Lara Zielin

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The stupid things people say on Facebook.

My friend Colleen has launched a month of gratitude over on her awesome blog, and she’s encouraging people to get in the spirit of thanksgiving.

You bet I’m jumping on that super cool bandwagon.

And even though I have about a bazillion, jillion things to be thankful for, there’s one in particular that I want to blog about.

My agent.**

I know there are a lot of awesome agents out there. I’m sorry but mine is the absolute best.

I tell this story a lot, but it’s worth re-telling on the blog: A few years ago, I attended the Backspace Writers’ Conference in New York and asked my agent (who was at that time not my agent) if she would meet with me while I was in the Big Apple. I’d queried her and had a roundabout  introduction to her through a published friend, and even though she didn’t really know me from Adam (or Eve for that matter), she agreed to lunch. Prior to us meeting, I sent her not one but TWO of my books, which she not only read by the time we had lunch, but which she also provided feedback on while we ate. Did I mention she’d read both? Two books, people.

She was kind, gracious, and took time for someone who, by all accounts, probably shouldn’t have registered on her radar. At lunch that day, I asked her if I made revisions to my novels if I might send them to her again. She said yes. For the following months I did largely nothing but revise DONUT DAYS. When I re-sent it to her, she accepted it and from then on she was my agent. But you know what? To this day I still am floored (and tremendously grateful) that she didn’t just tell me that she’d already been generous enough with her time and that I should probably go bug someone else. She could have said that, and it would have been very, very fair. But she didn’t.

Since then, I’ve sent a fair handful of books to my agent. Some of them have worked. Some, not so much. What I’m thankful for, though, is that my agent gets me, and she works to further my writing career in a way that jives with my (oftentimes impatient and oftentimes scattered) personality. My agent is always in my court. Always.

I’m also thankful that my agent is part of an amazing literary agency that’s run with integrity and kindness. In the publishing world, especially these days, there are a lot of ways to do business. They choose to do it the right way.

I shudder to think where I’d be without my agent. Maybe I would have found someone else but I guarantee they wouldn’t be as smart, as committed, or as patient.

So thanks, awesome agent. I am thankful for you and your agency colleagues every day.

** Please do not ask me if you can email my agent and use my name. Please do not email my agent after reading this unless you have read every single post on this blog. Thank you.

STATUS: Rising like Lazarus after three days of the flu.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Karaoke is so often painful, but this takes it to new levels.

One of the questions I get a lot is whether or not an author can go back to an agent who has said no to them and try, try again. I guess the answer depends on the manner in which you re-ask them, and if you’ve worked at improving your book.

If you haven’t significantly altered (read: improved) your book, then don’t waste the agent’s time. If they said no to your book once, they’ll say it again.

But if you have edited your manuscript and if you really feel that it’s improved, then a second query might be in order.

But before you re-query, consider the following:

First, the timing. If it’s been a week since your last query, forget about it. You can’t revise an entire book in a week. You just can’t. But if it’s been a few months and you’ve been working diligently on it, then the door might be open a crack.

Second, consider whether or not you want to introduce yourself under the same title. If the book has been revised enough, you may want to tweak you query letter, change the title, and have the agent look at it with fresh eyes. I’m not advocating dishonesty here. The reality is that agents are swamped with queries, and they likely won’t connect your first query with your second. There’s no harm in that IF (big IF!!) you’ve worked hard on your book and revised it since your initial query.

Third, you may want to consider keeping the title and asking the agent, up-front, for a second shot. Write them a note and say you’ve been working hard on the ms and you would like another chance. Make it funny, or make it punchy, or make it engaging — but whatever you do, write it in a way that gets their attention and makes them say, yeah, this person’s worth another shot. (I personally have done this and it’s worked. Before I was picked up by LJK, I was rejected by an agency I really wanted to be with, then re-queried them a few months later with the same ms. They agreed to a second look and rejected it again. Ultimately, when LJK picked me up, it was on a second read. Susanna, my agent, was really, really gracious and nice and didn’t have to pick up my book a second time. She could have told me to get lost. I count my blessings every day that she did. But I had worked darn hard on making that second read worth her while.)

