Writing the Paranormal Novel: Techniques and Exercises for Weaving Supernatural Elements Into Your Story. (42 page)

The question is, how do you find an editor or an agent?

One way to find an agent is through the Association of Authors' Representatives. As of this writing, their Web site can be found at
http://aaron-line.org
. A great feature of their site is a search function that lets you hunt agents by what sort of material they represent. You can type in
urban fantasy
or
vampire
or
YA fantasy
and it'll generate a list of agents who handle that genre, along with their contact information. You don't have to be an AAR member to use their site.

All members of the AAR have to conform to certain business practices. They don't charge reading fees, they don't charge commissions in advance, and so on. AAR agents aren't necessarily
good
agents, but they're more likely to be
honest
agents. Many AAR agents have their own Web sites, so you can check to see if they're taking submissions, what format they want, what sort of stuff they do and don't want to see, and so on. Always, always check the agent's Web page if she has one and follow her submission instructions
to the letter
.

Another place to look is among authors. Authors will sometimes mention their agents' names in acknowledgments or on their Web sites. If your genre and/or writing style is similar to a particular author's, search around and see if you can figure out who the author's agent is — you might be a good fit. Don't ask the author for an introduction, though. That's a social no-no unless you and the author are already good friends and/or the author has reason to think his agent might be interested.

A few publishers still take unsolicited manuscripts. A quick way to figure out who might take your novel is to examine your own bookshelf — most authors write the sort of thing they like to read. Grab three or four books similar to yours. By
similar
I mean “in the same genre and style.” Lots of publishers put out vampire books, but is yours a horror novel, a vampire romance, a vampire historical, an urban vampire, vampire humor, or what? You wouldn't want to send a vampire horror novel to Harlequin, for example, even though Harlequin publishes vampire stories; Harlequin wants vampire romance. When you have a handful of books similar to yours, check the inside cover or the spine to see who the publisher is. Warm up your Internet browser and hit their Web site. Somewhere on their site, they might have a
contact us or submissions or author information
link that will lead you to information on how and where to send a submission. You can also just check publisher Web sites cold and see if they take submissions.

If you strike gold, make sure you get the name of a specific person to send the manuscript to. In cases where no name is listed on the site, you're allowed to call the publisher's office to ask. You won't talk to the editor anyway — you'll talk to a secretary or assistant: “Hi! Your Web site says you accept unsolicited manuscripts, and I wanted to know the name and title of the person I can send one to.” You want a name because nameless manuscripts go to the bottom of the mailroom pile, while named manuscripts are more likely to hit a specific person's desk.

The publisher's Web site will also list what genres they accept and whether or not they take (or prefer) electronic submissions, as opposed to print ones.

Once you have your list of potential agents and editors, you start the query process.

For agents and editors, the query process is much the same, though for simplicity's sake, I'm going to talk as if you're hunting down an agent. If you've gone through the steps above, you've already checked each one's Web site and you know what they want to see. The vast majority will want a query letter first.

Query letters
are shorter than treatments. You describe your book and introduce yourself; the agent can decide whether the project is worth pursuing. Query letters save everyone time. The agent can read a dozen queries in the time it takes to go over a single synopsis, and queries are a handy way to weed out inappropriate material. See, overeager authors hit up the wrong agents all the time, and agents who don't handle science fiction and clearly say so on their Web sites still end up fielding manuscripts with hyperspace in them. Query letters let agents weed that stuff out faster.

A query letter follows standard business letter format. After the “Dear Ms. Smith” greeting, plunge right in with a one-or two-paragraph description of the book. This is back-cover blurb stuff, and you want to hook the agent's interest right away. Don't start by introducing yourself. That's dull and boring, and the agent wants to see if you can grab an audience. Introductions don't grab anyone.

In the next paragraph, explain why you're sending the query to this particular agent. See, you always want to tailor the query letter to the agent so the agent knows you're not just mass-blasting queries (even though you probably are — it keeps up a polite fiction). You can say you found the agent's Web page and figured the agent might be interested. Or if you know the agent represents a particular author whose fiction is similar to yours, you can say, “I like what you've done for Mercedes Lackey's career and thought you might be interested in my work as well” or “I really enjoy your client Esther Friesner's books, and I write in a similar vein.” If you met the agent at a conference or convention, now's the time to bring that up. (“It was a pleasure meeting you at MegaCon last month. We talked about my book after the ‘Where Have All the Dragons Gone?' panel, and you gave me your card.”)

