Happy New Year! We hope this finds our readers well rested from a holiday break! We spent our time off catching up on reading and it seems like we received an unusually high volume of memoir submissions. This left us wondering, why is memoir so popular? Is it the transparency of the world we live in today? Is it our collective obsession with celebrity love lives that lends itself to curiosity about how ordinary people overcome extraordinary obstacles? As we caught up on emails sent over the break, we mused; is it the "me" generation's fascination with telling its own individual stories? Or maybe it is just the sheer voyeurism born out of the social networking era. Perhaps we are all just craving the story of the person behind the Facebook page or the Tweet. If Facebook is looking into other peoples' windows, is it possible that memoir is taking it a step further by sitting in other peoples' living rooms?

So what makes a good memoir? Well, we think it's a work that braids a fantastic, original voice and an unforgettable experience. A well-written memoir immerses us in a world so vivid, a place so unusual, and a plot so well-crafted that we are happy to sit in that living room for as long as it takes to truly experience the story. And what a treat when we find that magical combination!

Just about the highest praise for memoir is that is "reads like fiction" (but isn't!) because, in essence, the basic principles of all stories are the same. The unusual plot twists, the rich characters and the meaningful endings all leave us with the same sense of looking at the world through someone else's eyes. So we challenge you to embrace the voracious voyeurism that permeates our new world in 2010 and we dare you to satisfy us, dazzle us with your prose and invite us to sit on your couch with you as we all look out our windows towards a New Year.

-Wendy and Kim

I've been working on a lot of thrillers and mysteries lately, which can be a great thing- recently I've been privy to taxidermy-obsessed serial killers, zombies who become abnormally strong, and drug busts in the beautiful but dangerous city of Charleston, SC. But now it's time for a good cry- that's right, I'm asking specifically for some beautiful, heartbreaking, upmarket women's fiction.

I love anything to do with animals, heartbreaking family secrets, food, lost loves, and destiny. I prefer it when everything ends up happily, but things were lost along the way. I need a hook that gets me interested in the first place, and characters that I will gladly give up my weekend to spend time with them. Unusual is good; I'm a big fan of The Time Traveler's Wife and Dogs of Babel.

So send on the good stuff- no need to include a hankie, I'll be providing my own!

-Michelle Brower

Labels: fiction, submissions

As many of you know, it's been a whirlwind summer of writers' conferences (which means a lot of airplanes, airport hotels, and very necessary 3 pm cookie breaks) for me, and I met a lot of authors and would-be authors in the month of August. A lot. In fact, I met so many that I thought I'd do a post about the ins and outs of conferences- why go to one? What do you do there as an author? More importantly, what don't you do there? So without further ado, here's another Top Ten post.

1) Go to get feedback on your work in a workshop or instructional setting. Sometimes writer's forget that the first and most important step in starting a writing career is actually, you know, writing. If you're a genre or commercial writer, find out how your work fits the field you're writing in, find out if anyone is bored, find out the pages where your reader just couldn't put the manuscript down. If you are a literary author, find a conference with a great group of faculty who can offer a nuanced reading and challenge you to do better.

2) Go to meet other writers.
I know most writers tend to write alone in some cramped closet in a deep dark basement somewhere and rarely ever emerge to see the sun, but a conference is a great place to meet others of your kind. You can share writer's block stories, bounce ideas around, talk about the process. And when you go home, thanks to the magic of the internet, you just might have a ready-made critique circle to share your work with.

3) Go to learn about the publishing process. Let's face it, sometimes publishing can seem a little mysterious and unfathomable. At conferences, there's often a wide range of publishing personae there: agents of all shapes and sizes, editors from major houses, small publishers, magazine editors, etc. We almost always do some kind of panel, and this is your chance to ask educated questions about how publishing works. Ever wonder who decides what cover a book gets and why? How debut authors get blurbs? How do books get into the front of the book store (hint: publishers have to pay for it)? Here's your chance.

