Do I HAVE To Use Your Online Query Form?

Yes!

Every literary agency has its own protocol when it comes to submissions. Some prefer hard copy submissions. Some prefer email submissions. Here at Firebrand, we provide you with a handy-dandy online form that (hopefully) makes the querying process quick and easy for prospective clients.

And yet, I field countless emails per week from authors attempting to sneak around using the online form. I can understand the concern–perhaps the online form feels too sterile, as though you’re dealing with a customer service line that never allows you to speak directly to a human being.

 Authors who contact me directly often indicate that they were hoping to gain my attention in a way they wouldn’t by using the query system.

 Not so! At its best, the query system helps reduce the frills and gimmicks that are supposed to get me to pay attention, but instead clutter my head and distract me from the main purpose of my job.

 As an agent, I want to provide every person who queries me, from first time authors to seasoned pros, with the same opportunity for consideration. Firebrand’s query system allows me to do just that; I am able to review projects in the order in which they are received. There’s no jumping ahead in line, no VIP treatment.

The secret for getting my attention is easy:  Show me a great story with a strong protagonist, gorgeous writing, and a compelling narrative…and submit it via the Firebrand query system.

See you online!

What Motivates You?

Between meeting hungry writers at a recent SCBWI event, the conclusion of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel contest, and participating in the Writer’s Digest pitch slam in, oh, two hours has gotten me thinking about writers who are still in the early stages of their careers. I’m talking the writers who haven’t landed an agent or seen their story on paper other than the stuff that comes out of their home printer.

I can appreciate the joy of writing. Back in my graduate school days, grades and competition between the students forced me to produce fiction. Writing for different websites gave me solid deadlines I had to meet. After graduating, the thrill of seeing a project form its inception to a conclusion helped me to keep working on projects.

So my question today is, what keeps you motivated to work on your craft when there’s no guarantee that something will come from it? What gets you up early in the morning or keeps you pecking away late at night at your stories? I’d love to hear what different writers do or have done to keep them pounding away at their keyboards.

Result of the Twitter Poll

Yesterday, amid a barrage of followers on Twitter thanks to an editor from HarperCollins who will remain unnamed, I did a quick poll to find out what kid book characters people would most like to follow. I figure I’d post the results here rather than spending an hour on Twitter.

All told, we had a lot of great answers. Some of my personal favorites who received only one vote included the Vermicious Knids from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the hungry caterpillar, and Waldo.

The following received two votes each and will each be branded forever as merely a runner-up:

• Mo Willems’ Pigeon
• Bunnicula
• Templeton the Rat (we love our anthropomorphism!)
• Ron Weasley (Harry would be so jealous)
• Artemis Fowl
• The Cheshire Cat
• Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Don’t eat the cheese!)
• Nobody Owens
• Aslan
• Harriet the Spy

The Winner!

Which means the grand champion was none other than the candy maker himself, Mr. Willy Wonka. Congrats, Willy! You earned it! Now hook us all up with some Hair Toffee already!

What do you think? Anyone we overlooked? Add your comments below!

Stacia’s Answers to Ted’s Burning Questions

Full name: Stacia J. N. Decker
Occupation: Literary Agent
Dream job: Literary Agent/Editor (no, really)

Favorite book: I don’t think about books that way.
Least favorite book: That’s just mean. Books can’t help it when they’re bad.

Did you edit either of the above? If I edited it, it’s tight and fabulous.

Favorite kind of juice: Gin.

Favorite place to be seen: Don’t be spying on me. That’s creepy.

Please choose one or the other:

Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks: Buy independent. (Fresh Food Market Corp. 1 is just across the street.)

Peanut Butter and Jelly or Fish n’ Chips: Fish n’ Chips

Belly button piercing or toe ring: Getting kind of personal, aren’t we?

Barack Obama or Michelle Obama: Both

Sasha Obama or Malia Obama: Are you trying to give a little girl a complex?

Clifford or Old Yeller: Clifford

Books about dogs or books written by dogs: The actual dogs.

Pippi Longstocking or long stockings: Pippi

Vitamin Water or a ham sandwich: Do you know how bad Vitamin Water is for you? I don’t like ham.

First kiss: Good

Last kiss: Better

If you could only have sex with one book for the rest of your life, it would be: My answer is: paper cuts. However, I have published books entitled HARD MAN and THE BIG O.