If you get rejected by the agent a second time, I wouldn’t advocate asking for a third read. You might just piss them off at that point. Instead, go back to the drawing board, figure out what needs to be done to make your book work (ha! If it was only that easy), and then maybe look at a different agent. If you can only imagine yourself with one agent in the whole world and you must get in with them, then write a different book and submit that. An agent reading a work twice is gracious. Three times … I wouldn’t push it.

STATUS: Taking a break.

FAVE LINKEY POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: This video on the history of Lolcats. I heart Lolcats so much. I’m obsessed.

As I was doing my makeup today, I was thinking about the funny relationships we writers, editors, and agents all have with each other. And that got me thinking about what writers, editors, and agents all want to say to each other but sometimes can’t. And THAT, gentle readers, inspired the following shirts. They’re all available on CafePress.com for sale if you are inclined to buy one. But you don’t need to buy one to get a laugh out of them.

Here’s a shirt for agents:

And one for writers:

And one for editors:

STATUS: Loving the phrase “the commoditization of grief.” I heard it this weekend in reference to the sale of If I Did It.

Big day today. I’m supposed to get the DONUT DAYS edits from Stacey and I discovered that LJK Literary has added me to their website. Yay! I’m no longer the red-headed stepchild! Okay, not that I ever was – not really. Uncle Larry says he lurves me and I believe him. If he locks me in the attic and feeds me arsenic little bits at a time and I suddenly find a sibling really attractive, we might have a problem on our hands (name that “literary” reference and win a prize in the form of my total respect). But for now, we’re good.

In other news, I have the BEST. JOB. EVER. Why? Oh, why you ask? I get to interview Laura Kasischke. If I could just spell her name without checking it every time, though. Durn it. Anyway, the woman’s written some seriously fab books, and one of them was SO fab that they’ve made it into a movie starring Uma Thurman. Who I have a secret girl-crush on. Ethan Hawke? You are one stupid man. Stew-pid. Anyway, back to Laura. I get to chat with her in early October about her writing, and the movie, and maybe shoes because I bet she’s that kind of woman. I bet she has GREAT shoes.

Anyway, if there’s anything you want me to ask Laura for you, just post it to my blog and I’ll get on it. And, dur, I totally plan to ask her what she’s wearing to the movie premiere.

STATUS: Throwing stones. Because I don’t live in a glass house. I live in a cabin. Down by the river. Lake. I mean lake.

I just read Ally Carter’s totally awesome blog where she waxes sentimental about how great her publisher, Hyperion, is and that made me think about how great I have it, too. I mean, seriously. Although I don’t know much about Putnam because I haven’t really worked with them yet (we still haven’t started editing DONUT DAYS), I have worked with my agent and I gotta say, she’s the cat’s meee-ow. Really.

So, not only did she read the first (really bad) version of DD and give me just the right feedback so I could make it what it needed to be, but she didn’t judge me for not getting it right the first time. PLUS, when I got married to Rob, she and the owner of LJK Literary, Larry Kirshbaum, picked up the tab for a really schwanky dinner at this place called the Collectors Café. And I’m talking a nice dinner, peeps. There was yummy champagne waiting at the table for us when we sat down, and there was all this cute little glittery stuff everywhere saying “congratulations.” Who does that? Really, who?

Plus, Susanna talks me off my many ledges, which, I’m just being honest, I go there sometimes. I get over-anxious, nervous, worried, scared, impatient (mostly that last one) and I freak out about stuff. Like when the book is coming out and will Putnam like my next book and when would that one come out and should I make a website and if I make a website does she want to see it and … blah, blah, blah.

