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Role of an Agent

July 21, 2016

Most authors want a traditional publishing deal. There’s a validation that comes with that: the gratification and branding of being accepted. But, collectively, traditional publishers accept only a handful of unsolicited manuscripts yearly. Some refuse to look at unsolicited manuscripts entirely. A few have specific windows when you can submit. So how do you get published?

Something that can help is having an agent.

What does an agent do?
An agent submits your manuscript to a publisher – usually directly to an editor, as opposed to a slush pile reader. Having an agent in itself carries its own form of branding, that the author’s work merited an agent’s attention.

How do you get an agent?
Trying to get an agent is the same as trying to get a publisher: read their guidelines, submit your work (usually just a sample), wait, wait, wait. If they’re interested, they’ll ask to see the rest of it. Then wait some more. Some more. Some more. If they’re not interested, they’ll decline you and you move on. Their response times vary.

	Sidenotes
	—	Most agents will want a fresh manuscript, and not one you’ve already submitted to every publisher there is.
	—	Most agents will also prefer that you’re not submitting simultaneously to other agents.
	Important:	Don’t think you can fib an agent about either of these things. Most agents have, at some point, worked in publishing. They know everybody there is to know, so if you’re lying about something, there’s a great chance they’ll find out.

Do agents charge?
Not directly. If an agent is charging you to take you on, there’s something shifty going on. An agent earns money – a percentage – from making a deal for you. Obviously, the better the deal they get you, the more money they’ll earn.

Does having an agent guarantee you’ll get published?
Nope. It’s still a submission process.

What else will an agent do for you?
They’ll read your manuscript and offer your feedback. Remember, your manuscript is a representation of their taste, and their agency. They want to be submitting the best possible manuscript. If they have feedback – and, again, remember, they have experience in this industry – the feedback is worth considering.

Will I be obligated to the agent in any way?
You will sign some sort of agreement – usually one that involves exclusivity. But you’re not signing away your soul. You will be able to get out of it if it’s not working out for you.

Are there different sorts of agents?
Yes. They’ll have different specialties (in regards to genre and mediums), so it’s worth finding one who’ll fit your needs.

So what’s the benefit of having an agent?
They’ll be able to submit to places you can’t. If you get a contract, they’ll negotiate it for you, whereas you might be clueless. Big agencies with international offices might try to sell your book internationally, independent of your local contract, i.e. they might sell your book to a publisher here, to another publisher in the UK, and another publisher in Germany, etc.

Do I really need an agent?
No. You can still get your own publishing contract through unsolicited submission, and retain a legal professional or the Australian Society of Authors to evaluate the contract you’ve been offered.

Where can I find an agent?
You can try the Australian Writers’ Marketplace, and there’s a list on the Australian Literary Agents’ Associations website ( under Members).

Diligence

July 14, 2016

As writers, most of us want to share our stories with a greater audience. Yes, we write for ourselves. But once the story is completed, we want others to read it and enjoy it.

But what are we doing to make that a reality?

The process we follow to try get our story out there is similar for everybody:

Write
Revise!
Revise!
Revise!
Submit / Self-publish

There’s also complementary action you can take, e.g. you might join a workshop group or retain an editor to help with the revision process, or go back to school or participate in a course to improve your writing, or try secure an agent to help you get published. But, in the end, we’re left with writing our manuscript, revising our manuscript, and submitting our manuscript or self-publishing.

Let’s look at the steps.

Write
This should go without saying. You need a manuscript before you can submit it. Don’t be a writer who only ever talks about writing, and never actually writes. Sit down and write. Write daily – even in small chunks, if that’s all you can afford. But do it.

Revise! Revise! Revise
Don’t believe for a second that your first draft is flawless. It’s not. Revise. And revise. And revise. Get it the best it can be. A raw manuscript can take you only so far. It’s not going to convince your reader to overlook issues in your writing that might’ve been addressed through some diligent revision.

Submit / Self-publish
Let’s break this down further …

Self-publishing

They won’t.

Self-publishing is a valid alternative, but if it’s something you’re going to do, please, please, please, do it right. Examine the way books look – especially any books similar to yours. Make sure your prose is crisp and clean. Think about any criticisms that might come up later – queries about formatting, paper stock, structure, and copy – and address them now. Eliminate them now. You want the reader to lose themselves in your story, not in queries about the book’s production.

Submit
So you submit and a traditional publisher wants to pick you up.

Awesome!

