Getting Published

The Process of Getting a Literary Agent

February 18, 2010 by Lisa Tener

head-on-hands-on-books1 — Your Writing Coach

People ask me about the process of getting a literary agent. You probably know you need to submit a query (or meet an agent who says, “Yes, I want to see your proposal”), then submit your book proposal (a significant document often 50-80 pages), then wait.

But what’s it like from the inside? I asked Dr. Randy Kamen-Gredinger to share her experience of finding an agent. And some of the things her agent asked for in the process before signing.

During a course at Harvard Medical School on Writing and Publishing Creative Non-Fiction Books, surrounded by colleagues interested in learning the ins and outs of writing books and getting them published, Randy says she, “felt confident I, too, had a book in me.” She decided her book would focus on relationships.

When Randy started in my book writing course, she “hardly knew how to use a computer” by her own admission. As a psychologist with a very busy private practice, she didn’t really need to use a computer much beyond checking e-mails and Internet searches.

Entering the world of the aspiring author meant learning many new skills–not just how to structure a book and write in a compelling way. Randy quickly became skilled on her Mac, began organizing material collected throughout her career as a therapist, and created keynote addresses on a variety of topics that related to her book.

Randy held a focus group to help find a title for her book

After making headway on the book, Randy wrote her proposal. Literary agent Jeanne Fredericks liked the book and saw its potential. Still she wanted to see several revisions to the proposal and a more compelling title. At a gathering of twenty-five women friends in Randy’s living room, led be a trained branding expert and facilitator, they came up with the title What Women Need: The 12 Keys to Gaining Balance and Happiness.

Jeanne requested an edited video clip of one of Randy’s speaking engagements and four chapters of her book. Nine months from the time of the initial submission, Jeanne accepted the proposal and formally became her agent.

Was it time to submit the book to publishers? No. Her agent advised her to continue building her platform and become a “thought leader” in her field as she continued to write her book. She developed a presence on Facebook and Twitter, gave an occasional radio interview and returned to the lecture circuit after a many year hiatus. (At one point she had shared the lecture platform with greats like Dr. Herbert Benson, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Joan Borysenko).

With the help of a dear friend and savvy internet marketer, Alan Bergstein, Randy built a new website and blog.

Response to this site about a wide range of women’s issues far exceeded expectations. Jeanne thinks the site will be an important feature in the selling and success of What Women Need.

Randy admits, “The process of writing my book became a much bigger deal than I ever imagined. It’s been an amazing, and sometimes frustrating, journey. Building my platform with speaking engagements, writing for various publications, building my website and blog, creating videos for YouTube (and next webinars) continues to bring all kinds of wonderful and unexpected surprises. The deeper I go down this path the more compelling it becomes.

“Developing the website is especially fulfilling because it all of the other elements. Though still in its infancy DrRKG.com has become the umbrella of all the other activities going on in my professional world. It continues to evolve.

“As a psychologist I have been somewhat constrained by the confidential component of my work. Expanding my horizons as a speaker, writer and coach have given me a venue for reaching a much greater audience and making a difference on a larger scale.”

While it may seem a bit frustrating for aspiring authors to do so much up front work, the platform building and advance preparation means that, when your book comes out, you’ll have pent up demand for your book and you won’t be rushing to catch up and create an audience from nothing. Can’t you just see those books flying off bookshelves and virtual shelves?

How to Choose a Literary Agent: Red Flags

January 18, 2010 by Lisa Tener

A couple of questions came up about literary agents today and I realized it would be a good topic to share with you. It’s easy to get taken advantage of it you don’t know what to look for or even aren’t quite clear on a literary agent’s role.

A student from my most recent Bring Your Book to Life Program is just putting the finishing touches on her self-help book, which has quickly gone from rough idea to a powerful manuscript. She e-mailed me today asking about a particular literary agency I had never heard of.

I looked them up in Preditors & Editors, a free online listing of editors, literary agents and others, which tells you whom to watch out for, and who has a solid reputation. This one was a big “strongly not recommended.” Use this resource if you have any question about an agency. It’s a great place to start. Also ask for references from an agent before you sign.

