he can’t stand it. He doesn’t understand how Mozart, an otherwise unimpressive individual, could be so gifted, whereas he, Salieri, is good but not great. He is so jealous that he spends his entire life trying to destroy Mozart. Think of that. He is so eaten up by envy that he ruins his own life and Mozart’s instead of enjoying his own considerable success and being grateful that he got to witness a once-in-a-century genius. (Note: most of this is not historically true. It was a play and then a movie, but most of it never happened). It’s a story about jealousy, and I think it should be required watching for all authors.