However, make sure the deal is right. This doesn’t mean becoming a diva and making unrealistic demands, or even trying to squeeze everything you can out of them. Most publishers will be fair – or at least as fair as their own budgets allow. But contracts can have idiosyncrasies.

The Australian Society of Authors offers a contract assessment that’ll highlight any queries they have with the contract, and which you can bring back to the publisher.

Obviously, you want to get published. But don’t let acceptance blind you. Make sure the deal is fair for you.

Regardless of the course, in the end it’s about diligence.

Don’t be half-arsed in taking your journey.

Trailers

July 7, 2016

You’re sitting in the cinema, waiting to see a movie. The commercials finish. A studio’s logo comes up. Music pipes in. And then you get it .

The trailer.

It might be for a movie you’ve been hanging out for – the new Star Wars or Harry Potter or something. You’re going to watch this movie regardless. But now you’re seeing actual footage from it. Images flash across the screen. Effects blare from the speakers. The film’s score reverberates through the cinema.

Or perhaps the trailer’s for a movie you know very little about, if anything. But now the trailer introduces you to an intriguing premise. And, oh, that actor you like is in this. And the turn of events are interesting. Maybe this movie wouldn’t be a bad one to see. It’s certainly one you’ll look out for now.

Surely you’ve been in either of these situations. You might even be somebody who simply enjoys watching trailers. I know I do. A good trailer is an art form itself – an insight into a film that introduces us to the following:

that this story exists
the characters involved
the story that takes place
what’s at stake
who’s responsible for the story (e.g. director).

The trailer is a story in its own right. It teases us into wanting to know more, and then hooks us, without divulging any spoilers that can ruin the actual experience of watching the movie.

Well, that’s what the trailer should do. Unfortunately, due to Hollywood’s schism into franchising, a lot of movies are now exercises in CGI and follow a simple formula, lacking any substantive storytelling. With that being the case, often trailers become advertisements for the movie’s existence, and don’t tell you very much about what’s going on, or try to build any real story or intrigue.

If you trawl through YouTube you can see the way the trailer has evolved over the decades, and the different forms they’ve taken. Of today’s studios, Pixar and Marvel usually perform a brilliant job in generating buzz from their trailer. The trailer for Marvel’s Iron Man 3 was amazing in creating a misdirect, so that the audience went into the film with preconceptions the story could then eschew. Compare that to the early Batman vs Superman trailers, which gave away too much – Batman fights Superman, a big monster shows up, and they band together against the common enemy. Way to undermine the Batman versus Superman conflict. It’s important that the right balance is found.

We’ve accepted the existence of the trailer as a means of promoting movies, but now it’s also becoming an increasingly valid method of promoting books. But whereas a film offers a catalogue of visuals and sounds to draw on to build the body of its storytelling, a book can only rely on its story. That means everything else has to be built around it – music chosen (if any), and images created from scratch.

But the same logic applies, because what we’re trying to do is exactly what we’d do for a film – and that is to introduce the audience to the following:

that this story exists
the characters involved
the story that takes place
what’s at stake
who’s responsible for the story (e.g. director).

If you have a book that’s about to come out, or have one that’s out, think about how you could use a trailer to help create buzz around it.

It’s certainly something we’re also trying here at Busybird.

Your Publishing Journey

June 30, 2016

Years ago, self-published books looked self-published. Content was questionable, paper stock was this thick white stuff, and the finished product looked like it had been slapped together with a glue-gun in somebody’s garage.

Technology has advanced now so that you can release a book that’s indistinguishable from books commercial publishers are releasing. You have access to the same printers they use, as well as the same distributors. There’s PR, but a publisher – even a big publisher – will (and can) only do so much, so ultimately this is your responsibility. That just leaves you the duty of finding a good editor to help you develop your manuscript, a designer to lay it out and design the cover, and somebody to proofread it.

Some will frown. If you’re self-publishing, then it’s only because you aren’t good enough to land a publishing deal. In some cases, that might be right. But there’s plenty of examples where publishers have invested big in an author only to see their books flop, and rejected authors who’ve been picked up elsewhere and gone onto great success. Publishers aren’t infallible, so if they’ve passed over a book, it’s not always necessarily because the book’s not good enough. The prize example is Harry Potter, which was rejected umpteen times. Look at the phenomenon that’s become.