In the final paragraph, give info about yourself: “By way of introduction, my short stories have appeared in …” If you have no writing credits or anything about yourself that relates directly to your book, skip this part. The agent doesn't care that you live in a tree house or that your dog is named Mr. Wuzzles. It's okay if you don't have any short story credits. Really. Time was that magazines were considered the training ground for novelists, and short story sales were just about the only way to get anyone to look at your novel, but once again times have changed. Agents only care how good your writing is now, not how good it was last year.

Close with something like, “I have a synopsis and full manuscript for the book if you'd like to see it. Thank you for your time. Sincerely …”

And you're done.

Here's a sample query letter for a paranormal novel:

There are certain things you want to avoid in queries. Including any of the following will get you rejected, and rejected fast.

 


• The wrong name
  . I already mentioned how query letters should be personalized to the agent or editor, even when you're massblasting them out by e-mail. It's really, really easy to put the wrong name into a query letter when you click that Paste icon. Triple check. The fastest route to rejection by Ms. Smith is to send her a query addressed to Mr. Brown.
  

 


• Biographical information
  . At the query stage, the agent only cares about your writing. Once she agrees to take you on as a client, she'll be fascinated to know that you grew up in Borneo or that you have forty-six cats. Until then, keep your mouth shut about anything that doesn't involve the book.
  

 


• Your research
  . No one — and I mean no one — cares about this. Agents and editors assume you've done proper research or you wouldn't have written the book. Telling them you did research is like telling them you learned to type.
  

 


• What rights you want to sell
  . The query letter stage — or any part of the submission stage — is not the negotiation stage. Once the agent calls to say she wants to represent you or the editor calls to say he wants to buy the book, you can talk numbers and percentages. Any earlier than that sounds pretentious.
  

 


• How cool a movie this would make
  . Sure, it's fun to cast the movie in your head. But it's not a selling point for a novel. Movies aren't books. Once your manuscript is published, you can talk to Hollywood (or, more realistically, hope that Hollywood talks to you).
  

Internet searches are
de rigueur
these days. Any editor or agent who thinks your query is worth investigating further will turn to the Internet and run your name through a search engine before asking to see the full manuscript. If you're shopping a book around, check your Web site, your blog, and the social places where you hang out online. Are your posts something you'd want an agent or editor to see?

Or perhaps:

Stuff like the first entry tells the agent you can't act professionally in public. Stuff like the second entry tells the agent you won't be any fun to work with. You can be sure rejection is forthcoming.

A great many agents now take queries by e-mail. Take care that you follow the agent's guidelines. Some will want the query letter pasted into the body of an e-mail, and others will want it as a separate file. If the agent wants your treatment and/or samples, send it the way the agent wants. As with queries, some want the material pasted into an e-mail and others want a file. You don't need to put your address and phone number at the top of an e-mail query letter.

If the agent wants a paper query, send it with a self-addressed stamped envelope for the agent's reply. The same goes if you send a treatment and/or sample chapters. You can add “The manuscript is recyclable, and I have enclosed a business-sized envelope for your convenience” to avoid paying extra postage for the manuscript's return.

Some agents may want more than just a letter with the initial query. Their Web page or writers guidelines may say they want:

 


• a treatment AND/OR
  

 


• the first five pages of the manuscript OR
  

 


• the first twenty pages of the manuscript OR
  

 


• the first fifty pages of the manuscript OR
  

 


• the first chapter OR
  

 


• the first three chapters
  

I've even run into a couple of agents who ask for the first page only, though this is rare. (And, I feel, a little mean-spirited, like someone who says, “You have ten seconds to impress me, starting five seconds ago.”) Yes, you can cheat a tiny bit. If page 20 ends in mid-paragraph, you can send twenty pages plus half a paragraph.

If you can, still try to end with that cliffhanger, however small. You want to finish with something that makes the reader need to turn the page.

A number of writers conferences around the country give potential authors the chance to attend pitch sessions. A
pitch session
is essentially a short one-on-one interview between you and an editor or agent. You have a short period, usually around ten minutes, in which to convince the other person that your book is worth reading. It's sort of a combination of job interview and speed dating.

Before you sign up for a pitch session, do your homework. For an editor pitch session, find out what publisher the editor works for and what sort of fiction he edits. (Usually this is listed in the conference's programming information, but you may need to do some Web surfing, too.) There's no point in pitching your haunted detective series to an editor who handles memoirs and how-to books, for example. You'll also want to know if the publisher is a real publisher. (See the section on scams on page 246.) Find out what else they've published. Can these books be found in stores? Have you heard of any of their authors?