A Zomburbia update

C. S. Lewis. Mr. Lewis received some 800
rejections before any of his stories saw print.

The last time we spoke, or, perhaps more accurately, the last time I talked at you, I'd just acquired an agent and she was preparing to send out my novel, Zomburbia, to a number of publishers and editors. I just wanted to bop over here and give an update on that situation. Just like the title of this post says. Truth in advertising, kids.

True to her word, Ann prepared a submission packet and sent it off to eighteen publishers. That may seem like a lot, and it is -- it's more than she would normally query, but she's not known in the YA field and she wanted to cast a wide net. Of those eighteen, six have gotten back to us with some version of no thanks. Most of these have said something along the lines of, "It doesn't sound right for us" or "It sounds like something we already have in our pipeline." Two have mentioned that they think there's zombie fatigue in the market. That's a bit worrying, but I'll address it in a moment.

But it's not all bad news: So far, five publishers have asked to see the full manuscript. Those aren't bad numbers, right? Six said no thanks, five want to read it, and seven still need to respond. Ann and I feel confident that if folks read the book, the voice of the main character will win them over. For "confident," you may want to insert "hopeful." Whatever, we think we have a good shot at attracting at least one publisher. We may need to wait a while to find that out, however. The reading/approval process is a long one and there's the Christmas/New Year's holiday at this end of this month, so it will probably be drawn out even longer. I'm doing my best to be patient.

Here's where I want to talk about zombie fatigue. A couple of years ago, when I had first started writing what would become Zomburbia, I had a chance to talk to an agent about my writing and she asked to see the opening chapters of the book. She was mostly negative about it, mainly citing that there were too many zombie books on the market. This was two years ago, mind, and the field hasn't become any less crowded. She then suggested I write something else, something very specific. For a time, I abandoned the manuscript and tried to write what she'd asked for, but my heart was never in it. I later came to realize that she was probably only ever interested in this one thing she wanted written and was looking for someone to write it for her. Even after that realization, I didn't pick up Zomburbia again. Her comment about the saturation of the field gnawed at me.

But...

But I couldn't get the book out of my head. Courtney, the main character spoke to me, delivered long speeches in that voice of hers, speeches that made their way into the book once I got back to writing the stupid thing. Because I realized that no matter how saturated the market was, this was a book I had to write. It was a book I wanted to read and it was about characters and situations that I wanted to know about. I wanted to see how it all worked out in the end. And isn't that what you're supposed to do? Aren't you supposed to write books and stories that you want to read, market forces be damned? Well, I sure as shit hope that's what you're supposed to do. And I hope that those five editors who now have my manuscript can sense the urgency I had when I wrote it.

I think that might be the book's only hope, and I think it's a good one.

Let the great agent hunt begin!

This is the first of a number of posts I'm going to write about the process of (I hope) finding an agent and (who do I have to kill to make this happen?) getting my book, Zomburbia, published.

I mentioned a few days ago that I was preparing a manuscript to send to an agent. Why? How? Wha? I thought it might be of interest to some folks to talk about the process o finding an agent.

First, why would one want an agent? Simply put, agents are the first line of gatekeepers you encounter as you try to get your book published. Publishers will often not consider un-agented books -- the fact that you have a manuscript strong enough to attract the attention of an agent tells the publisher two things, I believe: 1) That you have a strong, well-written manuscript (a lot of agents will actually work with a writer to further polish a book prior to sending it to a publisher) and 2) that you play well with others. If you're a jerk, no matter how good your book, an agent will not want to work with you. Especially as a beginning writer. So an agent vets you in the eyes of a publisher.

(Why one would want to go the traditional publishing route at all since the advent of self-published ebooks? That's a different topic, maybe one for another blog post. Suffice to say that with this book, Zomburbia, I want to go the traditional route and I believe I have a strong shot at achieving that.)

So, on to How. Step 1, FINISH YOUR BOOK. For serious, if you are a first-time novelist, do not start the search for an agent until you've finished your manuscript. And by finished I don't just mean you write a manuscript of at least 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo and then, December 1st, you start sending out query letters. I mean, you write, have some folks read it, then rewrite, have some more folks read it, then rewrite some more, then polish. Make it as good as you can -- have it at a place where you believe it can be published. Once you've done all of that, then you can begin the process of looking for an agent.

There are generally two ways to look for agents: 1) Know someone in the publishing business and have then recommend (and hopefully introduce you to) an agent. 2) Do a ton of research from a variety of sources and decide on a list to which you want to send your query. What are you looking for when you research an agent? You want to make sure they represent the kind of writing you do. If you write paranormal romance and the agent states on their bio that they don't handle fantasy; that's a bad fit. You want to make sure they've made a sale in your area in the near past. Make sure they don't charge a fee to read your manuscript. Most of these things can be discovered on the agent's web sites.

But how do you find an agent to even begin doing your research? There are a number of guides you can check out. The one that springs to mind is Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents (which can be found very cheap as an ebook on Amazon). These guides list working agents, who and what what types of writing they represent, recent sales, etc. With one of these in hand you can find a list of potential agents whom you can query.

I'll get to the query in a later post, but for now I want to talk about how I found the agent whom I am currently courting. I mentioned that there are generally two ways to find potential agents, introductions or research, right? Yeah, I didn't go either of those routes. As you'll probably be aware if you visit this blog, I just finished up my creative writing MFA at Stonecoast. One of the things Stonecoast does for its graduation students is to bring in an agent for them to speak with. We may also send them a query and sample of our work so that they can address our viability in the market. Any time you have a chance to get your work in front of a professional, take it. I saw this as an exercise since a quick check of her web site showed the agent in question didn't handle YA, which Zomburbia most definitely is. But I wanted a chance to have my query letter and sample chapter critiqued by a professional. And I'm glad I did.

The first thing she said to me (well, the second, because the first was, "Which one are you?") was, "Come to Momma!" Turns out she really liked the query letter and sample chapter I sent and she wanted me to send her the entire manuscript. I wish I could have done it immediately and, under different circumstances I would have been able to, but I needed to finish a final polish before it was ready to be seen. And the only reason it wasn't all set to go is that wasn't expecting this agent to want to see the thing. That makes sense right?

Okay, that's my personal personal story, and probably a good place to stop this. I think that next time I'll write a bit about the query letter. And I'll end by mentioning that if you ever have any questions or there's some topic you'd like me to address, please either leave a comment or feel free to me email me at the address found in the about section.