It’s a wonder she puts up with me. Seriously. I am so, so lucky. Plus? You know what’s totally great? I like my agent. Genuinely. She’s smart, she has good things to say, she’s kind, she’s quirky but in a really good way (where she’s super level-headed, too) and she seems to really get my writing. Sometimes she seems to get it more than I do.

I honestly don’t know how I ended up in this place with the very best agent (and agency) ever. But you’d better believe that a.) I know how lucky I am and b.) I am thankful for it every single day.

Has this ever happened to you? You finish your novel, write a kick-ass query letter, send it out and get a really good response? Agents want to see partials! People are reading your words!

And then — thud. Rejection after rejection hits. “This just isn’t for us.” “We liked the premise but it just wasn’t strong enough.” “We’d love to see something else.”

Blah, blah, blah.

It’s happened to me, and more than a few other writers I know.

So what do you DO? Where do you go from here?

The first thing is to play the numbers game. I know urban legend says Fitzgerald got, like, 650 rejections for THE GREAT GATSBY before someone said yes, but the reality is that if you get more than 10 on one work, it’s probably time to edit.

I know that sucks, but just hear me out.

The question becomes, then, how to edit effectively. My previous post about family relationships is a good place to start. Can you flesh any of those out? But what about other relationships? Friends? Significant others?

Here’s another example from DONUT DAYS:

Emma, the main character, likes a boy. Of course. (This is teen fiction, people). In the first draft, he was a cute boy who was out of her league. Not terribly inventive. I thought about whether or not I could add some spice to that relationship and thought, okay, he’s a cute boy, but what if he wasn’t always cute? What if Emma sees him and suddenly he’s pulled an ugly duckling, going from geek to chic?

Now the relationship is a bit more complicated. Suddenly, there’s an element of surprise there.

Then, I thought, what if he wasn’t just any boy. What if he was the son of a family rival? Ah-ha! Now we’ve got some Romeo and Juliet strains playing in the background.

I’m not saying I wrote a masterpiece, but I am saying I went back and worked on characters and their relationships to one another, and it made a huge difference.

Anyone else out there got some stories to share about this process?

My agent (I loooove saying that!) just emailed me and let me know that the contract with Putnam is in the mail. Yay! I know I promised a blog on what changes I had to make to my manuscript to make it publishable, as well as more about Putnam and my editor there. I promise I’ll get there, but for now I thought a quick blog about contracts would be cool — and because they’re on my mind. My mind, my blog. My blind, my mog. My bind my … well, you get it.

So here’s the quick and dirty about contracts.

First, there’s the contract lite. This is when your agent and an editor (from a specific house) agree that everyone will work together, that you won’t sell the book to anyone else, and they solidify what the advance is going to look like. Apart from the call where your agent tells you that, yes, they will represent you, this is THE phone call that you wait for. Once that agreement is made, you get a one-page document (usually an email suffices) where the editor puts, in writing, just a few specifics including:

• The advance amount
• The percent of hardcover royalties
• The percent of trade paperback royalties
• The territory (mine is “world” though I’m not sure what this means yet since I know I get more money if the book is published in, say, Egypt)
• The rights, which are usually first serial, audio and bookclub

This is kind of nerve wracking because you won’t know lots of specifics until later. Like, when the book will come out or when they want the first round of edits done. All that stuff is spelled out later in the BIG contract where you sign in 34 places and it’s all official. This is the contract that my agent called about today and said was in the mail. Yay!

A February 9 blog from Pub Rants (Agent Kristin Nelson) talks about what you should make sure is in your contract to cover you when you do the BIG contract. As far as the contract lite, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. As long as the advance money looks decent, and you’re with a reputable publishing house, you should be okay — and, what’s more, these are things you and your agent will talk about before you ever say “yes” to a deal.

So, here’s the scoop. I totally got an agent. And a book deal. And I was going to start a whole new blog about what it’s like being a writer, now that those two things are in place, but I thought that the posts I’ve put here, to date, are really important. The process of getting to this place is as valuable as arriving. So I’m going to keep the posts and just update from here.