Arguably, self-publishing still generates stigma due to partnership publishers. Partnership publishers flatter authors regardless of the quality of their work, encourage them to publish (replete with exorbitant print runs), and charge extravagantly through the process. The ‘partnership’ suggests that the publisher and the author share the costs (and thus the risks), but it’s doubtful the publisher invests a cent of their own money. Worst of all, some partnership publishers masquerade that their model is the traditional route. Inexperienced authors don’t know any better, and their judgement is compromised by the excitement that their work has been ‘accepted’ for publication. Thus they happily fork out their money.

We all want the validation of being accepted and published by a commercial publisher. In a way, it becomes about branding, about being told by an industry staple that your work is good enough to be out there. But if you have a little faith in your manuscript, and the willingness to invest in the right people to make it the best it can be, self-publishing is becoming a practical alternative – and one that will grow as Print on Demand becomes more and more accessible.

Andy Weir’s The Martian and Lisa Genova’s Still Alice are two examples of books that were self-published, and which have experienced huge success – Still Alice was adapted to the stage, and then became a mainstream Hollywood movie starring Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin. The Martian was adapted for the screen by none other than Hollywood legend Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Bladerunner, Alien, just to name a few of his credits), and starred Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain.

So who’s to query the quality behind a book that’s been self-published?

Or its commercial viability?

Or, simply, it’s worth to the publishing industry?

Time to Assess

June 23, 2016

My book is going to be a bestseller!

We hear that more than anything.

Why’s it going to be a bestseller? Because it’s such a brilliant idea? Because it’s so beautifully written? Because you’re going to will it to be so?

You know what? You’re not the only one to think these things.

And if it were as easy as all this, publishers – with all their resources – would release nothing but bestseller after bestseller.

They don’t, because the reality is lots of brilliant stories and beautifully-written books disappear into obscurity. Others never see publication. There’s no certified predictor as to what makes a bestseller. And it’s folly to think that the potential behind your concept is going to win over an audience. The best you can do – and the formula that publishers follow – is to give your book the very best chance of succeeding by making it the best that it can be.

One of the means to achieve this – and a much more inexpensive alternative to a structural edit – is a manuscript assessment.

The simplest way to think of a manuscript assessment is that it’s a comprehensive book report of your manuscript.

You’ll get a breakdown that looks at the following things:

Structure: does your manuscript evolve logically? Even if it has some innovative structure – e.g. flipping between timelines, or rotating through an assortment of characters – is it cohesive? Are there areas it needs greater development? Or where information could be dealt with earlier/later? Structure looks at the way the story is delivered and whether it’s effective.
Plot/Content: a fiction assessment would examine plot, whilst a nonfiction assessment would explore the content. Are these sound? Within the manuscript, how do these unfold and function? Are they coherent? Are they convincing? Will the reader invest in them?
Characters: an examination of the characters and how well they work. Do they need to be more dimensional? Are they rounded enough? Are they believable? Are they motivated? Are there too many characters?
Your Writing: a look at things like your use of Point of View (POV), clarity of expression, grammar, your use of tense, etc. The assessment won’t list every specific instance where something is wrong or needs work, but will give you examples so you know what to look out for when you revise.
Your Punctuation: as with the above, you will be provided examples of things to look out for which you can address through revision.
Title: does your title fit your manuscript?

I don’t need any of this – my [PARTNER/PARENT/SON OR DAUGHTER/FRIEND/FRIEND WHO IS A TEACHER/NEIGHBOUR/DOG] read it, and they think it’s great!

Well, this might be the case, but how comprehensive was the feedback? Was it as extensive as, ‘It’s good’ or something like that? How constructive was it? Were these readers in any way biased (one way or another) due to their relationship with you? Relying on people with whom you have any sort of relationship is always fraught with risk.

A fresh perspective from somebody who

has no connection to you
is trained to look at writing analytically
does this for a living

is often the best way of identifying what does work and what doesn’t work in your manuscript.

However, before you do this, be prepared to hear anything. Lower your expectations. We all have them. We all want to believe that our manuscript is great! That it’s going to blow everybody over! That it is going to be the next bestseller! But even authors who’ve written umpteen drafts and delivered their manuscript to a publisher are going to get extensive structural feedback about what they need to address in revision. You cannot go into this thinking your manuscript is infallible, because you’re always going to be disappointed.

So if you’ve written a manuscript and are thinking about sending it out into the world, STOP. Do you really think that your manuscript is the best manuscript it could be? Or is it that you’re so immersed in it, you need fresh eyes to identify what you should be looking at next?

If that’s the case, a manuscript assessment could be the way to go.