4) DON'T expect to get a major book deal and be whisked directly from the conference to Hollywood with a newly fat bank account.
It's perfectly true that some people do sit down with an editor or an agent at a conference and something good comes of it down the line. But to be honest, it's really rare. One-in-a million rare. Sighting an ivory-billed woodpecker rare. The thing that helps the most? Having an amazing book that you've worked on until it's perfect.

5) If you're pitching, have a book and be a writer.
It's surprising to me how many people pay for an individual pitch session, sit down, start telling me about their unfinished novel, and get really disappointed when they find out they have to complete it before it can be sold. All debut authors (with rare exceptions in certain genres) have to have one full novel that we can sell on the basis of its merits. Non-fiction books need complete proposals. It sure would be great if you could sell an idea, but you can't. Also, once a man sat down across from me and started telling me about the novel he had "written" by dictating to his secretary. He had the verbatim transcripts, and he was hoping I would "iron them out" for him. Needless to say, I did not have a good impression of his writing abilities.

6) DON'T be a pushy pitcher.
I've been pitched in the bathroom. On the treadmill. In an elevator. While trying to eat. Once, in the airport when the conference was over. Now, agents are at these conferences for a reason- we do want to hear what prospective authors want to say, and in fact we are looking for good new material. But think about when you would bothered by talking about work, and don't pitch to us then. If you didn't get a chance for any face time with the agent of your choice at a conference, it is perfectly acceptable to send an email afterward with a "sorry I missed you at BLANK conference" and a query. Just think, then I won't have to remember you as the person pitching their comic novel while I'm in line for the ladies' room!

7) Agents and editors are people too.
For the most part, we are nice people who are doing this job because we love books and reading. Don't be overly obsequious, and don't be overly rude. We are not trying to crush your dreams, nor are we magical beings. Honestly represent yourself and your work with confidence, and we promise to treat you with respect. We realize that you have worked very hard on your book, but we can't take on everything, and any rejections are not a wholesale rejection of you.

8) DON'T be shy.
Conferences are a great place to just talk to other people about what's going on in the publishing world. It's very important for authors to be in touch with contemporary writing. Who are the hot authors now? What's working/not working in commercial fiction? What topics have recently been buzzing in non-fiction, and which already have 5 new books about them? Who is a good publicist to use, how do you start a blog? Take advantage of the collective wisdom of your peers.

9) DON'T bring paper manuscripts to hand out to agents or editors.
We have small suitcases. We are probably not going to read your full manuscript right after meet you. Wait, and follow up after the conference according to agent or editor preference.

10) Come prepared.
Know what agents and editors will be at the conference, and research what they represent and edit. Have questions at the ready for panels and round tables. Read some of the work written by the authors on the faculty, and know what to expect from different types of events. If you do your homework on a particular conference and the people attending it, you'll have a great time!

-Michelle Brower

I finally got a Kindle, and I must admit I am completely addicted. My teenage daughter asked if it wasn't a bit like a member of PETA wearing a fur coat. Well, no. Technology is not the enemy.

I will surely never stop buying and reading bound, paper books. I cannot imagine reading in bed with my Kindle. And I kind of hate that people can't see what I'm reading on the subway (great advertising, don't you think?). I will always love the feel of the pages and the intimacy of carrying around a real book. But on Day 1 of my "Life with Kindle" I discovered how easy it is to read manuscripts wherever I am (at home, commuting, etc). I checked the sales ranking of my clients new books (something I usually beg them not to do) and did a bit of comp title research on Amazon while stuck in traffic (and no, I was not driving!) for an interesting new non-fiction project I'm thinking of representing. And this is only Day 1. My only dilemma so far...what color Kindle cover should I get? I'm thinking pink.