So, um, I GOT A BOOK DEAL!!! OMG, OMG, OMG.

Here’s wha hoppened:

During my November (2006) trip to New York and to the Backspace Writers Conference, Susanna Einstein of LJK Literary was gracious enough to meet with me over lunch and discuss my two books, DONUT DAYS and THE DISAPPEARED (see previous posts). She pointed out the problems with each of them, which were numerous and varied and … significant. I’m just being real here because I want every writer to know that just because a book has problems doesn’t mean it’s not fixable or that you can’t overcome said issues.

Ahem. Anyway, I asked her if she would re-read the books if I fixed the problems and she said yes. This was totally and completely gracious of Susanna and, if I were her, I might have kicked my butt to the roadside by this point, but for whatever reason, Susanna was willing to keep my number in her Rolodex — metaphorically speaking. I was lucky, lucky to have this occur, but I’d also networked my butt off to get to her. I’ve written a book about networking (shameless plug here) and I really believe in it. I’ve got a previous post about networking and I stand by my belief that connecting with people is as important as doing good work. Nuff said — I’ll get off my mini soapbox now.

I focused on fixing DONUT DAYS, which was the stronger of my two books IMHO. This took until late January. That might seem like a short time to many of you reading this, but please see my previous posts about jumping the gun and submitting works before they’re ready. It took everything I had to sit on my novel and make sure DONUT DAYS was strong enough before I sent it back to Susanna. Very soon, I will write a post about what was wrong with the book and what I had to fix. I think it might be valuable for some other writers out there.

I emailed Susanna the new text and she told me it could be six to eight weeks before she’d get to it, which was very understandable. She’d already read the stupid thing once. How could I expect her to move quickly on a new draft? Thing was, four days later she emailed me and said she wanted to represent it.

Eeeeeeee!!!!

So, my next post will be about the changes she requested and how we wound up selling it to Putnam. And all the good stuff about advances, etc. I hope this information might be helpful to writers trying to pursue that golden burrito in the sky: a published book.

More soon!

It has been almost a month since my last blog.

Uh, okay. Here’s wha hoppened. I went to NYC and went to the Backspace Conference. It was cool but not glittery and sparkly like I thought it would be. Too much on query letters. I know I can write a good query letter; it’s the good novels I have trouble with.

But what was good was my meeting with Susanna Einstein at LJK Literary. She gave me tremendous feedback on DONUT DAYS, which I’ve worked hard to implement. When I feel like it’s ready, I’ll send it back to her, which she asked me to do. That’s very encouraging. For now, however, it’s with two friends and I’m noodling on how to make it better every day.

Along with this post is a pic of me in Central Park on the Literary Walk. I thought that was appropriate. And there’s also a pic of my fiance, Rob, and my friend Colleen and me on the Subway, headed for some good eats near the financial district.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! It’s the best holiday of the year: all the good food, and none of the stress of gifts.

I heart Dan Lazar even though he rejected THE DISAPPEARED and doesn’t want to see DONUT DAYS based on the query. Yes, I still heart him. A smart agent with integrity who likes up-and-coming writers? Please. What’s not to adore?

So. I pulled my fraidy-cat head out of my sand-hole ass and emailed Susanna Einstein and asked her if she wanted to have lunch while I was in NYC for the Backspace Writers’ Conference. Of course, I didn’t tell her I was going to be at Backspace, but it doesn’t matter. She said yes. She is going to have lunch with me.

This right here? This is a shameless plug for networking, people.

Go forth, ye writers, and findeth connections with whom you can have lunch! Any excuse is a good excuse for networking. Who knows if Susanna will say yes on either of my books, but you know what? Either way I win. Once she meets me, she has a face and a name to connect with my words and if she doesn’t feel like she’s the one for my books, maybe she can recommend someone else who might fall over and die they love me so much.

Which is, like, everybody anyway.

Just kidding.