I don’t know how Editors Celia Johnson and Maria Gagliano found the time to dig themselves out of their reading piles long enough to create the exciting literary wonder that is Slice Magazine, but their making me feel like a serious underachiever! Packed with interviews of some of the best and brightest of the known and relatively unknown  literati, Slice is a fresh modern literary mag created in Brooklyn by these two wunderkinds of publishing. It kind of feels like Slate to me , but with more focus. Check it out by clicking ——>here<——

If this is you and your character’s name is ALY then you need to email me because there is no contact on your web page!

ALWAYS be googlable writers! ALWAYS! Alternatively , you could invest 20 bucks a month on publisher’s marketplace profiles instead of a website to reach industry folk and have them be able to reach you.

Awesome.

Survey Confirms Younger Generation Less Interested in Traditional Reading Habits
The Bookseller’s Reading the Future Survey, presented at a conference last week, reports only half of young people aged 18-24 years old think people will still be using bookshops in 20 years’ time. Looking deeper into 18-24 year olds’ reading habits, the survey found that 28% were favourable towards the idea of e-readers, compared to 9% of 65+ year olds, and 40% liked the idea of downloadable chapters of books, compared to 7% of 65+ year olds. Transworld publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said at the conference that the statistics point to where publishers are headed in the future. We all know the book is a great piece of technology - you can’t drop e-books in the bath. But we as an industry are in a lot of trouble; we don’t know where we are going.”
The Bookseller

Dear Ms. Jote,

I came across your name name while searching through several agent query websites. Your listing indicated that you are interested in representing Graphic Novelists. I was wondering if you would answer a question or two for me:

1. What do you look for in a graphic novel submission? I ask because graphic novels are a truly unique art-form that is quite different from prose. My understanding is that most creators develop a proposal package with a story outline and only a few pages of art due to the lengthy time involved in creating a page; the actual book is created after a publisher has signed on.

2. Has Objective Entertainment handled many graphic novels in the past or recently?

I appreciate any answers/advice that you can provide. Thanks so much for your time.

Dear Mr. Man,

First off, KUDOS for getting to the point sans lengthy preambles!

1. Graphic novel submissions can delve into any subject matter , but I tend to shy away from anything with characters that have super powers. Not my thing. Real life taken to fantastic levels ,or an ironic look at a relatable situation is perfection in my book. We have another agent here that handles the super hero realm as well named Brendan Deneen ( more on him below).

Completed story with a strong first draft (color/bw) artwork is preferable. There is some comfort in knowing that the foundation of a work is there for a publisher, especially if the author/creator is new to publishing and its deadlines. Make sure that you get some kind of credit under your belt too. That helps tremendously.

2. Yes ,yes , YES! Shooting War is a great example of all of the above and it’s creators Dan Goldman and Anthony Lappe are our awesome clients who have relieved TONS of Publicity ( NYT, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly etc.)

We also represent the authors of the following titles available at Amazon.com , or through your local comic book store.

Unbeatable by Matthias Wolf

Necessary Evil by Joshua Williams

Book Hunter by Shiga

The Chemist by Jason Boose

and last but not least , our own Brendan Deneen author of Scatterbrain and writer of the new Flash Gordan series!

]]> http://elizabethjote.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/112/feed/ EJJ http://elizabethjote.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/reader-question/ http://elizabethjote.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/reader-question/#comments Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:11:43 +0000 elizabethjote http://elizabethjote.wordpress.com/?p=109

Sarah: Do you respond to all queries?

Sarah,

I love reading new and inventive ideas from those who query me, but if I were to respond to EVERY query I got through email I’d be blind and my clients would be furious at me for ignoring their work. My rules? Snail mail gets a response immediately via email if I like it , or a short hand written response if I don’t using the SASE. I an author paid for extra postage, it’s just fair. Email get’s a response if I want to see more after reading the attached partial, but if I don’t respond within 2 weeks , then it’s safe to say I passed on it. That would be a standard time line rule for all agents. Two weeks with no response =pass.

In my previous post I mentioned how the current Mortgage crisis is a great topic to work with. Now, it goes without saying that the world is a great place for novelist’s ( particularly first novelists) to get ideas with impact. The trick is tweaking the essential idea into something that isn’t so obvious. Let’s take the Mortgage crisis as an example. You could g the nonfiction route with that and write something that examines the history of homeownership in the US and previous scandals involving wall street and the home on main street. You could write a book that revolves around feelings associated with summarily loosing your home and create a character that Americans can identify with. An example of the American dream deffered. You could go the complete opposite end and write about how the rich experience economic downturn. Hell, a drama set inside a mortgage lender’s office. Maybe your formerly scumbag protagonist is catching some remorse at seeing his neighbors fall victim to something he created. ?Maybe it was is plan all along to ruin his neighbor by letting him on some insider news on the crisis that leaves him destitute.Who knows!

The reason that ideas pulled from the immediate lives of Americans work is that they provide a sense of -tada- immediacy to the work. A purpose, a hook, a place for a reader to point and say ” yes, that’s familair. That’s how I feel / felt” is created the minute a writer accepts this and puts a solid voice on the issue.

Richard Price’s Lush Life is the perfect example of this. For New Yorkers Price’s depiction of the Lower East Side is an allegory for what many believe Manhattan itself to be; an ever changing , culturally cramped powder keg , dream eating, yuppy harboring , alien territory. Although gentrification is something that everyone can relate to across the nation because at it’s core is the feeling of being (say it with me now) DISPLACED. How classic and current is that emotion?Plus, it centers around cops. Who doesn’t like a good cop drama?

Hey, there’s a reason Law & Order has been around since freakin’ dinosaurs roamed the earth. Even they rip stories from the headlines!

Discuss.

Women’s fiction with a humorous tone , but not chick lit.

Stories about people losing their homes ( Mortgage Crisis is a very big national topic! more of that in another post)

Books about and for boys!

Books centered around Putin era Russia!

Mean , snotty, but true …

If you fill you query with blurbs from individuals who are :

a) not authors from major houses

b) Not major ( huge or midsized ) players in the field that you’re writing about

c) not instantly recognizable by the American public

d) all of the above

You haven’t done yourself any good. In fact, the more you pack in there, the less likely an agent will continue to read the query. The purpose of a Query is to familiarize the agent with your work and to give them selling points to entice them into believing you are a solid bet. Please see # 3 on this link—-> 10 Ways Not to Get /Not Keep an Agent.

Thought I’d answer some questions I received about a previous post on the importants of candor and revealing spoilers in your queries here .

1.Anything over 100,000 words is too long for something non historical. As for an agent who handles both NF and F, it would be financial suicide for an agent not to be ambidextrous in that regard. You don’t need to even mention that you need an agent who handles both. If they handle one genre, then they can do another easily. If they don’t want to do fiction, they won’t offer to rep you.

2. Query ONE book. ONE BOOK I SAY!!!!!!! If the plot changes in a different book that’s your choice after you sell this one. Telling them won’t change their minds about repping you.

3. Stick to the big things and sum up only the key elements in the narrative/character development. Remember writing an essay about your summer in school? Yea, same concept.

It can be hard to get attention from jaded query reading agents, but there is one rule you should always follow; spill the beans. If your query is filled with snappy sales speak and sentences meant to entice , but doesn’t fully reveal the plot of a plot driven piece , then it does you no good.

Be specific about what you mean by a ” plot twists that a reader never see’s coming”. If we know whats going to happen we had a better gage of if it’s something that will work for us or the market and not leave you hanging around waiting for our verdict.