One of my clients signed up with a literary agent because her friend spoke highly of the agent. This agent promised all kinds of access. While I had some great agents in mind for this author, it seemed her new agent had super relationships with the publisher my client wanted most. So I gave it my blessing.

The agent recommended hiring a terrible ghostwriter

Later, we learned that these promises were all hot air. The agent first recommended a terrible ghostwriter. A ghostwriter was unnecessary for this book anyway, but the ghostwriter hatched up the book and even the agent agreed it was a mess. Then the agent sat on the book proposal for over a year doing virtually nothing. And this was for a highly marketable book and an author with a very loyal and impressive following.

Once you sign with a literary agent, you have a contract, and you can’t just leave unless you can prove they’ve violated the contract. This is a really important decision–so decide wisely and do your research before signing. And certainly have an entertainment lawyer look at your agent’s contract.

Having said that, I don’t want to scare you off of literary agents. A literary agent is one of the most important people in your career as an author. A good agent will find you a publisher who is the right fit for you and your book–one who shares your vision for the book. They’ll negotiate a great deal and look out for your interests. And they’ll often even help you plan your next books.

On a radio interview on Power Women Magazine today, the host, Deb Bailey, asked me how much you pay a literary agent up front. Nothing. If a literary agent asks for up front payment, run in the other direction. The Association of Authors’ Representatives, the national association that literary agents belong to, prohibits such up front fees. It’s considered a conflict of interest, because it could cause them to take on a book that doesn’t really have a good chance of getting published.

Literary agents get paid when you get paid by your publisher (through your advance and any royalties). A literary agent may suggest that your book proposal or book needs editing. They may even recommend an editor. But their own association prohibits them from collecting fees to make your proposal publisher-ready. You can hire a separate editor to do such work. They won’t have a conflict of interest.

Any more questions about literary agents? Ask away. Want to share your experience with literary agents? Please do.

Perseverance: An Author’s Best Friend

January 17, 2010 by Lisa Tener

It’s always a thrill when my clients’ books come out and I get that brown cardboard package from Amazon. When Deb Scott finally announced that her book was here, though, I found it especially fulfilling.

Deb had some huge setbacks in her process…making her a great example for the role or perseverance in the life of an author.

Both her parents passed away within a year. Deb took care of them until their deaths, as sole caregiver. After that, she set her sight on writing and publishing her self-help book, The Sky is Green and the Grass is Blue: Turning Your Upside Down World Right Side Up.

Her inheritance was supposed to provide the security for her to pursue her new dream and career as an author, speaker and trainer–and to provide the funds to launch her book. But in the middle of preparing the book for publication, she lost all her inheritance and savings to the $200 Millennium Bank Ponzi scheme.

Deb saw it as an opportunity to dig deeper into her own message of finding the good in all crazy situations and facing it all with a sense of humor. I’m sure it wasn’t easy! But she did it.

While you probably (I hope) won’t lose your life savings to a ponzi scheme, I can guarantee you that you will meet challenges when you decide to write and publish your book.

Our first book cover and nonstandard dimensions made it hard to get bookstores to stock it.

With my first book (which I co-authored), it took seven years from my initial idea to a published book in my hands. Challenges included many rejections from literary agents (and those were in the days where you contacted one agent at a time) and, later, bookstores refusing to “replenish” the book because of its dimensions (i.e. they would respond to a special order of 1 but would not carry it).

At times I felt tempted to concede defeat. But I snapped out of it and always asked, “What information does this setback carry? What do I need to do to turn this around?” In each instance, perseverance paid off.

Our new title, cover and dimensions turned a challenge into opportunity.

In fact, the problems with the cover and dimensions of our book led our publisher (with some encouragement from my co-author) to re-publish the book with a new cover, new title and new dimensions.

We were able to use the great press we’d gotten on the new book and ended up with even more powerful national publicity–from USA Weekend to Glamour Magazine to CNN Headline News and much more.
If you want to write a book and get published, the one thing I can guarantee you is that challenges will come up. Here are the three things you need to meet them:

1. Give yourself time to feel disappointed. But don’t wallow there.

2. Ask what you need to do differently and take the first step as soon as you can.

3. See if you can turn the disadvantage into an advantage. For Deb, that meant going back to the message of her book and living it more deeply. That resulted in an authenticity and a powerful story (that makes an impact in her press releases and consequent radio interviews.