A. Influence (Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen)

B. Pretty Little Liars # 3: Perfect

C. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

D. Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea (Chelsea Handler)

E. All of the above, and at once

Pair each Firebrand agent with one of the activities below:

A. Meet your parents: Chris seems like he’d follow the rules.

B. Be (one of your) parents: Ha ha ha — no one here is nearly crazy enough to be part of my family.

C. Watch Meet the Parents with: Ted, you’re on your own. I’m not losing two hours of my life to that piece of cinema.

D. Go dancing: Everyone – it’s a Firebrand dance party!!

Danielle’s Answers to Ted’s Burning Questions

Full name:  Danielle Chiotti

Occupation: Literary Agent

Dream job: Superhero.

Favorite book: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Least favorite book: Eat, Pray, Love by that annoying whiny girl.

Did you edit either of the above? No.

Favorite kind of juice: Orange. Extra pulp, please.

Favorite place to be seen: In line at the Walgreen’s, using coupons to buy Spam.

Please choose one or the other:

Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks: Dunkin’

Peanut Butter and Jelly or Fish n’ Chips: Ham sandwich.

Belly button piercing or toe ring: Brightly colored scarf.

Barak Obama or Michelle Obama: Both.

Sasha Obama or Malia Obama: The little one.

Clifford or Old Yeller: Clifford.

Books about dogs or books written by dogs: The former, though I recently edited the latter.

Pippi Longstocking or long stockings: Long stockings.

Vitamin Water or a ham sandwich: Ham sandwich, always and forever.

First kiss: Awkward.

Last kiss: Awkward.

If you could only have sex with one book for the rest of your life, it would be:

A. Influence (Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen)

B. Pretty Little Liars # 3: Perfect

C. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

D. Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea (Chelsea Handler)

E. All of the above, and at once

What???

Pair each Firebrand agent with one of the activities below:

A. Meet your parents: Chris

B. Be (one of your) parents: Michael

C. Watch Meet the Parents with: Nadia

D. Go dancing:  Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

Firebrand Started A Blog. Should You?

We’re all aware of the push for authors to establish an online presence, and authors sometimes ask me whether they should start a blog. Then I give a little spiel, which I will now share.

Some questions to ask before you start:

1. Will you actually update it?

If you joined Facebook but update your status on a biannual basis . . . not a good sign. Will you update your blog daily? At least biweekly? Frankly, if you’re not already blogging, it’s probably because you’re not motivated to blog. And that’s okay, because . . .

2. Do you have anything to say?

3. Do you have anything positive to say?

Sure, sometimes the easiest way to tell you what I like is to give concrete examples of what I don’t like, and we all enjoy viciously eviscerating our friends and colleagues behind their backs. But, um, the internet is not behind anyone’s back—at least not in any good sense of the phrase. So unless your work is actually a critique or your authorial persona revolves around the rant as art form, pretend to be nice. Don’t criticize your competition—you need blurbs from them. Don’t criticize your publishing house’s current efforts—you need its future efforts. And don’t complain about booksellers not organizing or publicizing your event properly. That sours not only your relationship with them but also your house’s relationship with them, and that just hurts other authors. The caveat to all this is if you and another author can keep up a truly fascinating, witty yet vitriolic feud for years. Everyone enjoys that.

These questions are enough to discourage me from blogging, but let’s say you’re game and let’s revisit question #2. Content is king, and you need a theme that keeps it coming. Some options:

A. Your work.

This is ideal for the purposes of your agent and editor, who encouraged you to blog in order to get your name out there and generate readers and publicity—not just to take time away from you writing the next book. For this option, it helps if you are a prolific author whose work has staggered publication dates in lots of foreign territories as well as the US. This means constant content: the new German book jacket, pages you scanned from the Icelandic translation, updates on your (self-financed) publicity tour through France, an early look at the next US cover design. While you’re at it, submit flash fiction or articles to ezines and post the links. Remind readers of your upcoming conference appearances and the stories you have coming out in anthologies. Conduct your own blogtour. Post more links.

B. You.

Are you incredibly hilarious? If you are, you know it, because people often burst out in riotous laughter in response to your stories and say things like, “OMG, [your name here], you are incredibly hilarious!” If this phrase rings a bell, option B is a great option for you. For the rest of us, no.