-Wendy Sherman

Labels: Kindle, wendy

It's that time of year again, when the publishing business slows to a crawl, everyone heads out for vacation, and I travel here there and everywhere to attend some spectacular writers' conferences. Here's what's ahead on the schedule for this year:

Thrillerfest
New York, NY
Thursday, July 9th

Sewanee
Sewanee, TN
July 19th-21st

Pacific Northwest
Seattle, WA
July 30th- Aug 2nd

If you're in the area for any of these and want to mingle with fellow writers, editors, and agents, please do check them out.

-Michelle Brower

Labels: conferences, schedule, summer

Ok, so I may be late to this party, but our office is finally making the leap to Kindles and mine has just arrived via the kindly UPS man. And I'm not ashamed to admit that it's love at first sight.

As any publishing industry professional will tell you, up until the advent of eReaders and Kindles, we all had a permanent crick in our necks from carrying around a tote filled with manuscripts and proposals. I don't know how many times multiple manuscripts were delivered on the same day, and I had to let one sit because it couldn't fit in my "to read" bag. Now I can load this tiny thing up with all my manuscripts and take them wherever I'm headed (hopefully, the beach) and toggle through at will.

But, I have a confession to make: I don't think the Kindle can shake my love of actual, physical books. I just put in an order for some titles from my local indie bookstore, and there is something thrilling and unreplaceable about going in and chatting with the owner and leaving with some good old paper in my hands. So maybe this is the happy medium- manuscripts and quick emergency reads on the Kindle, and "forever" books at home on my shelf.

-Michelle Brower

I recently did a query workshop with Jason Ashlock of Moveable Type and Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint for the Backspace Conference, and it was our job to read author queries and ring a bell when we would have stopped reading. Out of all the queries we workshopped (I'd say we got to at least 30), there was only one that we actually got all the way through. We kept seeing the same problems over and over, so here's a redux of our top ten query red flags:

1) Never, ever, ever say you have a "fiction novel". All novels are fiction. For that matter, never say you have a "non-fiction novel" either.

2) Don't include a mock up of what you think your cover will look like. It won't look like that in the end anyway, and some of them are- to be kind -not very good looking.

3) Don't tell agents how you have been writing all your life, since you could first hold a crayon, and that's why we should take you on. This is not an important piece of your bio.

4) Don't pitch a trilogy. Trilogies are pretty outdated, and most publishers are not going to buy a trilogy when you don't already have a strong sales history. Pitch the first book, which should be able to stand on its own, and say you would like to continue on in a series instead.

5) Word count! Nearly all of the queries I looked at in the workshop were clocking in at or above 120,000 words. That is almost always too long, and makes me think you haven't edited enough. I think an appropriate length for most adult commercial fiction is between 75,000 and 100,000, and YA is between 60,00 and 80,000. Literary fiction usually is harder to pin down; it just has to be super special.

6) Don't call your work literary fiction if it isn't. Sometimes, it's hard to categorize what you're working on, but literary fiction is its own special animal. It's about the language, the craft, and more than just the reading experience. Usually, if you're writing literary fiction, you've got some great journal credits, like Glimmertrain or Tin House, or have studied in an MFA program. Those things aren't necessary, but don't jump to label your work literary if it's just hard to describe.

7) Know your audience. I often see things listed as "mainstream fiction" or "family saga" or "general fiction" and these are very broad terms that don't really tell me much. If you were to go into the bookstore, where would your book be shelved? Who is the person who is most likely to read it?

8) Don't mention that your book has been professionally edited or copy-edited. In fact, why get it professionally edited? Frankly, I want to see what your writing is like on your own. Work shopping is absolutely great, but if I see something professionally edited by someone you've hired, I don't get a good sense of how good or not good you actually are.

9) Don't use a weird font or paper with a picture of a pen in an inkwell on it. This is a business letter, just be straightforward.

10) Tell us what happens in the book. We always see query letters where "something tragic happens". We need to know what that something is! Don't worry about giving away the story, we need to know this information at some point and it's probably your hook. Don't hide the hook!

And here's a bonus 11th don't: Don't start with a rhetorical question.

Now, get out there and spiff up those queries!

-Michelle Brower