Deb advises, “When you get discouraged, want to give up, or find those negative people creeping in to saying, ‘quit’ – visualize yourself holding your book in your hand, meeting someone who says, ‘Thank you for writing this book – it was fantastic and I loved it!'”

I agree. When students in my book writing classes get stuck and stop writing, I remind them to connect with why they’re writing the book and the impact they want to make on their readers and their world. Often it helps to have a vision statement you can read aloud to yourself whenever you work on the book.

Help, Someone Already Wrote My Book

January 9, 2010 by Lisa Tener

My Bring Your Book to Life students are preparing for the start of book writing class next month. They’re researching their markets, creating the vision for the their books, and starting to outline. Some are calling me for their book concept consultation.

I love the consultations as we brainstorm to take good ideas and make them even better. Today was no exception–fun and creative. The possibilities for this book seemed endless.

Eight hours after today’s session, I received a desperate e-mail with the above subject line, “Help, someone already wrote my book.” The book covered exactly the material my student planned to cover…and the author–someone with similar credentials–seemed to have a very similar take on the subject.

My advice, “Don’t panic. Your book will have its own voice and flavor.
Sounds like he does a good job, but maybe by adding a brief story to the start of each chapter, your book will have something his doesn’t. And the forms will be an excellent addition.”

In fact, when publishers and agents consider a book, they want to know there are other books like yours out there. They’re very concerned when there aren’t! If there are no books like yours, there may be no market.

Students finding their unique voice in the "in-person" version of my book writing class

At the same time, if your book is exactly like another book, why write it? You want to add something unique to what’s out there. How do you do that?

1. Go back to your readers. What do they want and need? Are there ways to give that to them? Perhaps your book will have stories that address readers’ concerns, or you’ll add another two chapters that the other person missed, or you have a new point of view on certain topics. Perhaps your book is more experiential and offers exercises or journal prompts.

After all these centuries, books still sell.

2. Trust in your unique writer’s voice. Your tone should capture your personality in a way that meets a need of your audience (humor, emotion, a degree of irreverence, or playfulness, for instance). It may take time to find your voice, but trust that you will.

We can go back to Ecclesiastes to find, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Yet, there are fresh ways of saying things or books would have stopped selling a more than a century ago.

How to Get Competitive Books’ Sales Figures

January 7, 2010 by Lisa Tener

If you’re writing a book proposal, one important number to obtain is the number of books sold for any competitive or complementary books you plan to compare with yours.

Here’s a Book Proposal Secret: For the most part, you want to compare your book to bestsellers and backlist books (books that have been in print a long time). You want agents and publishers to associate your book with other books that have sold well. Don’t compare your book to one that sold 200 copies.

And publishers love to see actual numbers of book sales to get a flavor for it. Sure, they could look up the numbers on Ingram, but they don’t really have time for that when they’re first assessing a book proposal–you want to make an impact right away with big numbers.

So, how do you get those numbers? You can’t get them from Ingram anymore (unless your friends in publishing look them up for you). But you can do a number of things:

1. Search for the book on Amazon and “look inside the book” at the front and back covers (blown up version if you can) to see if the cover boasts number of copies sold. Yes, this is a long shot, but once in a while you hit the jackpot. Likewise, you can also check the Publishers Weekly review and other reviews to see if they mention sales.

2. Do a Google or search engine search for specific keywords, such as “book title millions copies sold” or “book title new york times bestselling.” Think up as many combinations of these keyword searches as you can–one may hit pay dirt. Note the date of the posting, review or article. Say, in your proposal, “As of xxxx date, the book sold x million copies.”

3. Go to the bookstore and see if the actual book mentions the number of copies sold or bestseller status.

4. Some people include Amazon ranking or Barnes and Noble ranking when comparing books. It’s not a terrible number to use but it can be misleading since those rankings change by the minute–and a book with a high ranking one hour may be much lower the next hour for various reasons. I usually stay away from mentioning these.

5. If the book was a bestseller on any particular chart, certainly mention this. Also mention how long the book has been in print if it’s a classic. This implies your book has backlist potential, too.