C. Something You Consistently Care About.

Besides you. And it would be nice if it had something to do with your work. But, hey, as long as you’ll post early and often about it . . .  Comics, other writers in your genre, steam locomotives, missile defense, dog training—what matters is that there’s a community in which you can develop a readership and that you’re interested enough in the topic that content seems to generate itself. Link to other blogs on the topic; post links to news stories and reviews; write your own reviews; interview other authors; be a fan. With a larger topic, your personal life can be boring and your work can be far from its next publication date, and you still have content. With a larger topic, your blog has a reason to exist and updating is less a publicity chore and more of an on-going conversation.

Of course a successful blog will become a mix of these three options, but have a plan going in to the endeavor. Get a feel for the time commitment and your inclinations by substitute teaching for blogger friends on vacation or contributing posts to others’ sites. And if you can’t see yourself consistently having something to say, skip the blog. Your time is better spent interacting with fellow authors and readers in other ways and writing your next book.

This Twitter Thing

I was slow coming around to the whole Twitter thing. I know, I know…even Larry King was aware of the phenomenon before me and, as we all know, the only trends I should be trailing Larry King on are the latest in suspender fashion.

All I can say in my defense is that I’ve got a bad habit of being very skeptical about stuff that skyrockets in popularity before I fully understand what it even is, like Pokémon or the Macarena. So rather than listen to my co-workers and colleagues rave about all that is Twitter, I ignored it and let Ashton Kutcher, Oprah, and P. Diddy have all the fun. They could tweet and have their twibes and their tweet-ups.

But then, after about the 9,000th time I heard from someone how great Twitter is for staying abreast of what’s going on in the world of publishing, I finally gave in and created an account. And it’s been a good decision. In my first week of being on Twitter, I’ve made connections with editors and agents I hadn’t known personally before, I’ve heard about publishing news I may have missed otherwise, and I’ve been reminded of books that are coming out that I’d been too busy to keep track of. I’m glad I joined.

So, dear readers, here’s where I open it up to you: If you’re not on Twitter, what’s your reasoning? If you are tweeting away, what’s the best thing that’s come of it for you so far? And finally, is this crazy phenomenon here to stay, or is it destined to fall in a heap to the floor like Larry King’s pants sans suspenders?

And, because you asked for it, I’m @ChrisRichman

Dealing with Rejection

A possible way to deal with those pesky rejections

Ah, rejection. Whether it’s from a pretty lady, an editor, an elite training school for fighter pilots, or, as in my case, all of the above, chances are we’ll all have to deal with some sort of rejection in our lives.

Of course, if you’re a writer, you’ve either already faced or will face more rejection than the average person, from the query stage to when a book is submitted to editors. Heck, even if a book is lucky enough to be sold, there are reviewers and foreign publishers and film people who can still ultimately reject a project.

In college, I knew a woman who pasted her rejection letters from agents onto her bathroom wall as a constant reminder of the work that was (literally) ahead of her. I also knew a guy who burned his rejections after reading them once. To me, both of these approaches are somewhat crazy, though at least in the first example it’s easier to see if there’s a common theme in the rejections.

So what works for you? How do you deal with rejections when it comes to your writing? For fun, why not post what you really do, and what you’d like to do. I’ll get the ball rolling: as a young writer in grad school trying to get published in various literary journals, I kept a running tally of where and when I sent a story, when I heard back, and whether I received a form or a personalized rejection. What I wanted to do was buy an empty bean bag, a shredder, and…well, you can figure out the rest.

How about you?

Our Shrinking World Part 2

So after the original post generated a dash of good feedback, a bit of debate, and one comment where an author accused me of sounding patronizing, I figured I’d open the topic back up a bit.

There can’t be a concrete answer for how much time you should spend plugged into the publishing industry via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and news sites. But obviously the information out there is helping writers become more knowledgeable about the different stages of getting published, from finding an agent to managing their careers after getting signing the contracts.

So, what sites do you find the most useful? What personal successes can you share from the research you’ve done at these sites? Angie Frazier was nice enough to mention Verla Kay, Writer’s Digest and AgentQuery.com. I’d love to hear stories of how these sites helped you in your search to get published, and more tales of your struggles with being overwhelmed with too much information.

Overheard at Firebrand: Wild

Agent 1:  Did you see the new poster for Where the Wild Things Are?

Agent 2: Yeah.

Agent 1: This sucks.

Agent 2: Huh?

Agent 1: Now I can’t wear my old Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt.

Agent 3: You should get one of those Mr. Grumpy t-shirts.

Agent 1: Have one already.