And, one more thing when comparing your book to bestsellers: Some authors just mention what’s different about their book. Don’t get caught in that trap. Stress both similarities and differences. You want agents and publishers to think: “This book has much in common with the bestsellers that make it likely to be a bestseller, but it also has some unique selling points that differentiate it and make it a valuable addition to the books that are already out there.”

Good luck with your book proposal! If you have any other ways you’ve researched sales for competitive titles, please do share! And I’m happy to answer other book proposal questions you may have as well–just share your question as a comment.

Who’s on Your Team?

January 6, 2010 by Lisa Tener

Who's on Your Team?

I recently read Open, Andre Agassi’s autobiography. It’s a great read and I was also struck by how dependent he was on the people on his team. I think that’s true about most successful people–they don’t do it alone. They have great coaches, managers, trainers, strategists, advisers, mentors…

Who are the people on a writer’s team? Here are some:

Your students and clients are part of your team!

Your Fans: If you blog, or have any kind of Internet presence, the people who are part of your social networking and blogging community are part of your team, as are those people who attend your talks or are your private clients. They’re your future readers and they know what they are looking for and wanting. Listen to them. See what blog posts get the most comments. What grabs them? What questions are they asking you?

Your Mentors: Certainly talk with your mentors about your goals and your book, especially if they are published authors. They can help you clarify your book concept and what makes your book unique. Maybe they’ll write a blurb, too.

Specialists: Book coaches, editors, writing coaches…there are lots of people out there who can help you hone your writing and your message, and also help you with accountability and other blocks or challenges that may come up. They know the industry and can help you write a book that sells. A slight change in your book hook or audience could make a big difference in the marketability of your book.

Literary Agents: If you’re fortunate enough to have a literary agent, certainly run your book ideas past them. They can help you fine tune your ideas, pick amongst different book ideas and even identify new books to write.

Publicists: Many people wait until they have a book to sell before hiring a publicist. After all, why waste money on publicity if you don’t have anything to sell? The problem with this strategy is that when your book comes out, you really don’t want to start at ground zero in marketing your book. You want to have a platform–fans who are already waiting for the book release so they can get your book and learn from you.

If you wait to develop your platform, your book will be much less attractive to agents and publishers. You may not want a full-on publicity campaign, but consider a modest Internet-based campaign to build your platform. You’ll need to have some way to develop a relationship with people who find out about you–so that they join your mailing list or fan page and you have a way to reach them when your book comes out. You can also monetize the publicity you get, so that it at least pays for itself. Perhaps offer a teleseminar series on the subject and use any feedback to perfect your book! Which brings us to another set of team members:

Clients and Students: Get feedback from clients and students to perfect any systems or programs you provide in your book. And see if any are willing to review drafts of any chapters and give you feedback on the book itself. Because they are in your market, they are the very best readers you can get. They can get into the minds of your readers because they are your readers.

Business Coach: I’ve had a business coach for many years now. I’ve worked with several different people and each one taught me different things. You may want to consider working with someone who is also a published author or works with authors. They’ll help you integrate your business plan/model and your book promotion efforts effectively.

Virtual Assistants: How did I wait so long to put this person on the list? I hired my Virtual Assistant, Geri, in November and I don’t know how I ran my business without her. A virtual assistant can take care of lots of details while you’re writing your book (scheduling interviews of subjects, researching information for the book proposal) and take over other tasks to give you time to write. Also, they can help you with book publicity and platform building.

Make sure your team members are seasoned and mature!

Friends: Your friends will want to support you any way they can, right? Reading and feedback (just remember, they may not be your market), cooking you a meal while you slave away at your book, taking the kids to the movies so you can write, sharing connections…let them help you! And they’ll probably want to throw a book party when the book comes out and tell all their friends on facebook about your book.

So, who’s on your team? (and whose teams are you on?)…What positions are missing from your team and need filling? You don’t have to assemble your team all at once but what one step can you take today?

The Process of Getting a Literary Agent

How to Choose a Literary Agent: Red Flags

Perseverance: An Author’s Best Friend

Help, Someone Already Wrote My Book

How to Get Competitive Books’ Sales Figures

Write a Book

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